[where's_the_Outrage?]

The U.S. Air Force is looking to extend the life of hundreds of F-16C/D Vipers,

I was taught the F16 was called the Falcon.

[Squantos]

Agree .... Falcon ! But the nickname is Viper allegedly .

http://www.f-16.net/articles_article10.html

[Tallguy]

Thunderbolt II vs. Warthog. Go back far enough and the US air forces (Army & Navy) didn’t even give their planes official names. When we exported them to the British (WWII) they named them and some of those names stuck.

[Yo-Yo]

I was taught the F16 was called the Falcon.

Its official designation is Fighting Falcon. Pilots started calling it the Viper after the Battlestar Galactica Viper of the original 1978 TV series, which came out roughly at the same time as the F-16A became operational.