Which is Better? Flying the F-16 or the F/A-18?

it's probably one of the most frequently asked questions I get what's it like flying the F16 and the F-18 and which is better which would I go fly again if I had the option let's talk about it 3 2 1 f [Music] what's up everybody it's Monday I'm mover and today we're going to talk about the differences in flying the F-16 versus flying the F-18 and the similarities just what's it like flying both Jets uh I it's been a while since I've flown either of them uh and absence makes the heart grow fonder so there's some things that I remember and there's some things that I don't I flew the F-16 more about a th000 hours and the F18 a through D about 400 hours so got more time in F16 but I enjoyed both and I love both Jets but today we're going to talk about just some of the basic differences not going to go into anything to get me put in prison no tactics no weapon systems stuff like that just some of the basic like generalities as a pilot flying I'll also try to stay away from Navy versus Air Force that's probably a separate video alog together but there are some differences just service specific that may maybe other countries don't have or whatever so let's get started first off just getting being suited up to go fly the airplane I've talked about this before when you fly the F-16 everything you need survival wise for the most part is in your seat kit so all you're basically wearing is a git and a harness and if you're in desert that's it if there's no overwater operations you don't wear the horse collar lpu you just wear the harness which is awesome it's very comfortable you feel like you're not wearing anything at all for the Navy however this is probably my biggest complaint you wear pretty much everything on the vest and that is because it's C based operations so you probably need better access and you can't rely on that seat kit so when you're suiting up to fly the F-18 there's two parts that are different one uh in the Viper you put the harness on you've got quick release clips for the leg straps and you can take those on and off which means you can walk to the jet pretty much normally in the Navy however and the Hornet and the specific to the A 3D I don't know anything else you don't you actually have to step into the harness and swim into it and put it on and then you wear your survival vest which adds a ton of weight which has your radio uh it has some Survival equipment and it has more stuff that you can get to so it's a little bit heavier a little bit more uncomfortable a little bit more of a burden also and this is I I said we're not going to talk Navy versus Air Force but this is just a weird thing to me the Navy you wear your helmet out to the airplane Air Force you use your helmet bag for your helmet which is a weird concept to Navy people and you don't so you look a little cooler no take scratch that you look a lot cooler flying in the air force stepping to the jet than you do in the Navy I'm sorry waddling to the jet there's just no way to make that look cool uh even though you may feel the need for speed and do a high five so with that said uh walking out to the aircraft in general pre-flight pre-flight is a pre-flight The Hornet's a bigger aircraft it's taller there's more stuff to look at the Viper is just smaller so uh it's not immediately obvious getting in the aircraft The Hornet has its own ladder and if you go to the Super Hornet I think it's got It's actually a switch you can it's it's not a manual ladder but the Hornet has its own ladder in the Viper there's a ladder that the crew chief puts over the side so you need that looking over the rail both Jets pretty much the same thing the Hornet had space behind the seat that you could store stuff throw like you know if you're going cross country put a bag or a backpack or something back there Viper has no storage whatsoever getting into the aircraft after flying the F-16 for four years the Hornet felt like you were sitting in your living room it has a ton of space and the seat is upright so you kind of feel like after flying the F-16 you feel like you're leaning forward a little bit but for the most part not a big deal uh but it has all kind of room and you feel like you're you've got a little bit more space what weird is in the F-16 when you first get in it's a little claustrophobic because you're straddling the center display uh in the newer Jets or you know just in general like everything is perfectly fit and when you sit down there's not a whole lot of room on either side however when as soon as a canopy closes that all goes away you because there's no canopy bow because there's nothing in front of you you lose that sensation of being cramped and suddenly you're sitting on top of the world and that's what was really cool about the F-16 in fact in the Hornet once the canopy came down you kind of felt a little bit more cramp because you had that canopy bow and you're like okay I'm sitting real far forward compared to the F-16 but actual physical space The Hornet has way more space strapping into the aircraft The Hornet is more complicated you've got leg guarders that have to retract your legs to get you to eject the F16 has no such thing so the F-16 life support equipment wi it's pretty easy you strap in you hook up your seat kit you put your lap belt on crew chief helps you out because in the Air Force the crew chief does help you out helps you click your uh risers and that's it you're strapped in Hornet you don't get any assistance which was weird I'm used to spoiled Air Force guy uh but you strap your um harness in and then the seat belt actually connects to the harness and then obviously your seat kit and then you've got uh leg two leg guarders per leg one in your thigh one just above your boot and that takes a minute takes a little bit to get used to but once you got it on you kind of forget about it it's not a huge deal ground Ops fighter is a fighter they both are able to start without external power or a Huffer or a ST card or anything like that the F-18 uses