By Kevin Renshaw, EAA 133861
On May 30, the Fort Worth Aviation Museum (FWAM) unveiled the static display restoration of YF-16 No. 2 (USAF tail number 72-01568) following a four-year restoration effort. The restoration was accomplished to recognize the 50th anniversary of the first flight of this aircraft which occurred in May 1974 as part of the USAF Light Weight Fighter (LWF) program.
Two YF-16s were built by General Dynamics for the LWF competition. The first YF-16 flew in January 1974 with Phil Oestricher at the controls. This aircraft was used for aerodynamic performance testing and is now on display at the Virginia Air and Space Museum in Hampton, Virginia. The second YF-16 was first flown by Neil Anderson and was configured as a pre-production tactical fighter, with an internal 20mm cannon and functional store stations. Together, the two aircraft flew more than 330 flights and 417 hours during the LWF fly-off at Edwards AFB leading to the selection of the F-16 as the new USAF air combat fighter in January 1975. This led to production of more than 4,550 F-16s for 25 different countries, with production continuing today in Greenville, South Carolina.
YF-16 No. 2 had a long and varied career. It performed at many international air shows and provided demonstrations of its superiority over the F-4 Phantom it replaced. This is the same aircraft that landed at Carswell AFB with the landing gear retracted following an air show demonstration in May 1975; it was repaired and returned to service in six weeks. The aircraft was modified by General Dynamics to demonstrate carriage and launch of AIM-7 missiles and appeared at multiple international air shows in the famous red/white/blue paint job. In August 1979 while being used as a chase plane for a production F-16, the aircraft suffered a broken nose landing gear which destroyed the radome. The Air Force decided that since there were now production F-16s available, there was no need to repair it and the aircraft was retired from flying.
In 1980, the Air Force labs at Rome, New York, needed a test fixture to evaluate performance of antennas, electronics packages, and electronic warfare pods meant to go on the production F-16. Rather than building a new test model, the lab started with the YF-16 airframe, and modified it to represent the shape of the production F-16. This included replacing the YF nose section with a production F-16 radome and radar, increasing the length of the fuselage 10 inches and increasing the wing area by 20 square feet. They also removed most of the wiring and plumbing from the aircraft to reduce weight. The aircraft was then mounted on a test range at Griffiss AFB and used to test every configuration of the F-16 between 1980 and 2018. In 2019, USAF declared the aircraft surplus. Through the offices of Congresswoman Kay Granger, arrangements were made to loan the aircraft to FWAM for restoration and display.
