Key Points and Summary – In the Navy’s 1970s hunt for a new fighter, Vought and General Dynamics proposed the Vought Model 1600—an F-16 adapted for aircraft carriers.
-The idea was simple: marry the F-16’s agility, fuel fraction, and maintainability to a naval airframe with beefed gear, arresting hook, corrosion control, BVR radar, and Sparrow-class missiles.
F-16A on USS Intrepid NSJ Image. Taken by Jack Buckby on 9/18/2025.
F-16 Logo on F-16A in NYC. Image Credit: National Security Journal.
-The Navy chose the twin-engine YF-17–derived F/A-18 instead, citing survivability, deck suitability, and integration risk.
-Yet a light, inexpensive “Sea Falcon” could have delivered range, sortie generation, and commonality the fleet later paid to recreate. The project died on timing and politics as much as physics—an arguable missed opportunity.
Vought Model 1600: The F-16 That Almost Went to Sea
If you love carrier aviation, the Vought Model 1600 is the kind of near-miss that nags at you. And personally, it’s a call that still stings to this day that should have been explored further.
The pitch was elegant: take the new Air Force lightweight fighter—fast, agile, and famously easy to maintain—navalize it with real carrier bones, and give the fleet a high-sortie, low-cost knife fighter that could also shoot beyond visual range.
In an era when budgets were tightening and the Navy needed to recapitalize quickly, an F-16 for the boat wasn’t a crazy idea.
It was a practical one.
And yet, it never happened.
The Moment: From VFAX to NACF, and a Door Cracks Open
After the F-111B debacle, the Navy bought the bespoke F-14 for long-range fleet defense. By the mid-1970s, Congress pushed the service to leverage the Air Force’s Lightweight Fighter results for its next deck fighter.
The Navy Air Combat Fighter (NACF) competition did exactly that, inviting navalized versions of the YF-16 and YF-17. General Dynamics had a world-class jet but no carrier pedigree. Enter Vought (LTV), builder of the F-8 and A-7.
The partnership proposed a genuine, purpose-engineered carrier F-16—the Model 1600 family—preserving as much of the Viper’s magic as possible while writing saltwater into the spec.
The Concept: Keep the F-16’s Strengths, Add Saltwater Bones
Navalization isn’t lipstick; it’s structure and systems. Vought’s plan centered on a real naval arresting hook and launch bar; reinforced nose and main gear to survive cat shots and hard traps; corrosion control across bays and wiring; refined high-lift devices and control laws to tame approach speeds; and the avionics to make the jet a true all-weather fighter with Sparrow-class BVR missiles and Sidewinders near the intake.
Multiple engine fits were studied (uprated F100 or Navy-favored derivatives), with a single efficient powerplant to preserve the F-16’s fuel fraction and quick turn-times.
The through-line wasn’t sexy: range and readiness on the cheap.
Could an F-16 Really Live on the Roof?
Skeptics focus on the F-16’s land-jet roots. But Vought had already built tough, compact carrier aircraft.
F-16 Fighting Falcons assigned to the 114th Fighter Wing sit ready on the ramp while conducting an elephant walk at Joe Foss Field, South Dakota, July 2, 2025. The 114th Fighter Wing conducted an elephant walk to demonstrate its ability to project fighter airpower. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Luke Olson)
The F-16’s virtues—low empty weight, generous internal fuel for its size, and straightforward maintenance—are exactly what air wings prize when sortie rate matters more than brochure thrust.
A navalized F-16 would have needed heavier gear, a more forgiving wing/leading-edge flap schedule, a sturdier tailhook installation, and improved over-the-nose visibility on the ball. None of that is free—yet none is exotic. With green-light funding and flight-test time, Vought had a credible path to a fit-for-purpose “Sea Falcon.”
Would It Have Beaten the Hornet Where It Counts?
The F/A-18 offered virtues the Navy cherishes: twin engines over cold ocean water, superb low-speed handling from day one, and an industrial team that designed around the boat rather than adapting to it. Reliability and safety arguments favored a two-motor jet for long, wet patrol boxes.
