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I look at a lot of articles (such as BillCJ and many others and it reminds me of books that were published in the 1950 - lots and lots of facts boring, dull uninteresting pictures - picture with no history surrounding what is being published.  In the 1980-90's, a lot of True Aviation historians (i.e. Roger Freeman, Jeff Ethell, Warbirds Worldwide, etc..) found that aviation historians wanted and needed history recorded.  The captions of their books detailed who, what, when, where, etc...  As we progressed into the 2000's, I am finding that today’s writers unfortunately, want to dumb down the article - instead of giving all the details to allow the readers to decide how much level of detail he wants - Again, unfortunately, BillCJ (as well as others) want to take the Dick & Jane approach to aviation history.

This is suppose to be an online reference/encyclopedia - often when you Google an item, the wiki article is the first reference to pop-up so this will be (unfortunately) the first and only reference many will have for a subject.  A subject has to include everyone that references and item, whether it be a 4 year old doing his first model airplane, the aviation historian, the F-16 Buff.  These articles are also used by serious models who want the details.

Articles only tell part of the story - you need the pictures to compliment and point out what the article is discussing.  In the same vein, the pictures need the same level of detailed study (if possible) and care that is place in creating the entire article.  Having a great and fantastic article (such as the F-16) with kindergarten captions makes the entire article pointless.

It is also unfortunate that other editors like Askari Mark feels that detailed captions are meaningless to most readers - again, you can not have an online reference/encyclopedia without filling crossing the t and doting the i's.  Without detailed captions, it like having no reference section - sure you can print captions that state "" Gee an F-16 in Flight "" - especially when it is clear that the airplane is sitting on the ground.  Or the case of one article ""Aircraft is on a bomb-run"" when it was clear from the picture that the bomb-bay doors were closed, no guns in the waist position and the detailed history showed the aircraft actually was a trainer and never left the United State...

BillCJ also mentioned "" are you seriously suggesting that "" serious historians "" only read WP articles for the pictures? "" - it is a proven fact that 90% of all information processed by humans come from Visual"" data (i.e. pictures, etc...) - this is the reason Picture books are popular with preschoolers.  The first thing a majority humans look out when reading any thing is the pictures - if the pictures are interesting then many people will stop and read.  If an aviation historian comes across an article that details the subject matter then he will stop and read the contents.

It is also been said that this article is not for the F-16 Buffs - if this is the case, then 
 why have technical specifications
 why have details on each variation??  
 Why have the nuts and bolts of each individual user??
 Etc, Etc, Etc...
Why have detailed information regarding anything regarding the aircraft if this subject is not going to reach out to those who can say yes, this is true (i.e. the historian/buff) - If you are going to have the nuts and bolts in the article then you have to carry this same thought patterns over to have the nuts and bolts details in the photo captions.... (for example: B-52 Specifications, B-52 Costs, B-52 Variants) etc...  this type of informations IS for the Aviation Historian / Buff and generally not for the casual reader (which is MY point in having detailed captions).

If we dumbdown the photocaptions for the ""causual reader, then this level of details Specifications, costs, variations also needs to be removed as it will only confuse the "" casual reader "" and will lead to people calling all such information "" gobbledy-gook "".

If we dumbdown the photocaptions or call detailed information "" gobbledy-gook to most readers "" then terms such as: Wing area, Airfoil, Zero-lift drag coefficient, Drag area, Aspect ratio, Maximum speed:, Combat radius:, Ferry range, Service ceiling ,Rate of climb, Wing loading, Thrust/weight, Lift-to-drag ratio are ""gobbledy-gook to most non-aviation readers""

BillCJ has also mentioned that Wiki is not the place for F-16 Buff's to write article - This is complete opposite what the founders of wiki wanted when this project (wikipedia as a whole) dreamed many, many years ago - Wiki w