
Actual flight time to an altitude of about 4 km: 20 seconds
The following video was filmed from inside the cockpit of a Pakistan Air Force F-16 BM Block 15 belonging to 11 th Squadron “Arrows,” piloted by TAI test pilot Murat Keles (in the front seat) and Murat Özpala (in the rear seat) during a test flight.
The F-16 takes off, gains speed at low altitude few feet above the runway and then climbs vertically above the clouds reaching well over 4km in altitude in a matter of 45 seconds from the beginning of the roll on the tarmac with the actual flight time of less than 20 seconds.
Pretty impressive, isn’t it?
This is the kind of performance you’d expect in an interceptor.
H/T Lasse Holmstrom and Arda Mevutlogu for the heads up
Cool video but it’s obvious and disappointing that it was sped up. I’d like to see it again in real-time.
If it was truly vertical, the average speed was about 250 mph. Or the vertical vector was roughly 250 mph.