I'll have to disagree there. It's regarded as successful because it was all that was available. Pierre Sprey, John Boyd and Harry Hillaker envisioned a light we

I'll have to disagree there. It's regarded as successful because it was all that was available. Pierre Sprey, John Boyd and Harry Hillaker envisioned a light weight, day only, radarless aircraft with no bomb hard points. Yet the single-role F-16 was morphed into a bomb truck and was considered successful by block 70 or whatever in the late eighties. Hillaker said "if I had realized at the time that the airplane would have been used as a multimission, primarily an air-to-surface airplane as it is used now, I would have designed it differently". So as a square in a round hole, it was made to work but it wasn't brilliant foresight or (early) development. http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=37 http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=37