I the late 1980s, F-14 Tomcat pilot and Topgun instructor Paul Nickell found himself strapping into the cockpit of a brand new Navy jet that would never land on an aircraft carrier. Instead, it was built specifically to challenge the skills of the best fighter crews the Navy had to offer. It was a stripped down, up-engined, exotically painted variant of the already nimble F-16. General Dynamics built only 26 of them, and the fleet served less than a decade before being controversially retired, but the impression the jet made was legendary. For part one of a multi-part, in-depth series...