The Sopwith Camel, P51 Mustang, F86 Sabre, and F4 Phantom II may all be the quintessential fighters of their era, from World War I through the Vietnam conflict. And from Desert Storm to today, few would dispute the aircraft that most deserves to join such an esteemed group is none other than the General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) F16 Fighting Falcon—better known as simply, the Viper.

On this episode, retired US Air Force Reserve Colonel Mike “TDAY” Torrealday, who amassed over 4,000 flight hours in nearly every block and variant of the Viper over a 29year career, joins us to discuss this amazing fighter as a continuation of our ‘aircraft series.’ TDAY describes the many variants, flight envelope, ordnance inventory, and so much more.

During the listener question segment, we discuss wristwatches, multimission aircraft versus specialized aircraft, and dogfighting the F/A18 versus other ‘teen’ fighters.

Bumper announcements by Clint Bell / music by Jaime Lopez. Artwork by Janek Krause.