Forum: General F-16 forum

Boman wrote:

I think that the problems with the F-22/F-35's is most disturbing - specially when you see that the new Sukhoi T-50 may be operational within 5 years. Why the US+allies have spent more than 10 years to date getting the F-35 flying is causing concern.

I have to giggle to myself every time the someone mentions the projected IOC for for the J-20/T-50 or frets about the numerical superiority of Eastern fighters. While the Russians and Chinese were able to produce vast numbers of 2nd and 3rd generation fighters, a quick visit to our friend Wikipedia reveals that they weren't able to come close to matching the US when it came to 4th generation production. Near as I can tell, the numbers look like:

All Flanker types, including Chinese: 1100
All F-15 types, including Japanese: 1745

All Fulcrum types: 1600
All F-16 types: 4450

Note: These figures don't include for how many aircraft are still operational/up-to-date, in which case, I suspect the gap might be narrower for the F-15 vs Flanker and wider for the F-16 vs Fulcrum. In any case, it seems clear that the F-16 might be the most successful all-around warplane of all time, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it in service/production for a long time yet.

If anyone wants to expand upon or refute these numbers with more detailed research, feel free do so. I'm too lazy to do it myself.

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Please don't kid yourself 1st503rd with regards to any probable default 2020 force structure outlook, staying-the-course (your numbers posted above being completely irrelevant to reality). When compared to rest-of-world next-gen force structures being acquired over the next 10-12 yrs etc, one such as the above assumptions and baseline will soon be surprised... The overall balance of power is going to shift drastically merely due to staying the course come hell or high waters vis-a-vis F-35 procurement. Thinkers and analysts such as pakviper know what they are talking about. They are not being biased or ideological, simply making pragmatic, raw assessments of 'what is what', going forward. Respects-

geogen wrote:

Please don't kid yourself 1st503rd with regards to any probable default 2020 force structure outlook, staying-the-course (your numbers posted above being completely irrelevant to reality). When compared to rest-of-world next-gen force structures being acquired over the next 10-12 yrs etc, one such as the above assumptions and baseline will soon be surprised... The overall balance of power is going to shift drastically merely due to staying the course come hell or high waters vis-a-vis F-35 procurement. Thinkers and analysts such as pakviper know what they are talking about. They are not being biased or ideological, simply making pragmatic, raw assessments of 'what is what', going forward. Respects-

Well, I WAS hoping for some figures of some kind, maybe a source or two, but an un-cited tirade about how we will soon be out-produced? Come on Geo, you need to do better; I know you can do better. The point I was trying to make is that 1980's dire predictions of being outnumbered in 4th generation fighter production never panned out, so there's no reason to panic now. BTW, this is an F-16 thread; we'll have to knock heads about the F-35 somewhere else.

The point being cited... and sorry for the tirade just trying to be blunt as possible - is that by 2020-2025 due to staying the course, USAF will not have anywhere near the expected and banked-on force structure being thrown around (either in still-operating legacy airframe numbers, or in new-build combat-coded F-35s). Now balance that construct with increasingly robust, newly revamped, next-gen 'counter-part' airframe programs being introduced into the mix (and no, not just the spiffy 5th gen models). The general balance of power (in the raw form of counter-part deployed capabilities) is thus likely to change (per default, not by requirement) fairly substantially over the next 10-12 yrs, under the the policy chosen. imho.

Forum: General F-16 forum

Future of F-16