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Blaine Scheideman, photographed in his Fort Worth home on June 4, 2024, shows off an award given to him by General Dynamics for his involvement in the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the case United States v. General Dynamics Corp. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)
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F-16s are everywhere inside Blaine Scheideman’s office.

Photos of the fighter aircraft adorn walls. Two model F-16s sit on a bookshelf. Magazines about the jet’s development are spread throughout the room. Even an award plaque has a small F-16 attached.

Scheideman, a Fort Worth resident, has all the memorabilia for a reason. The 93-year-old spent his career working on the F-16.

“I followed the airplane and everything about it for 40 years — everybody who ran the plant after me and who they were and who they became,” Scheideman said.

Memories of his work recently came rushing back to Scheideman. His wife, Gayla, found out from friends that a restored YF-16 was unveiled at the Fort Worth Aviation Museum.

Gayla was a bit upset that she and her husband weren’t aware of the jet returning to Fort Worth.

“They probably thought nobody would still be alive that had anything to do with this,” Gayla said. 

Scheideman, though, was overjoyed.

“I was the key man. If you wanted to come here and find out about that airplane, you came through me,” he said, with a chuckle.

Scheideman started working for General Dynamics, the aerospace company that created the F-16, in 1966. He previously worked with a firm that produced machinery for air travel, including air conditioners, power generators and ground support equipment. 

Scheideman became deputy director of the Fort Worth division in the early 1970s, around the same time General Dynamics entered its submission for the Air Force’s Lightweight Fighter program, which sought a leaner, faster aircraft.

General Dynamics tested an early version of the F-16 against an F-4, a plane that Scheideman described as the best in the nation at the time.

“The F-4 flew an inside circle as tight as it could, and we just flew inside it and overtook it inside the circle,” Scheideman said.

Blaine Scheideman, 93, is a former vice president of General Dynamics overseeing the European F-16 program. He was part of the original team that helped develop the F-16 and assisted with contract negotiations when the U.S. and four European countries purchased the plane. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)

‘It overshadowed everything else’

In late 1974, General Dynamics presented the plane to the U.S. Air Force in Washington, D.C. 

Scheideman disagreed with David S. Lewis, the head of General Dynamics, about what the Air Force wanted with the presentation. After the company’s first pitch, the Air Force told Lewis the F-16 was not what it had in mind

Lewis placed Scheideman in charge of the presentation because of his knowledge of Air Force contracts. Scheideman reworked the presentation for a follow-up meeting.

“And that’s when the general said, ‘You got it. This is what we’re looking for,’” Scheideman’s daughter, Kathy Segulja, said, recalling the meeting as it was told to her by her father.

In January 1975, General Dynamics won the Lightweight Fighter program contract. 

A couple of months later, the F-16 was poised to fly after the French Dassault Mirage and other nations’ fighter jets at the 1975 Paris Air Show.

“It so overshadowed everything else in the world that had been shown,” Scheideman said.

Segulja was 16 when she joined her father at the air show. She remembers seeing tears in the eyes of the General Dynamics team.

The F-16 program launched with four European countries — Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark — agreeing to work together to manufacture parts and build F-16s. Scheideman said the agreement stipulated the countries would purchase F-16s if the United States did. The U.S. bought 650 planes; the European countries secured 348.