auxiliary power unit Apu the F16 uses a jet fuel starter or a JFS and as long as the bottle was charged starts right up usually no issues ground Ops in general everything is stored on your data transfer cartridge so usually all the mission planning is already done so you plug that in everything loads up same thing with the F-16 on the DTC and then uh you go through the the checks flight controls you know it goes through a built-in test on both of them because they're both uh fly by wire systems then you're checking everything else with the crew chief or a plane Captain what's interesting in the Navy when flew all the plane Captain operations are hand signals so it's all Visual and in the Air Force as soon as you turn the battery on you're establishing Communications with your crew chief and you're talking everything is there's no hand signals really you're just talking it's like hey chief how you doing we're usually first name because why not and we start going through the procedures clear forward clear posted raise star two JFS star two and then we go through everything uh together talking as we're do it versus the Navy where it's all hand signals and stuff like that even the Navy they check carrier based stuff like hook in the launch bar even though you're not going to use that on short based I was a Shore based adversary pilot so I never did any carrier Ops or anything like that but we still went through it all even though we didn't need it so once you're started taxied out pretty much the same thing the you don't really notice much of a difference that this would be a difference between services and how it's done so I'm not going to really talk about that but uh for takeoff the F-16 had variations of when you'd use After Burner versus The Hornet when you pretty much use After Burner all the time and that's because the F16 is higher thrust to weight ratio just in general even though the Hornet can weigh more and it's got two engines the Viper's got a higher thrust to weight ratio so in a clean configuration which is what we'd fly if we were going to go dog fight or basic fighter maneuvers you do a mil power takeoff so military power not using the afterburner uh sometimes we would do the After Burner takeoff clean if gas wasn't an issue and we were going straight to the tanker or just fastjet Fridays or some kind of you know just a cool thing to let off steam but typically that's excessive and we would just use mil power The Hornet always used After Burner uh I don't ever remember a time where we used mil power takeoffs even clean so that's a little bit of a difference there takeoff considerations it's pretty much the same thing uh obviously you're two engine now so now you're talking about you know when can I go fly with one engine when am I going to abort versus the F16 which is single engine so you're either going to go or you're not as long as the Jet's making power you're taking off and if not you're going to try to stop and use the hook as appropriate both Jets have hooks by the way F-16 has a hook it's not meant for any carrier operations it's meant for in the case of emergency only so taking off um the F18 with the takeoff trim it likes to fly off a little bit easier F16 it seems like you have to put a little bit of Astic pressure to get it to go flying but once it goes uh it's it's pretty straightforward and then once you're Airborne not much difference now you're just uh flying I will say Airborne in general the F-16 feels like you're on a Magic Carpet because you're on the nose of a bullet you don't see your canopy rails all that much depending on how you're sitting height and there's nothing obstructing your view so it's really really cool just being able to look around and stuff like that the F18 you know you could get in positions where you're trying to rejoin on somebody and the canopy bows blocking your field of view or something like that so it was nicer for the F-16 having that bubble canopy the F18 has Auto throttles which is nice for station keeping and just flying basic formation especially not when you're in close because you'd never use that you know close together but when you're out line of breast where you know you're making more subtle changes it was nice to be able to set an auto throttle or to engage the auto throttle and kind of position keep without having to modulate the throttle as much so the F18 autopilot now this was versus the block 30 other blocks have the ability to fly courses the block 30 just had heading hold uh attitude hold altitude hold uh stuff like that it did not have the ability to fly a course other blocks did and I didn't fly those as much so but the F-18 could fly a course it could fly a heading it had all kinds ofad Auto automation features and like I said with the auto throttle that was nice to be able to station keep and do other things you know the whole point of the automation is to kind of let you reduce your cross check time of focusing on flying formation and let you worry about okay you know what's my mission planning stuff really is it that big of a deal no because in the Viper you're setting known power settings anyway so you know you can pretty much station should keep plus the f-16s I flew had data link so it was really easy to cross check data link and look outside versus the F-18 that flew did not have data link so it was all visual anyway okay so once you're in the airspace and when you're doing the mission let's just talk overview tactically speaking the F-16 I felt the what they call the pvi the pilot vehicle interface I felt like it was better Mech than the F-18 because for me and this could have been different in the super horn for me in the F16 everything was Hands-On throttle and stick so if you were working the radar or working systems you could pretty much with a few exceptions you were pretty much always had your hands on the throttle and stick and you were using that to get you through menus get you through all kind of stuff and if you need to you'd come up to The Upfront control type something in