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General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon

American multi-role fighter aircraft

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 19, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic multirole fourth-generation fighter aircraft developed by General Dynamics and produced by multiple companies, including General Dynamics until 1993 and Lockheed Martin until 2017. Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft with over 4,600 built since 1976. Although the original versions are no longer in production, improved versions of the Lockheed Martin F-16V Viper family are being built and upgraded for export in a new production facility of Lockheed Martin. As of 2026, it is the world's most common fixed-wing aircraft in military service, with 2,102 from the F-16 family operational, comprising 15% of all active combat aircraft.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon” as american multi-role fighter aircraft. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around General, Dynamics and F-16.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1993, 2017, 1976, 2026—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with General, Dynamics and F-16 providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon”, the useful work is to connect “american multi-role fighter aircraft” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1993, 2017, 1976 and 2026.

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Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.