Blast from the past...

From the Flightglobal archive:

Click to enlarge.
This news clipping from 1979 says a lot about why the F/A-18 was selected over the F-16.  Quite simply, the Hornet came with more attractive offsets and the AIM-7 BVR missile.  Very much a "big deal" back then.

Back in those days the F-16 was still very much a short-range, fair-weather day fighter.  It would not become the multirole fighter we know of today until the F-16CD variants were introduced in the mid-eighties.  The F-16s production numbers would not become stratospheric until the Reagan administration relaxed sales restrictions on military hardware, increasing demand for the Viper internationally.


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