you're right back upfront control Etc The Hornet I felt like was more hands off you were up pushing buttons you were you're you're not spending as much time with your hands on the throttle instead because so much other stuff had to be changed when you were flying or fighting so for me the Viper was a little bit better for that and that could be law of Primacy too because I knew the Viper better than I knew the Hornet so I was kind of learning as I went in the hornet versus the F-16 where I showed up I had a full syllabus and then by the time I got there it was all ingrained because it was my first tactical aircraft I felt like I was more comfortable using the F-16 to input coordinates or put a targeting pod on something or anything that was super technical The Hornet was pretty easy but I felt like the Viper was easier a lot of people also ask side stick versus Center stick I think that's really what you get used to uh what's nice about the Hornet is you could switch hands and I know we talked about Tom Cruz you know left-handed flying you wouldn't really left-and fly and pull a lot of G's usually it's just a momentary switch hands do something switch hands do something you're not really fighting with that left hand but uh you could do that Viper your hand was always pretty much on your right side and it was funny going from the t38 to the Viper sometimes you get that Phantom stick where you'd look and You' try to grab the stick in the where you thought it was going to be in the center and it wasn't there so I think the F16 was just better it just just felt like you were wearing the aircraft versus the F18 where you were in a jet and you knew you were in a jet so you know if I had to compare t38 to F-18 they were very similar but nothing i' had ever flown was very similar to the F-16 it was just so different as far as the actual flying characteristics they both trim for 1G you could let your hand off the stick and it would just fly for both The Hornet and the Viper the Viper I think and I see this a lot people talk about this in DCS the Viper used no trim whatsoever The Hornet you did have to trim depending on you know your speed and configuration and stuff like that uh in some situations but in the Viper you rarely used I mean I I can't think of a time where I used up down trim maybe roll trim but mostly when you take off it would be yaw trim and you'd Center the ball because if you didn't have yaw trim just right A lot of these Jets were either bent or just didn't fly quite right after 30 years but you would be in this yaw which would also give you this rolling moment so I think a lot of people especially in DCS when they're like hey I need roll trim maybe check and see if your yach trim is actually the issue see if the ball centers but in general they're both easy to fly you can take your hand off the stick and do something else and the Jet won't do anything that really surprises you it can and it can kill you people have died because you know they've gotten gone heads down and next thing they know they're upside down I will say the F-16 in weather had a lot higher likelihood of spatial disorientation because you had no canopy bow uh or at night night was real bad I took off at balad one night one of my first sorties and as soon as I got into the abyss of there's nothing there's no cultural lighting there's no nothing in the desert I had a a flight control issue and I looked down and then when I looked up I was upside down because I just I had let it you know Decay I wasn't paying attention next thing you know I'm doing a nose High recovery at you know low altitude which was kind of scary but it is something that you will have to to watch but the Hornet is a little bit more forgiving in that regard just because it's harder to spatial Ed with that canopy bow and having that references outside it just it feels like you're you're more grounded now as far as the actual instrumentation The Hornet is it's kind of a make your Choose Your Own Adventure you you chose which uh what you had on your displays based on what phase your flight well the Viper didn't have that so we had the HSI that was always there in the block 30 that I flew and the ADI the attitude indicator that was always there so it wasn't digital or anything like that the Hornet you'd have to choose if you wanted to fly with that or not or if you wanted a different display so in that regard you know it kind of depends on what you want but I thought that the Viper was much easier in that except at night the ADI was super hard to to tell the difference between the light brown and the light blue uh which has caused spatial disorientation with other people in fact the guy ended up ejecting because you know it was was very hard to see so that's just one thing uh in general but when it came to just flying basic instruments and stuff like that both have the HUD both are very stable platforms and pretty easy to fly so uh tactically as well you know you talk about the the pros and cons the F-16 9g aircraft so it likes to be a little bit faster it it has uh angle of attack limiters so AOA limitations and so it won't let you go beyond certain flight regimes now you can you can depart control flight in fact I went out to Edwards and did the spin training because we had we were losing aircraft because guys were departing in certain configurations but in general the F-16 was a pretty forgiving aircraft and both Jets if you departed control flight the procedure was just to let go and usually that would recovered and if it didn't then you had some extra steps she had to do but the F-16 U lights to fly 9gs it's got power it's got thrust I think the thing about that when dog fighting is the F-16 could fixure problems so if you got yourself in a bad situation you usually had enough excess thrust to kind of fight your way out of it versus the F-18 which we'll talk about the pros in that in a second but the F-18 it was good in the slow speed regime but once you got yourself into a bad situation it was very hard to get yourself out because you