Forum: General F-16 forum

Also consider this guys... the JSF is the last manned fighter we'll see.

Food for thought...

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Guest, the F-14 is still a very capable airframe. Where it loses points to the Super Bugs is in growth potential and in maintenance. The F-14 is notorious for having a very high "maintenance hours to flight hours" (MH/FH) ratio, much higher than the Bugs. I'm not necessarily an F/A-18 fan but the fact is the F/A-18 flight readiness is much higher than the F-14. All the superior capability in the world won't help if your jet is stuck in the hangar because it is not flight-worthy.

JMHO, GregD

It's pretty much final that the last F-16s will be phased out by 2030 as of the latest.

So sad, but nonetheless so true, Crying or Very sad

question though, just how successful was the F-16, in terms of numbers that is? I mean, I don't expect it to be the most successful of all - time or anything, but, if there were a list of the most successful fighters of all time, how high would the F-16 rank in terms of numbers, i.e. which fighters were produced more than the F-16 and/or served more countries?

Over 5,000 F-4 Phantom IIs were produced, I believe that is the 'record' for US military jets. I don't know the number but I think the MiG-21 has been produced in greater numbers than any western jet fighter. C-130 Hercules production is over 2200 so far.

Are we talking jets? Cuz if you're talking pure numbers, there's many a WWII aircraft for which 5,000 is a pittance. Me-109, and Il-2 come to mind...

The calendar on my wall says that over 18,000 B-24s were built, many of those at Plant 4, the same assembly line that now makes F-16s. (gently steering this thread back on topic)

Well, F-16 will remain in USAF at least untill factories build enough JFS to sell to US military branches and whole bunch of countries.

The North American F-86 Sabre has tha actual 'record' for American military jets, speaking of numbers. Some 5,000 were built by North American, and I think that aroud 3,000 more were built in the world, all in all. I'll check the precise number.

About F-16 replacement, do not forget the economic part. For example, Netherlands ( after very harsh political debates ) has decided to belong to the JSF team, beacause they expected to get a big industrial part in the program.

ABOUT how many F-16s are there right now? And I guess it's obvious now that a great deal of planes are more successful number wise than the F-16, but do you think it'll be safe to say that the F-16 is the most successful fighter of this modern era?

Forum: General F-16 forum

Do you think the F-16 will be replaced soon?