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Comment by coldcode | Hacker News Reader

Having worked on the F16 at one point in my career it kicks the F35 is the ass every day and twice on Sunday. Plus you can buy 20 of them for every F35. It's all about money though, the F16 is too cheap to keep Lockheed in business no matter how much you upgrade it.

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Can you elaborate a little more on which aspects of the 40 year old F-16 design you think is better than the F-35? After looking on the Wikipedia page[0][1] it looks for me that the F-35 outperforms the F-16 in all aspects:

  |------------------------|-----------|----------|
  |                        | F-16      | F-35     |
  |------------------------|-----------|----------|
  | Maximum speed          | Mach 1.2  | Mach 1.6 |
  | Combat radius          | 550 km    | 1 080 km |
  | Dry thrust             | 76.3 kN   | 125 kN   |
  | Thrust w. afterburner  | 127 kN    | 191 kN   |
  | First flight           | 1974      | 2006     |
  |------------------------|-----------|----------|

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_...

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...

Range, thrust, and power to weight are just a few performance parameters.

It's somewhat more difficult to get accurate turn performance and acceleration information about the F-35. If I understand correctly (again, can't really find anything but conjecture for performance charts) while the F-35 has more sophisticated aerodynamic designs, the large cross-section looks to be a disadvantage in turn rates and acceleration (especially trans sonic).

This is contrary to what the test pilots and others bringing the aircraft to IOC have reported. Granted, test pilots work for the manufacturer and might be biased, but regular aviators who have flown the aircraft are confirming its excellent performance.

Those aren't necessarily 1:1. Note that the combat radius of the F16 includes 4x1,000lb bombs.

Assuming the Falcon figure is for a fully-loaded plane, it wins on thrust-to-weight ratio.

Rate of climb on the F35 is classified, so can't be compared.

You need to add weight, and wing loading area, and what G's the plane is rated at. These are key variables.

The F-16's max speed is far greater than Mach 1.2, I thought, or at least it used to be before they added on weight to the thing.

It's also well known that the designers optimized the F-16's ability to quickly lose/gain kinetic energy, what they call "dump and pump". This is hard to quantify.

Some of the "nextgen" fighter capabilities widely touted are "supercruising" (i.e. supersonic flight without afterburner) and thrust vectoring, i.e. changing directions quickly by nozzling engine thrust off center. Amusing, the original YF-16A prototype could supercruise, and execute a "buttonhook turn" maneuver, without the fancy 21st century engines.

Imagine what the F-22's P&W F119 engine could do in a modernized F-16 airframe....

The assumption with the F-35 seems to be that technology (better sensors & automation) will overcome performance & armament disparities. This is not a new assumption in the air superiority game, but I don't think history's been kind to it to this point.

You're right, history hasn't been kind. The F-4 going into service with only missiles an no internal cannon is a pretty good example. After all, the new missiles would overcome and air combat maneuvering was a thing of the past.

Actually, Boyd's breakthrough in allowing designers to quantify a plane's ability to gain and lose energy is pretty much what led to the F16 and F15 being so good at it. It's true that it doesn't boil down easily to a single number, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-Maneuverability_theory

Not sure howthe "First Flight" statistic has anything to do with one out-performing the other...

The F-16 has Mach 2+ top speed, the Mach 1.2 figure is "at sea level", so the F-35 is significantly outclassed there, not just by the F-16, but also by most potential adversaries.

One advantage that the F-35 does have is "super cruise", the ability to go supersonic without afterburners (F-22 and Eurofighter Typhoon have the same ability). Other fighters are restricted to subsonic speeds except for short supersonic dashes.

Total thrust is not particularly interesting for a fighter's performance, thrust-to-weight ratio is, and the F-35 is quite a bit heavier. The F-16 has slightly better than 1:1 "loaded", with the F-35 only getting there by restricting it to 50% fuel.

I am not sure how exactly combat radius is calculated, but the combat radius of the F-16 is listed as half of that of the F-35 and to get decent thrust-to-weight you have to halve to F-35's fuel. Go figure.