But in the sortie-economy game, a navalized F-16 would have been formidable: fewer engines to maintain, lower fuel burn, and high availability driven by a simple, accessible airframe.
For air policing, barrier CAP, and the countless “boring but essential” missions that make up most days at sea, a Sea Falcon could have put more jets over the water more often—and for less money.
As the fleet later discovered, you can spend lavishly to recover that efficiency; it’s nicer to design it in.
The Politics and the Pivot
If this were only about physics, you might have seen F-16s on the roof of an aircraft carrier.
Instead, 1975 delivered the programmatic reality: the Navy judged the YF-17-derived design more suitable for carrier operations and awarded what became the F/A-18. Ling-Temco-Vought protested, arguing Congress wanted a derivative of the Air Force winner and that commonality should have favored the F-16. A formal review backed the Navy’s discretion.
Translated: the service picked the airplane it believed it could fly and sustain at sea with the least risk.
The Case for “Should Have”: Why Model 1600 Had Real Merit
U.S. Air Force Major Jacob Rohrbach, a pilot assigned to the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, releases the first Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range, or JASSM-ER, from an F-16 over the Gulf of Mexico on September 19th, 2018. The test gathered data on safe separation and software integration of the JASSM-ER, and demonstrated the Eglin test range’s ability to monitor and control test items in flight over the Gulf of Mexico.
Here’s the simple view: the Navy’s decision was understandable—but a limited buy of a navalized F-16 might have paid off.
Range and fuel fraction. A lean single-engine fighter with fighter-sized tanks is gold in the Pacific—more on-station time, fewer tanker hookups, bigger patrol boxes.
Sortie generation. The F-16’s signature virtue is that it flies a lot. For day-to-day deterrence—intercepts, QRA, barrier CAP—that tempo is a weapon.
Cost discipline. A cheaper jet you own in numbers fills decks and frees flight hours for exquisite platforms. You don’t need stealth to police an ADIZ.
Commonality. A deeper Air Force/Navy baseline could have paid dividends in training and spares.
Would Model 1600 have replaced the Tomcat? No. But as a fleet-quantity fighter—a partner to high-end interceptors and strikers—it could have made air wings bigger, busier, and cheaper to run.
Why It Wasn’t Commenced Anyway
Three obstacles sank it before metal was cut. First, culture and safety: after hard lessons, Navy leadership preferred two engines for fighters spending hours far from the ship. Second, integration risk: BVR radar and Sparrow integration, structural mods, and carrier qual testing add schedule the Navy didn’t have. Third, momentum: once the YF-17 team paired with McDonnell Douglas and the Hornet became a purpose-built naval design, the “adapt the land jet” pitch lost altitude. The service chose the airplane that already fit its rhythms.
What We Can Steal From the Idea Today
The lesson isn’t “put an F-16 on the boat” in 2025. It’s to bake affordability and readiness into naval fighter design from day one. Model 1600 asked a valid question: how much of the mission set can you cover with a simple, efficient, high-availability jet—and how much does that free your exquisite platforms to do what only they can do?
In an age of drones and manned-unmanned teaming, that logic feels timely again.
Bottom Line on Vought Model 1600
Vought’s Model 1600 wasn’t a fantasy. It was a grounded attempt to translate the F-16’s virtues into carrier reality.
The Navy made a defensible call for the Hornet, but it also walked away from a fighter that could have made decks busier for less. If you think deterrence is a numbers game as much as a stealth game, that still stings a little.
About the Author: Harry J. Kazianis
Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is Editor-In-Chief and President of National Security Journal. He was the former Senior Director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest (CFTNI), a foreign policy think tank founded by Richard Nixon based in Washington, DC. Harry has over a decade of experience in think tanks and national security publishing. His ideas have been published in the NY Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and many other outlets worldwide. He has held positions at CSIS, the Heritage Foundation, the University of Nottingham, and several other institutions related to national security research and studies. He is the former Executive Editor of the National Interest and the Diplomat. He holds a Master’s degree focusing on international affairs from Harvard University.
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