Author Topic: F-16 never happens  (Read 37250 times)

Offline elmayerle

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #25 on: August 30, 2016, 02:11:14 AM »
Absent a Navy variant of the LWF, or something else to drive development of the J101/F404, development of the F101DFE/F110 would be delayed because that rolled a lot of tech and knowledge from the F404 onto the larger F101 core (heck, on a non-dimensionalized basis, the F404 and F110 have the same contours).  That could cause delays to developed F-14's, especially if the F401 continued having problems and picked up more in common with its F100 sibling.  I could see Allison actively pitching a developed afterburning variant of the TF41 as a replacement for the problematical TF30 in the F-14A and this engine being available for other efforts.

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #26 on: August 30, 2016, 02:23:07 AM »
Another possibility is that the Panavia 100 gets a boost:



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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #27 on: August 30, 2016, 02:24:24 AM »
Yet another possibility is that the Mirage 2000 takes more orders that the F-16 got in reality.
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Offline ChernayaAkula

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #28 on: August 30, 2016, 04:11:18 AM »
<...>
Has anyone done a profile for a Turkish F-15?


Only ever did this one.

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Moritz

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Offline Volkodav

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #29 on: August 30, 2016, 09:28:16 AM »
Navalised Tornados for the USN and USMC as a replacement for the Phantom, Crusader and eventually the A-4, A-6 and A-7?
Had the USN recommissioned some of their Essex class CVA/CVS during the 80s as proposed, could the Tornado have operated from them?  I believe the F/A-18 was thought to be unsuitable and that was one of the reasons the recommissioning's never happened, as they would have required refurbishment of F-8s to provide them with a fighter and there may also have been issues with Viking and Hawkeye requiring Trackers and Tracers.

Actually that s a thought, USN recommissions their remaining Essex class carriers as part of their 600 ship Navy, equipping them with F/A Tornados, a light weight Hawkeye or re-engine, modernised Tracers and either re-engined, modernised Trackers or even a Hawkeye / Greyhound derived ASW platform.  This leads to new build CVS being developed and these ships, along with the modernised Essex class and airgroups then become available to close allies.  With a navalised Tornado in production the RN is able to justify the construction of two new multirole CTOL carriers post Falklands and also offer the design for export.

The F-16 never happening could see the RN return to conventional carrier ops post Falklands as well as Australia having a viable replacements for Melbourne available.  Big stretch I know but......
« Last Edit: August 30, 2016, 09:53:25 AM by Volkodav »

Offline taiidantomcat

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #30 on: August 30, 2016, 10:03:57 AM »
As much as I like the F-16 things certainly would have been more interesting without it.  Actually considering Pierre Sprey and Co. were of the opinion that the Pentagon ruined their light fighter by making it multi role I wonder what would have happened if they had actually gotten their way and the USAF had been lumbered with a single role light fighter with no air to ground and very limited all weather (if any) capability? 


The guy who designed the F-16 actually has a thought. (and no its not Pierre Sprey that designed the F-16, everytime someone mis-attributes that I die a little inside :-X)

Quote
Boyd and Sprey would later admonish you for not sticking to the fighter mafia’s original intent summed up by the group’s motto “make it simple.” They fault the aircraft for getting heavy and overloaded with gadgetry. What is your response?

If we had stayed with the original lightweight fighter concept, that is, a simple day fighter, we would have produced only 300 F-16s, the same number of F-104s that were built.


However earlier in the interview he also said this:

Quote
You see, the F-15 was the first air-superiority fighter that the Air Force had put under contract in twenty-five years. They were committed to the F-15. They felt strongly that our airplane was just a hotdog airplane that was good only for air shows on sunny Sundays at the state fair. This view was strengthened to a degree by their experience with the Lockheed F-104. The F-104 was a really hot airplane that people loved to fly, but it didn't have much capability and not much range. The Air Force bought only 300 of them.

