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FastestThings

Military Jets

Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon

U.S. Air Force fact sheets print 1,500 mph, Mach 2 at altitude. Lockheed's Block 70 card prints the same 1,500 mph and says Mach 2 plus.

Also known as F-16, F-16C, F-16 Block 70
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Top speed

Published as 1,500 mphPublished as 1,500 mphPublished as 1,500 mphPublished as 1,500 mph

Published maximum, F-16, Mach 2 at altitude on the Air Force sheets. Lockheed's Block 70 card says Mach 2 plus beside the same 1,500 mph. Not an FAI record flight.

OfficialU.S. Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (opens source in a new tab)

In context

  • London to New York in 2 h 18 minConstant · London to New York, 5,570 km great-circle
  • 23× a cheetah's timed top speedSourced · Cheetah, 29 m/s. Sharp 1997, mean of three timed runs over 201.2 m
  • 7.3 football fields a secondConstant · American football field, 100 yd (91.44 m)

Worked out from the sourced figure above, which stays the ranked number.

This list

Why it's so fast

A fighter is fast in a dash: afterburning thrust against a small airframe, for as long as the fuel and the heat allow. Cruise speed and a record dash are not the same claim.

  1. Afterburner

    Dumping fuel into the exhaust adds thrust and burns it quickly. A published maximum is often that dash, not the speed the jet can hold across an ocean.

  2. The airframe's limit

    Intake design, temperature and the canopy all cap the number. The sources say whether the figure is a record run or a handbook maximum.

A related air-breathing record is the SR-71.

This is how the category works. A note written for this entry appears here once it is in the database.

Provenance

Every measurement

Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.

  1. 2,414km/h1,500mph671m/s1,303knMach1.97Ranked figure

    Published maximum, F-16, Mach 2 at altitude on the Air Force sheets. Lockheed's Block 70 card says Mach 2 plus beside the same 1,500 mph. Not an FAI record flight.

    The Block 70 card's Mach 2 plus is a label, not a second speed. 1,500 mph is the rank.

    Official
    U.S. Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (opens source in a new tab)

Reference

Specs

Scope
USAF fact-sheet maximum
Speed
1,500 mph
Mach label
2 at altitude, or 2 plus on the Block 70 card
Status
In service

Context

Background

The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center fact sheet and the Air Combat Command F-16 sheet both print 1,500 mph, Mach 2 at altitude. Lockheed Martin's Block 70/72 card prints 1,500 mph and writes the Mach label as 2 plus. The miles-per-hour figure is the same on all three, so that is the rank. The Mach wording is a note.

This is a published service maximum, not an FAI absolute flight. The SR-71 and the YF-12A are on this list as record flights, with their own conditions. The F-16 does not replace them.

Head to head

Compare Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon

Open the speed race

Spot a wrong number?

Every report is read by a person, and corrections are dated on the page.