didn't have the excess thrust and once You' cashed it all in you're pretty much that's it talking about the F-18 it's not a n jet so you know your basic game plan didn't go anywhere near nine or 8 GS or whatever it would give you you a g limiter based on your weight and then up to seven and a half G's which the F-16 would give you nine G's no matter what you didn't care what the weight was or anything like that so you had to watch not to overg fuel in stores but the F-18 uh would give you that s and half G's but you rarely pulled that many G's if you were doing good solid tactics you really didn't need to pull a lot uh you could go up to eight uh and as long as there was no 811 code it wasn't an over but you really I mean that's not how you fought with the jet the jet was more gentlemanly it liked to be so slow speed it liked to do high angle of attack Maneuvers it was very uh easy to get the nose around and it was very easy to be good with it because you weren't spending a lot of time at high G which was easier on your body easier in general I I love fighting with the Viper because you'd win a lot um and it was you know fun but you know if you ask me which is better well I think the Hornet was more userfriendly in that it wasn't hurting you with 9gs every time you go out now granted you don't have to pull 9gs to win in the Viper there's ways you can be very good at bfm without ever touching 9gs but it's just a higher G aircraft and it it definitely requires more respect because people have died because of G induced loss of consciousness versus The Hornet where it's a good slow speed fighter it's easily it gets the nose uh in positions you want and it's very forgiving in the high angle of attack regime until you get very slow speed very low energy and then it just can't get it back it that's where it struggles is it doesn't have the thrust to to fix your mistakes like the Viper can because the Viper's not giving you high angles of attack it'll give you what it gives you and then usually you can unload light blower get yourself back out of that situation so it's just two different mentalities I I wouldn't say one is better than the other I just say the Hornet is probably easier on your body but I never lost to a hornet when I was fighting in the Viper so when I flew the F-16 we always fought Canadian Hornets Navy Hornets Navy Super Hornets they would always come down the homestead never lost uh in the Hornet uh I never got to fight a Viper so I don't know from the other side I did get to fight the eagle and I did better against the eagle in the Hornet than I did against the Viper did with the Viper because when I fought the eagle with the Viper it was pretty neutral and when I fought the eagle with the Hornet it was pretty easy so take with from that what you will but then again you know it always depends on pilot you know Any Given Sunday Kind of mentality doesn't really matter the aircraft it just depends on who's flying and what tactic tactics they have what their configuration is there's so much that goes into it it's very hard to be specific so that's airto a air to ground um what's nice is the way the targeting pot is mounted on the F18 you did a left-hand turn which is nice the F16 you did a right hand turn which you're like what's the big deal I think it's easier I think every fighter pilot we all like to turn left which is weird because in the basic surface attack pattern in the F-16 you would do a left-hand pattern but when you go out operationally and deploy it'd be a right-and pattern so all the practice you did going left and then you're like oh I'm doing close air support now I've got to go right so it' be a right hand orbit around the target F-18 always left which I think is how God intend we're we're not Ambi Turners we only turn left but uh in general I think it's pretty much the same the the the HUD modes and the weapons delivery modes it's just you know Coke versus Pepsi they're they're different but they basically have the same function and I think doctrinally Navy versus Air Force just had different mentalities on how to do that and how to drop bombs how to drop dumb bombs how to drop laser guided bombs so it's just different techniques but overall was pretty much the same I didn't really find that there were big differences I still because I had flown the F-16 so much would always feel more comfortable you know if you ask me today which would you go drop bombs in combat right now it'd be the F-16 because that's what I know uh you know the F-18 was fun to do and I did a lot of close air support with joint terminal attack controllers and I did a lot of droing bombs but I always thought that you know what I knew was the F-16 so uh coming back home not a whole lot of difference you know it's it's again Navy versus Air Force and how you come into the pattern uh that's a doctrinal difference that's not an aircraft specific difference the patterns are different Navy versus Air Force we can talk about that on a different video but just let's talk about Landing uh if you came in for an instrument pattern the F-16 was far superior because it had more options uh and I know that's changed since I flew the F-18 I think now they do have the ability to do civilian approaches but when I flew the Hornet all we could do was attack in approach or a ground contained approach like the P or the ASR we could not do an ILS instrument Landing system which meant no real Precision approach that was inside the aircraft and so the F16 super easy right it would put the little Tad pole up there you just put the flight path marker over the Tad pole and it would direct you right down uh all the way down land easy day I I've been in some pretty nasty weather with the F-16 and you know no issues whatsoever uh the only issue we we really had was if it was raining sometimes you'd have to put a little bit of yaw into it because you couldn't see out the front eventually they fixed it they put rainex on the canopies but sometimes it would just pull right there in front of you so you'd have to do a