Posted on 02/18/2012 11:31:11 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
New version of the fighter gets radar improvements and more
The Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon has been around for over three decades and so far there have been nearly 4,500 delivered. The F-16 will continue for many years to come and Lockheed Martin has today unveiled a new version called F-16V. The new version of the fighter jet was unveiled at the Singapore Airshow and has new feature enhancements to make the aircraft more formidable.
The F-16 V gets new active electronically scanned array radar (AESA), an upgraded mission computer and architecture, along with improvements inside the cockpit. Lockheed Martin says that all of those new features are things that have been identified by the USAF and international buyers as needing improvement. The AESA radar promises significant capability improvements for the aircraft and Lockheed Martin has developed a solution to affordably retrofit the new radar to existing F-16s.
The new F-16V configuration is now an option for new production aircraft with most elements of the upgrade available for earlier F-16s. The V designation comes from Viper, which is the nickname pilots have given the F-16 since it entered service.
“We believe this F-16V will satisfy our customers’ emerging requirements and prepare them to better interoperate with the 5th generation fighters, the F-35 and F-22,” said George Standridge, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics’ vice president of business development.
Today 26 different countries fly the F-16 and it is hailed as the world's most successful fourth-generation fighter. The upgraded AESA radar will also help F-16V to be more interoperable with fifth-generation fighters like the F-35 and F-22. The USAF is reportedly interested in upgrading between 300 and 350 of its F-16s to the new version.
Lockheed Martin has an order from Iraq that is large enough to keep F-16 production line open until the end of 2015; after that it needs additional orders to keep F-16 production going into 2016.
Sources: Lockheed Martin, F-16.net, flight global
Without vectored thrust, it doesn’t compare to the F35 0r F22. It’s a poor-man,s fighter by today’s technology, no matter how much the cockpit design is improved or the radar and target acquisition equipment is updated.
sell it the russians.
The funds raised in these FReepathons go to pay our current quarter expenses. But we're also going to try to replace some of our older servers and failing equipment this year so we're going to add a little extra to our FReepathon goals. John is estimating ten to fifteen thousand to do this and I'd like to get it all in place and working before the election cycle is fully heated up, so we'll try to bring in a little extra now, if we can, and the rest next quarter.
Jim Robinson
Partly true. The F-35 is not vectored. (unless you refer to the STOVL model which uses vectoring for take off and landin only.)
They have been notified that orders will be down at least 35% next year.
Pu that next to the 237 ship Navy and the 80% reduction in Nukes and you get an idea of where Obama Socialism is taking us.
Came here for a picture, didn't get one.
Surprised they aren’t trying to make it also more stealthy or reduce it’s radar image, like they’ve done to the F-15SE.
I think a F-16SV (stealth viper) would be additionally appealing.
My point exactly. The objective of world wide Socialism is the elimination of the US as a world power.
In the 60's 70's we had very high personal and corporate tax rates. The position of the US is "Where are you going to go where the rule of Law dominates and taxes are fair?"
Then came Reagan.
The Left knew that they had to remove the US as a world power by two roads: devalue the currency and sap our military power.
Look around. We have the FED printing money (when the Treasury could do it), and using that fiat money to buy Treasury Bonds, which are backed by nothing, BUT counted as an asset. Simultaneously we have Obama deconstructing our military.
Don't get me wrong this is not Democrat versus Republican. Nixon started us down this road when he shut the "Gold Window" by revoking the gold standard.
What was happening was we stupidly had a fixed $42 per ounce of gold standard for the dollar.
Our "friends" the French, began buying our gold at $42 and selling it at the market rate of $300 per ounce. Breton Woods was dead.
From my humble point of view that's when the financial world changed.
We were on the road to a very bad place: Socialism.
What happened to F-16E/F through F-16S/T?
Yeah that sounds like a good idea. I mean geez it's not like we've ever given planes to a Muslim country say like Iran and then spent the next 30 years wishing we didn't. I mean the Iraqis are so loyal to us, like forbidding Exxon from having anything to do with their oil fields after we spend over a $trillion liberating their sorry asses from Saddam. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in my life. The only way they should be allowed to buy them is if a non-removable remote self-destruct mechanism is installed that we have the code for.
Loaded out with the most modern US Avionics and Weapons it can take on the most advanced Russian and European aircraft and win.
The "platform" just doesn't matter that much anymore when you're engaging from 75 miles out.
No big deal. We have F-22s to secure air superiority.
the Israeli F16-I 
You may be right on most of your points, perhaps on all of them. But, my statement is more about the personal wishes of Obama to destroy the U.S. The goal of socialism has been mostly accomplished in the U.S., and what remains now is for the final nail to be hammered, and Obama is the person to do it.
The only stealth enhancement you can do with the current platform is to add something like the ‘stealth’ weapons pod that Boeing is proposing for the Super Hornet. It’s not big enough for weapons bays or CFT-launched munitions.
Variants such as the F-16XL and F-16U (once proposed to the UAE) would have had a lower radar cross section given their wing design and would have been able to carry up to 4 AMRAAM missiles semi-conformally like the Eurofighter
And where would those F-22s fly from? We got any land bases that can be depended upon in that neck of the woods, cause the last I checked F-22s didn't launch off of an aircraft carrier. And they haven't proved too reliable with multiple groundings for suspect OBOGS incidents.
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