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Question : How does it feel to fly a F-16? How does it sound in the cockpit? Is it hard to fly?   Answer : I flew the F-16 for 15 years of my 20 years in the Air Force. It is a very easy airplane to fly because of the fly-by-wire control system. It is smooth, powerful and comfortable. My previous aircraft was the F-4 Phantom, and it was a great fighter, but very rough and difficult to fly compared with the F-16. The sound that you hear inside the F-16 while you are flying is mostly the air from the environmental control system (air conditioner). The one-piece canopy keeps wind noise down, and noise from the engine is low because you sit on top of the intake (where most of the high-pitched noise comes from). It’s so quiet at high speed, that pilots need to monitor how fast they are going, because unlike the F-4, there’s so little wind noise that 200 knots and 500 knots sound about the same! Hope this answered your question (and yes, the F-16 is my favorite fighter). Lt Col (ret) Mike Carter, USAF   Was this answer useful to you? Back

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