We were threatening for another reason. We were perceived as being anti-technology. Our slogan was "make it simple." The slogan itself may have been an oversimplification. We didn't articulate ourselves well early on.


The whole thing is worth a read and is certainly right at home on this topic:

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=37

<...>
Has anyone done a profile for a Turkish F-15?


Only ever did this one.




Thats hot  :-* I love how it follows the F-4 scheme, black nose, sharp turn aft the cockpit  :)

So is anyone audacious enough to make a list by country of what might have gone where best guess/rule of cool?  ??? 
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Offline elmayerle

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #31 on: August 30, 2016, 10:53:00 AM »
Just a few ideas - Italy to replace their F-104s and take over the strike role from the G.91Y; in the 1990's, Poland to replace/supplement Soviet aircraft (see Larry Bond's Cauldron for some ideas; France - replace F-100s; UK - already discussed

Offline Volkodav

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #32 on: August 30, 2016, 02:39:13 PM »
I know Sprey was involved in developing the requirements not any of the designs and it was the requirement for a light, predominately day fighter I was referring to.  They seemed to have this idea that swarms of LCFs and AXs would take off and overwhelm swarms of swarms of Migs and Sukhois. 

He strikes me as being a bit like a couple of blokes we have over here in Aus, Paul Dibb and Hugh White.  They were the movers and shakers behind DOA (Defence of Australia) in the late 80s early 90s, we tried it, it failed, we moved on, taking years to fix the things it stuffed and now they resurface every few months and tell everyone how they were right and what we are doing now is wrong etc. etc.  They didn't design anything but managed to ham-sting the requirements for a generation of equipment that ended up never quite being fit for the roles they ended up filling.

What I was alluding to is that if their concept was adopted as is instead of being evolved into a capable multi-role type, it would have been as inflexible and incapable as the F-104A-C and other types would have been required to supplement it.

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #33 on: August 30, 2016, 02:55:37 PM »
Ah, Paul Dibb.  Well, he was right, in a way.  He was part of the Continental Defence versus the Forward Defence schools of thinking which existed in the 1970s.  Forward Defence had failed dismally, in Vietnam.  So it was the turn of the Continental Defence boys as represented by Dibb.  The problem was the ADF didn't really have anybody to defend Australia against.  We didn't want to upset the Indonesians, so we didn't name them in the 1986 Dibb Report or the following White Paper that grew out of it.  So, it was a bit hard for the ADF to frame it's strategy other than "lets defend Australia and not interfere in anybody else's affairs".  That managed to upset the Americans and then the Indonesians invaded East Timor.  I remember writing a Masters paper on the Dibb Report and I interviewed the Indonesian Defence Attache and he was at a loss why everybody in Australia was so frightened of Jakarta.  Suharto looked more northwards, than southwards and saw Timor as an aberration forced on him by the Fretlin victory in the Timorese civil war.  What everybody appeared to have forgotten was that Suharto had come to power by destroying the Indonesian Communist Coup in 1965 and he was committed to stopping Communism.  Fretelin was a hard-left Communist movement, so it represented a danger to Indonesian unity, so it had to be snuffed out.  Unfortunate but that was the thinking at the time.  Some good thinks, such as the Collins and ANZAC classes came out of the Dibb Report.  Some bad things, which saw the Army lose it's way.   I agree that Dibb needs to change his views now that the world has moved on, though.

Offline perttime

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #34 on: August 30, 2016, 03:24:54 PM »
...   Oh, another thought for F-20, if the YF-17 existed but the F/A-18 never came into being, I could see the F-20 using the J101 from the YF-17; not as large or powerful, but available.
And with the F-16 not existing, the J101 F-20 might have got pretty significant sales? Then GE might have gone forward, developing the  F404 as an upgrade?

