Who built the F-16?

[Mr. Bones]

maybe this question sounds stupid for you, but i'm a bit confused.

who actually built the F-16 Fighting Falcon? Is is Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics? or is General Dynamics a sort of a type name for the F-16? or is it really a company?

thanx, i'm sure someone knows the simple answer to this question!

[OTTOL]

Who actually built the F-16, was it Lockheed Martin, or General Dynamics ?                                                                      

First of all, to answer your question simply........yes?!..?
If you look into the history of almost ANY aviation or aerospace oriented company, you'll find that it's like trying to buy the "latest computer".  As soon as you've got it, it's outdated! The History of General Dynamics goes, roughly, like this..........

-Started as the Electric Boat Company(corp?) in the late 40's
-bought out Canadair about the same time
-became General Dynamics in the 50's, to shake the boat stigma
-developed the first Nuclear Powered Submarine
-bought Convair in 50's
-Teamed up with Grumman in the 60's
-in 1972(had to look that one up  :-[ ) bid for the Airforce LWF (light weight fighter)program, and developed the YF-16
...........this is where the tie-in begins

...........During the late 70's, things started to turn for the worse !

-Sold Canadair BACK to Canada in the late 70's
-1990's Henry Crown(major shareholder) died
      subsequently:
        -sold Cessna to Textron
        -sold Missile Operations to GM/Hughes
        -sold Space Systems division to Martin Marietta

         -Core company was aquired by Gulfstream Aerospace

and the big one...........

         -sold the Fort Worth division to Lockheed
 
It would be like comparing a Datsun to a Nissan. Same airplane different name. (re the F16)

[Mr. Bones]

thanx alot for your time! this clears some things up for me!  ;)

[Iroquois]

Of course Candair is now owned by the Bombardier Corp. Sadly though, it looks like Bombardier is going to be kicked out of its place as one of the big three Western airliner manufactures by Embraer. They made a big mistake selling of their Ski-Doo and Sea-Doo lines. That's like the Coke Company selling off Coca-Cola to focus on Dasani.

Off topic but the first snow mobile, the Ski-Doo, was actually just sled with a big fan on the back.