From the onset, the company intended for the indigenously developed fighter to replace several piston-engined aircraft that were then in service with the Swiss Air Force.

The flight test programme demonstrated the P-16 to be capable of achieving favourable performance; accordingly, a production contract for 100 aircraft was issued by the Swiss Government.

Following the end of the European portion of the Second World War, Switzerland was one of several nations who used the new-found peacetime to modernise and expand its industrial and military capabilities.

[1] At the time of the war's conclusion, the Swiss Air Force was equipped with numerous piston-engined aircraft, while several high-ranking officials sought to adopt new designs that harnessed newly developed jet propulsion instead.

During the same time period, Swiss defense companies also sought to develop increasingly capable equipment, including Eidgenössische Flugzeugwerke Emmen [de]'s EFW N-20, which would be Switzerland's first domestically designed and manufactured jet fighter.

According to periodical Popular Mechanics, this ability to operate from short runways was particularly ambitious, as such a requirement had proved to be a substantial and persistence hindrance in efforts to procure suitable jet fighters for the Swiss Air Force.

According to Lombardi, the second crash was a major blow to the project; it has been claimed that the Swiss Government decided to cancel the entire order due to the accidents involved.

[9] William had become involved in the P-16 program at a later stage, which included flying the type multiple times, after FFA had reached out to him for his assessment of the aircraft during 1960.

[2][3] In terms of its basic configuration, it was furnished with a low-mounted wing, air intakes on the fuselage sides, and the horizontal stabilizer mounted halfway up the fin.

To facilitate effective operations when deploying upon unprepared fields, a relatively heavy undercarriage, complete with dual-wheels and tyres, was adopted; furthermore, it was designed with surplus strength to accommodate the potential needs of future variants of the P-16.

Armaments were stored underneath the wings and within a weapons bay housed in the fuselage centre-section; the latter could accommodate rockets, fragmentation or napalm bombs, or a large fuel tank for additional endurance; furthermore, a pair of 30 mm cannon were permanently mounted in the nose.