Offline Volkodav

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #35 on: August 30, 2016, 08:03:23 PM »
Ah, Paul Dibb.  Well, he was right, in a way.  He was part of the Continental Defence versus the Forward Defence schools of thinking which existed in the 1970s.  Forward Defence had failed dismally, in Vietnam.  So it was the turn of the Continental Defence boys as represented by Dibb.  The problem was the ADF didn't really have anybody to defend Australia against.  We didn't want to upset the Indonesians, so we didn't name them in the 1986 Dibb Report or the following White Paper that grew out of it.  So, it was a bit hard for the ADF to frame it's strategy other than "lets defend Australia and not interfere in anybody else's affairs".  That managed to upset the Americans and then the Indonesians invaded East Timor.  I remember writing a Masters paper on the Dibb Report and I interviewed the Indonesian Defence Attache and he was at a loss why everybody in Australia was so frightened of Jakarta.  Suharto looked more northwards, than southwards and saw Timor as an aberration forced on him by the Fretlin victory in the Timorese civil war.  What everybody appeared to have forgotten was that Suharto had come to power by destroying the Indonesian Communist Coup in 1965 and he was committed to stopping Communism.  Fretelin was a hard-left Communist movement, so it represented a danger to Indonesian unity, so it had to be snuffed out.  Unfortunate but that was the thinking at the time.  Some good thinks, such as the Collins and ANZAC classes came out of the Dibb Report.  Some bad things, which saw the Army lose it's way.   I agree that Dibb needs to change his views now that the world has moved on, though.

The submarine replacement project preceded the Dibb report by more than a decade and the ANZAC project was a dumbed down version of the required River Class DE / frigate replacement, eight glorified OPVs / Light Frigates instead of six high end ASW frigates.  Even the proposed increase in frigate numbers was actually a follow on from the decision not to replace the RANs sole remaining aircraft carrier and had originally been intended to be six to ten Australian built Oliver Hazard Perry class FFGs, subsequently cut to only two ships intended primarily to rebuild the lost naval shipbuilding capability. 

Dibbs contribution was to see the RAN acquire eight patrol frigates fitted for but not with the minimum required systems to permit them to operate in even medium threat environments instead of acquiring a similar or slightly smaller number of Type 23s, additional FFG-7s, M Class or even Type 123s.  Defence cuts that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall meant that both the planned replacements for the Perth Class DDGs and original four Adelaide Class frigates, an integral part of the Dibb report, was cancelled and the proposed modernisation of the two Australian built AFP FFGs was expanded to include the four US built ships, while the only sensible part of the report, the twelve or so missile armed, helicopter equipped corvettes, were cancelled.

Like Sprey Dibb occasionally pops up and whinges that the ANZACs were to large and too capable for the requirement, when ironically they actually proved too small to be upgraded as required, making them part of the capability decline rather than the planned increase.  For example imagine a larger Type 23 or Type 123 with the enhanced ASMD upgrades that the ANZACs received, imagine an Ocean type LPH instead of Bill and Ben, Dibb was wrong and when you read the actual intention behind the enhanced fleet it had little to do with interdicting Indonesia and more to do with controlling choke points, even to keep them open rather than closing them.

This is way off topic now and I think I will get back to visualising a bash of the Dragon 1/144 Tonka F3s, GR1s, F/A-18Es and F-14Ds I have sitting in my stash into some aircraft that would fit an F-16less world quite well.  A Tornado based naval fighter attack aircraft, maybe a 1970s or 80s F/A-14 and a single seat Tonka of some sort.

Offline taiidantomcat

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #36 on: August 31, 2016, 01:23:47 AM »
I know Sprey was involved in developing the requirements not any of the designs and it was the requirement for a light, predominately day fighter I was referring to.  They seemed to have this idea that swarms of LCFs and AXs would take off and overwhelm swarms of swarms of Migs and Sukhois. ..

...What I was alluding to is that if their concept was adopted as is instead of being evolved into a capable multi-role type, it would have been as inflexible and incapable as the F-104A-C and other types would have been required to supplement it.


