General Dynamics Was Hawking the Fighting Falcon All Over The World in 1977.
The 1977 General Dynamics Marketing Film “The Dynamic Sixteen- The Multinational Fighter” is a great look at the GD’s F-16 Fighting Falcon and how it compared to the primary Air Force fighter of the day, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. The film was obviously created to be used as a backdrop for sales displays and discussions about the F-16 and its attributes. F-16 sales to foreign nations have accounted for just under half of the nearly 4,600 F-16s produced to date. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway were the countries who partnered with GD to develop the F-16 and hundreds of them have been flown by their air forces since the F-16 went into operation in 1978.
In addition to Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway, other foreign air forces to operate the F-16 include Bahrain, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Indonesia, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Taiwan, South Korea, Romania, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
Update: Since we published this piece the film ‘Dynamic Sixteen” disappeared from the interweb. We hope you enjoy this stand-in titled “The Hot Performer.”
When compared to the fighter/interceptor aircraft most commonly used by many of the export customers for the F-16 at the time such as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, the North American F-100 Super Sabre, the F-4 Phantom II, and various Mikoyan-Gurevich MiGs, the Fighting Falcon was judged by many to be a superior aircraft in any number of ways. The majority of countries who became F-16 operators still fly the diminutive jets.
