Blaine Scheideman has F-16s all over his office.
Photos of fighter planes hang on the walls, two model F-16s sit on a bookshelf, and magazines about jet development are scattered around the room. Even the award plaques have little F-16s attached to them.
Scheidemann, a Fort Worth resident, has a reason for his memorabilia: The 93-year-old Scheidemann has spent his life developing the F-16.
“For 40 years I’ve followed airplanes and everything related to them, all the people who ran the plant after me, who they were and who they became,” Scheidemann said.
Memories of his work came back to Scheidemann recently, when his wife, Gayla, learned from a friend that a restored YF-16 had been put on display at the Fort Worth Aviation Museum.
Gayla was a little upset that she and her husband didn’t know the jet was returning to Fort Worth.
“They probably thought that no one connected to this would be alive,” Gayla said.
But Scheidemann was delighted.
“I was the key man. If you wanted to come here and find out about that plane, you could come through me,” he said with a laugh.
Mr. Scheidemann began working for General Dynamics, the aerospace company that developed the F-16, in 1966. He had previously worked for companies that made machines for air travel, including air conditioners, generators and ground-support equipment.
Scheidemann became deputy chief of the Fort Worth division in the early 1970s, around the same time that General Dynamics submitted a proposal for the Air Force’s light fighter program, which called for a slimmer, faster aircraft.
General Dynamics tested early versions of the F-16 against the F-4, which Scheidemann described as the nation’s best aircraft at the time.
“The F-4 flew as close a circle as it could, so we flew on the inside of it and passed it on the inside of the circle,” Scheidemann said.
Blaine Scheidemann, 93, is a former vice president at General Dynamics who oversees the F-16 program in Europe. He was part of the original team that helped develop the F-16 and helped negotiate the contracts under which the U.S. and four European countries bought the aircraft. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)
“It overshadowed everything else.”
In late 1974, General Dynamics presented the aircraft to the United States Air Force in Washington, DC.
Scheidemann had disagreed with General Dynamics president David S. Lewis about what the Air Force wanted in the presentation, and after the company’s first presentation, the Air Force told Lewis that the F-16 was not what the Air Force had in mind.
Lewis put Scheidemann, who had knowledge of Air Force contracting, in charge of the presentation, and Scheidemann reworked the presentation for a follow-up meeting.
“And that’s when the general said, ‘That’s right. This is what we’re looking for,'” Scheidemann’s daughter, Cathy Seglia, said, recalling the meeting as told to her by her father.
In January 1975, General Dynamics was awarded the contract for the Light Fighter Program.
A few months later, the F-16s were ready to fly at the 1975 Paris Air Show, following France’s Dassault Mirages and fighter jets from other countries.
“It far surpassed everything else that had ever been televised in the world,” Scheidemann said.
Seglia was 16 when she attended the air show with her father, and she remembers seeing tears in the eyes of the General Dynamics team.
The F-16 program began with four European countries — Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark — agreeing to cooperate in building and producing parts for the F-16. Scheidemann said the agreement stipulated that if the U.S. bought F-16s, the four countries would also buy them. The U.S. would buy 650 aircraft, while the European countries would secure 348.
Blaine Scheidemann and his wife, Gayla, talk at their Fort Worth home on June 4, 2024 about his time in Europe as a contract negotiator for General Dynamics. He was part of the original team that developed the F-16. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)
Part of a larger world
After the Paris exhibition, Scheidemann was selected as General Dynamics’ European liaison and was posted to Brussels for five years. In addition to negotiating, Scheidemann also dealt with the difficult issues of managing various currencies and calculating future inflation.
Scheidemann’s overseas activities were not limited to the Quadrilateral Alliance, but also included work in several other countries, including Turkey, Germany, Greece, Egypt and Israel.
Israel conducted its first significant combat operation using F-16s in Operation Opera in 1981, when the Israeli Air Force destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear facility.
“It was an amazing thing,” Scheidemann said. “We hadn’t seen that much sales support in a market where we hadn’t sold that many airplanes yet.”
Scheidemann’s career
Joined General Dynamics in 1966. Appointed deputy general manager of the Fort Worth division in the early 1970s. Appointed vice president of the Fort Worth division in April 1975. Supported F-16 production in Brussels from 1975 to 1979. Appointed vice president of the company in 1989. Appointed senior vice president of the company in 1991.
Scheidemann returned to Fort Worth in the 1980s and spent the next 13 years moving around the country as he rose through the corporate ranks, before retiring in 1993 and returning to Fort Worth.
For Scheidemann, it has been an honor to have had the opportunity to work with foreign dignitaries, world leaders and business magnates.
“It was nice to be in the bigger world,” he said.
Blaine Scheidemann’s retirement painting and several plaques given to him in recognition of his service in Europe with F-16s hang on the walls of his Fort Worth home on June 4, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)
As Scheidemann recounts his story, he sometimes forgets specific details of certain memories, so his family has begun recording and writing down his stories.
They don’t want his role in the development of the F-16 to be lost.
“It’s the history that matters,” Seglia said.
Ismael M. Belkoura is a reporting fellow at Fort Worth Report. He can be reached at ismael.belkoura@fortworthreport.org. At Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independent of our board of directors and funders. Learn more about our editorial independence policy here.
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