little bit of yawing and you could land F-18 uh you could you could reduce workload with that auto throttle because it would capture your angle of attack and now you're just worried about flying a good solid uh Glide path but had the HUD you could put the two and a half degree line uh or a Three Degree wire down and and kind of make it work but as far as self-contained especially if you're going cross country The Hornet we were limited if the weather was kind of you could just fly the tack in and you had to go to a place that only had the TAC in so you didn't have an ILS uh at civilian fields which I you know I think has been fixed I'm not sure I've heard they can fly AR naavs now I don't know uh what current is I'm just talking when I flew it actual Landing The Hornet is way easier to land I know the uh you know they basically I'm not going to say they frowned upon it but most people did not flare The Landing in the Hornet for two reasons one they always practicing for the boat and two there was a small risk that if you flared you wouldn't have enough weight on the planing link or the gear and it could fold up on you and have an issue I think if you kind of hybrid that I never had a problem with it uh I was always was cognizant of that that planning link failure because that's a big emergency but uh you could flare it off and have a really really nice landing and it was very easy to always have a nice landing versus the Viper which is kind of a it's an art it's an art to land that jet well and I know I remember an instructor in the B course telling me that there was that he had a time period where he like he just forgot how to land the jet you know I mean not literally but he had like this long period of time where he just could not land it well and I think that's valid because it does take a little bit of finesse it does tend to want to keep flying so you get the little Viper hop or sometimes you know you thought you were where you you were in a good position to have a good landing and then next thing you know you're bouncing or next thing you know you're floating and you're not Landing in the touchdown zone so it was very different and it's more difficult and there's a lot more risk uh if you over Arrow Brak you could scrape the speed brakes or the vental fin uh if you got too high of angle of attack that could happen if you got a Gusty when that increased your angle attack that could happen so there was a lot more risk in in damaging something with the F-16 and then when you're stopping the block 30 this has changed in the later blocks but the block 30 had really not great breaks so you could overheat brakes uh very easily versus The Hornet brakes are awesome never had an issue always stopped in a very short distance um so I think in general it was easier in the pattern for the Hornet than the Viper but they're both I mean compared to like flying a t38 they're both easy I mean they're they're both made to land fairly easily so I don't think it's anything you know we're just talking minute differences but if you said hey what's your what's going to be your best landing and I know guys went and flew Fat Amy and the first time they landed it it was easy so compared to the Viper it's always easier but you just got to be a little bit better at it that's it so you know taxi and clear you go and you shut down and it's not really much of anything uh they're both pretty easy pretty straightforward but so I guess the big question now is if I got the opportunity which one would I want to go fly again I think it's the Viper I I love flying The Hornet I enjoyed if I could have stayed flying The Hornet New Orleans I think that would have been the best like option of my career unfortunately that wasn't an option but you know if you said hey mover you know Hornet or Viper in New Orleans right now which you're going to go fly uh I'd still take the Viper because I just I love that jet it had uh all the thrust you ever wanted you had to be careful but it just you'll never forget your first love and no matter how much I enjoyed the The Hornet the Viper is always going to be you know my favorite and that's not to say The Hornet's not awesome I know people that flew the Hornet first and then flew the Viper and they're the exact opposite I think you're whoever whatever you flew first is generally going to be your first love and I just I felt like when I flew the F-16 that I was on top of my game because I was I was flying a lot I was you know studying a lot I was in the vault a lot I knew everything I needed to know about that jet and then the Hornet you know we had issues we didn't always have a bunch of flyable jets we barely flew uh you know 400 hours in four years that's not a lot versus a thousand hours in four years um so I always feel like maybe if I'd flown The Hornet a lot I'd have different feelings about it but if you could combine the two that'd be perfect right if you had the angle of Attack Of The Hornet with the thrust of the Viper and then you had the life support system of the Viper so you're not wearing all that crap with you know the room the cockpit room of the Hornet but you had the bubble canopy let's design uh an awesome jet but anyway let me know what you think I mean I know you guys have flown both in DCs and I know you've flown some of you have flown both in real life uh and I think you'll you ask you know a dozen fighter pilots that have flown both what they what their preferences are you'll get a d dozen different answers but um yeah I love them both I miss it I miss flying both I think uh you know if I ever got the opportunity to fly one again it'd be an awesome time but for now all we could do is remines and and look at the uh look forward to what's next so hope you guys enjoyed this video thanks for watching see you next time [Music]

Channel: C.W. Lemoine

Views: 416,990

Keywords: viper, f-16 vs f/a-18, hornet, hornet v viper, f/a-18, topgun, top gun maverick, top gun

Id: KKxJekBsC9k

Length: 30min 19sec (1819 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2024