Posted on 01/17/2011 8:24:15 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
F-16 aircraft looks out for a celebrity
Prashanth G N, TNN, Jan 18, 2011
BANGALORE: The Americans have set their marketing wheels on motion again. Lockheed Martin has launched a search for "the right celebrity" to match the power and style of its aircraft F-16IN Super Viper, that is flying in February's Aero India show.
Lockheed is confident of finalizing the celebrity by the first week of February. "We should finalize the personality just ahead of the air show," Lockheed representatives told TOI on Monday.
The US has been trying every window of opportunity to market the F-16 in India. It has offered rides to Indian celebrities in the 2007 and 2009 air shows. While Ratan Tata flew the aircraft in 2007, Abhinav Bindra did the 2009 flight. A Delhi-based journalist was the first Indian woman to fly the F-16IN in 2009.
This year, the US is looking forward to a grand flight in the show, after which India will decide on the purchase of 126 fighters among six aircraft, including the F-16IN, that it has tested.
MARKETING WITH A BANG
The US is the first western nation to market its fighter planes through strategies like celebrity rides, permitting easy access to its fighters and simulators. People were pleasantly shocked in 2007 when the US chose to fly celebs in its fighter aircraft -- that too when it was believed that the F-16 would not enter India, following its supposed success during the Gulf war.
FOR THE FEEL OF IT
Like in 2009, this year too, Lockheed will permit select persons to fly the F-16 simulator that will be installed either at the air show venue or at a star hotel. A ride has also been planned on the US C-130J transport aircraft. India has purchased six of these.
That is a mean looking bird!
That is a mean looking bird!
I think the gas cap is off...near the tail.
That looks like an APU inlet. No idea why it would be open.
Weird huh?
Do you mean Apu Nahasapeemapetilon?
LOL!
As spokesperson I reccomend Catherine Bell of ‘JAG’ fame.
That’s the one. I never can remember how to spell his last name. ~;)
Okay, what are the two humps on the wing roots?
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