When the YF-16 lifted off the runway while test pilot Phil Oestricher was conducting high-speed taxi tests, he decided to go around and make a standard landing instead of running the risk of damaging the aircraft
On January 20, 1974, the General Dynamics YF-16 made its maiden flight when it took off unintentionally from Edwards Air Force Base (AFB). The test pilot was Phil Oestricher.
The aircraft lifted off the runway as Oestricher was carrying out high-speed taxi testing, as he describes in the video included in this article. Rather than run the risk of damaging the aircraft, Oestricher chose to lift off and go around for a standard landing. On February 2, the first “official” flight took place.
John G. Williams, a structural flight test engineer on the YF-16, recalls in the article What A Wonderful Airplane: YF-16 First Flight (Flight 0) by Joe Stout appeared on www.codeonemagazine.com: “During the first high-speed taxi test, a violent lateral oscillation had set in as a direct result of pilot-commanded oscillations (several maximum left/right commands) as the airplane reached rotation speed (~120 kt). Remember, this was the first airplane to have a fixed stick, and there was no opportunity for Phil to gain any feel for the airplane until that high-speed taxi test. As the nose of the aircraft rose, the tailplane inadvertently scraped on the runway. The left wingtip missile and the right tail static probe also lightly contacted the runway. Phil chose to take off because the bird had begun to veer off to the left side of the runway, and he was faced with plowing through the desert or flying. Thankfully, he chose to fly and possibly saved the entire program. After takeoff, Phil regained control, and stayed up for six minutes, and landed uneventfully. Prior to the next flight, the stick sensitivity was reduced by 5% with gear down. Later, after complaints of not enough sensitivity, it was returned to the original.”
Secretary of the Air Force John L. McLucas declared at Edwards AFB on January 13, 1975, that the YF-16 had defeated the Northrop YF-17 in the Lightweight Fighter (LWF) competition for being developed on a full scale as the USAF’s next Air Combat Fighter.
The LWF program aimed to create an air superiority day fighter that was lightweight, compact, inexpensive, and easy to maintain. numerous in the fighter community felt that aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle were too large and expensive for numerous combat tasks, which led to the creation of the LWF.
In October 1980, the F-16 Fighting Falcon was declared combat-ready. Since then, the F-16 has been acquired by other foreign countries, including Belgium, Denmark, Turkey, Egypt, and Israel.
Thanks to the H/T from Earl Belz
Photo by Lockheed Martin and U.S. Air Force