Wednesday 19th March 2003

Viper vs F16 Again

It's a laugh

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Dodge have been racing against Jet fighters again in a carefully staged half mile race. This year they pitched a Lockheed Martin F-16 against the 500 horsepower Dodge Viper SRT-10 in the drag contest.

When the dust settled last Saturday before thousands of spectators at the Luke Days Air Show, the Dodge Viper came out on top, covering the half mile in about 18 seconds.

"Obviously it was an awesome sight seeing the Dodge Viper SRT-10 move down the runway quicker than an F-16," said Dan Knott, Director - Performance Vehicle Operations (PVO), DaimlerChrysler.

Compared to the Dodge Viper's American sports car leading 500 horsepower, 525 lb.-ft. of torque and 190 mph top speed, the Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon - nicknamed the "Viper" - generates around 23,000 pounds of thrust and a top speed of more than 1,300 mph, but it's not particularly good around town.

[johnnystorm]

Well wasn't that worthwhile? How come the F-16 is nicknamed 'viper', especially as I thought it was called the 'fighting falcon'!! Wasn't viper the callsign of Tom Cruise's training officer in 'top gun'??? While the falcon isn't great about town Ted, I bet its got a better turning circle than the Dodge!

[viper]

it was worthwhile they generated $000's for charity

[Fatboy]

Don't suppose anyone's got a url for the video have they?

[viper]

I've a 7meg vid I can email of last year if you can receive such a large file, similar thing but different vipers

[d3ano]

Wasn't that Goose??
Anyhow Vipers are somewhat slow compared to a TVR, Lotus even a Caterham 7. Anyone remember "Clarkson unleashed" (was made in 97 i think) and the Cerbera beat the Viper to the half mile by a few seconds and beat it for a full mile by about 7-10 seconds. Only the 911 turbo came close by about a second or so.

[viper]

not wanting to bite, everyone knows the 4.2 cerbera was actually a works prepped factory 4.5, still the viper did look pretty slow that day

[atg]

maybe they should repeat this race on an aircraft carrier ... steam catapult for both to be fair.

[Fatboy]

viper If you could e-mail me that that'd be cool , I've no probs recieving big files.

Cheers - my e-mail's in my profile btw.

[viper]

I'll send it tomorrow on the fast line from work, i'll stick f16/viper in the subject area

[Qualia]

I see the US Air Force are finally putting their F-16s to good use

[johnnystorm]

Goose was the co-pilot that was de-capitated! Viper, scmiper make mine Cerbie!!!:-)

[lawrence1]

What a lot of crap. What on earth has this proved?? Why dont they do a standing mile drag? Oh because they know the car will get its butt whipped. This proves nothing but a visual orgasim for the uninformed and easily impressed public. Let do it right then and put the Viper RT/10 up against a McLaren F1.

[danmangt40]

um... its a publicity stunt... chill

[wfg]

Cruise's character's call sign was Maverick, I believe.

[funkynige]

Didn't Top Gear magazine do a race between a Cerb and Tornado a few years back? IIRC the Tornado won, but only just and against a 4.2 Cerb.

[joelism]

What are all these tvr freaks doing on our forum, everyone knows tvr's are pretty crap

[viper paul]

Well when and if the TVR makes it to the USA think of the court cases for disgruntled owners with broken down cars.

The 'Lemon Law' would kill the product dead.

They probably could have used a TVR but it would have had trouble making it to the end of the runway!

[joelism]

Thanks viperpaul, you just about summed up the whole tvr (small capitals) experience. (Not that we want to start a war or anything !!)

[craigw]

any of you fancy coming to Bruntingthorpe on april 27th? 2 mile runway with top speed recording equipment. Lots of other exotic & v fast cars coming..

[viper paul]

And another thing on the McLaren FI if you spent 200 grand a Viper it would have to be better than an F1

= Viper at 50K genuine Supercar, spoken about in the same breath as Lambo and Ferrari even in the last EVO mag most rated the GTS as a good cruiser.