F-16 Falcon/ Viper

"Fighting Falcon" is the official USAF name for the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16.
"Viper" is an unofficial nickname. Kinda like "warthog" is a nickname for the A-10 officially named "Thunderbolt II".

Rufus wrote Or 'Double Ugly' for the F-4
Rob

Or "Piece of crap" for the Tornado F3. :-D

Fighting Flcon is the official USAF name for the F-16. Viper is the F-16 pilots nickname for the plane. Lawn Dart is another name for the F-16, it started in the early F-16 days when they had a lot of engine failures and crashes at Hill AFB, the 1st unit to get the Lawn Dart. Another name is "One a day in the Salt Lake Bay" like the B-26 from WW2 "One a day in Tampa Bay".
Stan Parker

None.
But that also doesn't explain why my friend who is a Col. in an F 16 squadron calls them Lawn Darts.
To each their own.......

...heh...I forgot about that one. I believe "Texas lawn dart" is more predominant. That came into the vernacular during the early days when there were a lot of F-16 crashes...lose your electrics in a fly-by-wire jet and down you go. The backup emergency electric system wasn't there from the beginning, as I recall. The F-16 was the first production fly-by-wire fighter...mistakes were made...
Which also reminds me - I've also heard it refered to as "the electric jet".

Yep, for a while there if you bought property in Arizona you got at least part of an F-16 with it ;)

There was a similar joke going round in Germany at one time.
Q: How does a German get an F-104?
A: He buys a field and waits!

Once again, everyone has strayed off-topic and failed to fully answer the original question.
;^)
First of all, Lawn Darts also known as Jarts were the main apparatus used in an outdoor yard game very similar to tossing horseshoes. The lawn dart was a large plastic dart with a heavy pointed metal tip. A player tossed the dart underhand into an arcing trajectory that hopefully terminated within a circle or hoop on the ground some distance away. Lawn darts and Jarts were popular in the '70s & '80s until it was found that they also made excellent "weapons" with people and pets being the main (accidental) targets. After several serious and fatal lawn dart impacts, the sale of lawn darts was banned in the US in 1988 by the Consumer Products Safety Commission. More info on lawn darts can be found on Wikipedia:
Now for the F-16-Lawn Dart connection...
When lawn darts land in the ground, they look like a short arrow with the arrowhead end embedded down into the ground and the feather end sticking up pointed at the sky. Early in the F-16's service life (1980s), there were a number of crashes due to control system wire chaffing, excessive pull-out G's, and other reasons that made the F-16 appear to be a "crash-prone" aircraft. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to picture the analogy between a lawn dart embedded point down in the ground and an F-16 doing the same thing except that the lawn dart impact is a lot "cleaner".
Martin

..which was also the Rhino until the Super Bug picked it up..
Rob

In the RAF, the F-4 was known as the "Tomb". And so many Phantoms and Lightnings had crashed into the North Sea that they were collectively known as "Davy Jones' Air Force"!

I read all of the replys and nobody referenced where the word Viper came from. I understood that when the origional TV series of Battlestar Glactica was running they used shots of the F-16 flight simulator for the shots of pilots in a Colonial Viper. As I recall at the time the AF had not yet named the aircraft and there was at least a small effort to get them to name it Viper. Anybody else remember this? James Philmon IPMS/USA 12047

...which brings up the fact that I've never heard an actual F/A-18 driver refer to the jet as a "bug" of any sort. "Super" and/or "baby" Hornet...but not "bug" anything. "Bug-smashers" or "slow movers" are something private pilots operate.
It seems to be something the modeling community has made up to get around being sued by Boeing.

In the Lightning's cases it was probably a case of running out of fuel after takeoff. ;)
Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Can't comment on the BG connection but I do recall the push to get the craft named 'Viper'.
Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

James Philmon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
All things are probable, anything is possible. Especially when Hollyweird gets in on the act...
Rob (the other one)