As the YF-16 progressed more and more toward an operational configuration, numerous small changes appeared in the stick and armrest/wristrest geometry. The first stick did not move at all, but rather depended strictly on the amount of force you were using to determine the desired pitch or roll rate. It was possible to fly the airplane very well with this fixed stick, but it was decided it would be still better if a small amount of motion was added. The stick still moves only three-sixteenths of an inch aft, three-thirty seconds left and right, and next to nothing forward. Although this is a very small amount, it is sufficient to give you the tactile cue of making an input. It also lets you know when you’re up against the limiter - something that was difficult to do with the old fixed stick.
Why essentially no movement forward? We found that, under negative g, you tend to move up and forward in the seat enough to increase the amount of forward stick more than you want to. As a result, it was decided to provide for minimal forward stick movement. The small amount of movement in the other axis seems to be just about the right amount. This stick movement was another area where people not completely familiar with the aircraft made a lot of erroneous inputs about how much movement was really needed. Stop and think about it. If you have much more movement in the puff direction, you quickly reach the point that you’re pushing on the bottom of the stick while pulling on the top. That assumes you have your arm on the rest and are not trying to fly the airplane by moving your whole arm. Instead, you should be using only hand or wrist movement. So, like the mistakes people made in evaluating the F-16 from an aerodynamic standpoint, people were making bogus decisions because they had not taken the time to completely understand the F-16.