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Nuclear consent switch on an F-16 Fighting Falcon
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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I had a very smug "ACKSHULLY" all lined up about how the Joes only flew F-14 and X-29 derivatives, but nope. Late in the run, they got an adorable little mini F-16.
Oh that one they had in the 80s with the wings that would fold back, that was an F14? I always thought it was an F16, but I don’t know shit about planes other than some flight sims I played decades ago.
Folding wings is practically the trademark of the F-14 Tomcat. I understand why we stopped making planes that do that, but I thought the folding wings was the coolest shit as a kid.
Right up there with suicide doors and the bench-seat as trunk-space "upgrade". 🤣
As a kid, I was super interested in entering/exiting vehicles being dramatically faster, and spent years watching every trip go by via rearview w/ the fam noise in the back of my mind. ☝🏼
Also (correct me where I’m wrong) I thought the F16 seated two, a pilot and a weapons officer, while the f14 only had the pilot? And I thought the GI Joe toy sat two. Of course the folding wing would be the much more obvious identifier, given it’s a toy and a replica where they probably took a lot of license, and this isn’t that tank wars forum where everyone is posting military secret schematics for akshually points.
F 14 is also a 2 pilot plane, there may have been some single seaters, but the default had 2 pilots.
LOL, I had my "JETS ARE COOL!" phase when the F-1n fighters were the only active ones, so yeah. The swing-wing one from Top Gun is an F-14. F-16's (provided by the Israeli Air Force, so... yay?) were featured in the, ahem, somewhat less well regarded Louis Gossett Jr. vehicle Iron Eagle.
Hey, you leave ol' Iron Eagle outta this. That was the best fuckyeah-milprop winter blockbuster that '86 had offer. Besides, at least LG Jr isn't a gawdamn sociopathic cultist. 😅 I think.