No offense intended and I didn't count you in that group i mentioned, I just figured since you mentioned it we could hear it straight from the horses mouth. Hillaker didn't seem to think it would go on to do much. Which is very likely true.  :)

Quote
He strikes me as being a bit like a couple of blokes we have over here in Aus, Paul Dibb and Hugh White.  They were the movers and shakers behind DOA (Defence of Australia) in the late 80s early 90s, we tried it, it failed, we moved on, taking years to fix the things it stuffed and now they resurface every few months and tell everyone how they were right and what we are doing now is wrong etc. etc.  They didn't design anything but managed to ham-sting the requirements for a generation of equipment that ended up never quite being fit for the roles they ended up filling.

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Offline Weaver

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #37 on: August 31, 2016, 03:33:55 AM »
Navalised Tornados for the USN and USMC as a replacement for the Phantom, Crusader and eventually the A-4, A-6 and A-7?
Had the USN recommissioned some of their Essex class CVA/CVS during the 80s as proposed, could the Tornado have operated from them?  I believe the F/A-18 was thought to be unsuitable and that was one of the reasons the recommissioning's never happened, as they would have required refurbishment of F-8s to provide them with a fighter and there may also have been issues with Viking and Hawkeye requiring Trackers and Tracers.

Actually that s a thought, USN recommissions their remaining Essex class carriers as part of their 600 ship Navy, equipping them with F/A Tornados, a light weight Hawkeye or re-engine, modernised Tracers and either re-engined, modernised Trackers or even a Hawkeye / Greyhound derived ASW platform.  This leads to new build CVS being developed and these ships, along with the modernised Essex class and airgroups then become available to close allies.  With a navalised Tornado in production the RN is able to justify the construction of two new multirole CTOL carriers post Falklands and also offer the design for export.

The F-16 never happening could see the RN return to conventional carrier ops post Falklands as well as Australia having a viable replacements for Melbourne available.  Big stretch I know but......

As I understood it, the proposal for reactivated Essex class carriers would have seen them used as 'light strike carriers' with an air group of mostly USMC A-4s. The idea wasn't that they operate independently, rather that they operate alongside a CVN, taking over the light strike role and thereby allowing the supercarrier to ship A-6s instead of A-7s/F/A-18s.

The Tornado has a normal loaded weight of about 44,500lb while the equivalent figure for the F/A-18 is just under 37,000lb, so if the F/A-18 was a non-starter on the Essexs, I'd imagine the Tornado was too.
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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #38 on: August 31, 2016, 03:47:01 AM »
Looking at the real world operators of the F-16, it is interesting to contemplate what they may have ordered instead:

 Bahrain
 Belgium
 Chile
 Denmark
 Egypt
 Greece
 Israel
 Indonesia
 Iraq
 Italy - briefly
 Jordan
 Morocco
 Netherlands
 Norway
 Oman
 Pakistan
 Poland
 Portugal
 Republic of China (Taiwan)
 Republic of Korea
 Romania - on order
 Singapore
 Thailand
 Turkey
 United Arab Emirates
 United States
 Venezuela
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Offline perttime

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #39 on: August 31, 2016, 04:08:14 PM »
Looking at the real world operators of the F-16, it is interesting to contemplate what they may have ordered instead:

...
More sales for Mirage 2000 and F1, SAAB Viggen and Gripen, MiG-23.

I'm pretty sure USA would have looked for a domestic solution.

Offline Volkodav

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #40 on: August 31, 2016, 05:55:47 PM »
Looking at the real world operators of the F-16, it is interesting to contemplate what they may have ordered instead:

...
More sales for Mirage 2000 and F1, SAAB Viggen and Gripen, MiG-23.

I'm pretty sure USA would have looked for a domestic solution.

Would love to see more F1 export and more versions of it.  I have often thought that the F1 would have been great to package with Jaguar to cover off more roles more effectively and more cheaply.

