ORIGINAL: erbroens

Yes, the F-16 was the first combat jet in the world with negative static stability built in corrected by gyros and a computer and with a fly by wire system.. all this for making this plane extremely agile.

Of course, the computer of this airplane has a set of "flight rules" that takes data from its sensors (airspeed, rotational, acceleration,air density, etc) for stabilizing it. A simple sense rate gyro like we have available wouldn´t work as well as we need.

Just to see how complex is this, take a look in this video of a test flight of a F-16 with a assimetric ordenance issue to be resolved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv9YC-gaNYo