Offline Weaver

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #41 on: August 31, 2016, 07:51:48 PM »
Looking at the real world operators of the F-16, it is interesting to contemplate what they may have ordered instead:

...
More sales for Mirage 2000 and F1, SAAB Viggen and Gripen, MiG-23.

I'm pretty sure USA would have looked for a domestic solution.

Would love to see more F1 export and more versions of it.  I have often thought that the F1 would have been great to package with Jaguar to cover off more roles more effectively and more cheaply.

That was what BAC proposed to the F-104 consortium in competition with the F-16. The problem was that Dassault didn't support it, and insisted on pushing the F1-M53 (at that time a paper plane) for the whole requirement.
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Offline Volkodav

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #42 on: August 31, 2016, 08:10:14 PM »
Smart move, they scored a larger share of nothing!

Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #43 on: August 31, 2016, 11:20:21 PM »
Antarctic Eagles ;)

Finland:

Norway:


Regards.

Offline Logan Hartke

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #44 on: August 31, 2016, 11:23:23 PM »
That Norwegian ones looks very natural.

Cheers,

Logan

Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #45 on: September 01, 2016, 02:23:44 AM »
That Norwegian ones looks very natural.

Cheers,

Logan


Thank you!

Thinking a little bit more about the Antarctic Eagles theme, I suddenly realized I could've made a Canadian Eagle as well...but you know, nah!

A Canadian Viggen sounds better:


Regards.

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #46 on: September 01, 2016, 03:07:24 AM »
Love the Norwegian F-15 and the Canadian Viggen
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Offline Crbad

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #47 on: September 01, 2016, 10:57:18 AM »
Would it be possible to put a J-79 in an F-20? They tried putting one in an F-16. What if the USAF put money to develop the Lockheed CL-1200? Perhaps there would be more interest from countries that already had the Starfighter. Would Mig-21s sell better in Asia and the middle East? Maybe Mig-29s later? What kind of price tags do the French and Swedes carry? Sorry, for all the questions but this is an interesting topic.
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Offline elmayerle

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #48 on: September 01, 2016, 11:00:26 AM »
Would it be possible to put a J-79 in an F-20? They tried putting one in an F-16. What if the USAF put money to develop the Lockheed CL-1200? Perhaps there would be more interest from countries that already had the Starfighter. Would Mig-21s sell better in Asia and the middle East? Maybe Mig-29s later? What kind of price tags do the French and Swedes carry? Sorry, for all the questions but this is an interesting topic.
Nope, F-20 airframe is too small for a J79 (J79 is 6" greater in diameter than the F404); J79 in the F-16 fits a smaller engine in place of the F100; not a larger one.  An export F-16 for countries not cleared for the F100 could have used an afterburning TF41.

Offline Weaver

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Re: F-16 never happens
« Reply #49 on: September 01, 2016, 01:26:27 PM »
Would it be possible to put a J-79 in an F-20? They tried putting one in an F-16. What if the USAF put money to develop the Lockheed CL-1200? Perhaps there would be more interest from countries that already had the Starfighter. Would Mig-21s sell better in Asia and the middle East? Maybe Mig-29s later? What kind of price tags do the French and Swedes carry? Sorry, for all the questions but this is an interesting topic.

It's hard to put an actual 'shelf price' on any aircraft because the deals are more complicated than that, involving politics, offsets, subsidies, support contracts etc, etc..

Mirage F.1 was generally affordable. Mirage 2000 was, I think, somewhat more expensive than the F-16, although that might be down to production numbers, and several operators complained about expensive spares backup too.

With Sweden, politics and production scheduling have been bigger problems than price. Several export deals fell through because SAAB was maxed out building aircraft for the Swedish Air Force and the latter wouldn't give up early production slots (the way the French government has frequently made the French Air Force do) to get an export customer an acceptable delivery date. Sweden's ethical export policy has also been very restrictive (at least on conspicuous big-ticket items) so there's no way they'd let themselves sell to many of the customers the French, British and Americans have.
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