One more thing to consider is that the combat radius appears to be with internal fuel only. The F-35 being a stealth design, it has been "optimized" for internal carriage of weapons and fuel, whereas with the F-16 you probably just add a drop-tank if you need more range.

A clean F-16 might have Mach 2 as its top speed, but not even close to that with bags and bombs.

F16 has good reputation. F35 does not.

The ability to field ten times as many planes at the same cost should probably figure in an evaluation...

Current fly away costs estimates for the F-35 are in the neighborhood of 100-150M. Current fly away costs for Block 50+ F-16 are in the 100M range depending on electronics suite. It's been a long, long time since you could buy an F-16 for $5M.

Also, the F-35 is more maneuverable than the current F-16s which have to hang a ton of armament on pylons, as well as drop tanks to get range equivalent to the F-35. And try flying any F-16 into S300 range.

Now the criticisms of the F-35B (Marine STOVL variant) are semi-valid, and have affected some facets of the F-35A and F-35C. But other than cost overruns, the performance of the aircraft will be fine.

I think the F-16 over the years has suffered from mission creep, that has added weight and decreased performance.

Then again, thinking about this, the USAF really plans on logistics, and most of the plans I've seen really focus on how plans can carrying something (usually bombs) to a place, from far away, and flying around enemy radar and other badness. They really need the equivalent of a fedex truck that can't be shot down.

Yes, the F-16's performance has suffered greatly as it's become more "multi-mission."

Ironically, the philosophy for the F-15 was "not a pound for air to ground" yet both it and the F-14 (in its F-14D Bombcat config) turned out to be exceptional tactical bombers. The F-16 isn't bad, but because of the small wing has far less range than the Mudhen or the F-35.

> Current fly away costs for Block 50+ F-16 are in the 100M range depending on electronics suite.

Any sources for this claim? The details on sales deals are scarce, but from what I gather Block50/52 models should be in the $40M range, or maybe even as low as $15M. The major exception being UAEs heavily modified Block60 which seem to go for significantly higher (in the $100M range).

Turkey bought 30 Block 50s at $2.9B, which is a hair under $100M, but I was really referring more to the UAE Block 60.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/turkey-orders-30-f16c-bl...

This is the key line (key bits in italics):

>On Sept 28/06, the US DSCA (Defense Security Cooperation Agency) notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Turkey of 30 more F-16C Block 50 aircraft external link, as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $2.9 billion.

Thus, the money includes any of spares, ground equipment, special tooling, weapons, and training. I can tell you from my experience on the F-22A program that these items can add significant cost to an overall buy, and I would not be surprised if 1/3 or more of that price was the extras rather than the airplanes.

Yeah, this came up a lot when I tried to search for past deals. That's why finding a real figure for the price of the plane seems really difficult, even for a plane as widespread as the F-16.

The F-16 design was too well done for its own good. Its history as a "no compromise" design (at least in the beginning, before Pentagon paper pushers got to it) from the "Fighter Mafia" is well known.

I don't think this is to replace the F16. The F22 replaces them. How do you think the F35 compares to the F18 ?

I don't believe this is accurate.

The F-16 is the "low" part of the "high/low" multirole fighter strategy. For the air force, the "high" jet is the F-15. The F-22 is predominantly designed for air superiority, and thus is most directly a replacement for the F-15C. Whether it really even replaces the F-15C is questionable, since the quantity produced is extremely small compared to the overall legacy fighter fleet.

The assumption is that gap will be filled by the F-35 and the F-16 will be replaced by the F-35.

I thought it was F-16 as the high fighter and the F-18 as the low fighter ?

Nope. F-16 and F-18 are of comparable class, F-18 being built for Navy requirements and F-16 for Air Force. IIRC they even evolved from a common program at one point. They separated as Navy and AF do not mix well, as is demonstrated by the JSF program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Fighter_program

Dutchman here. We're buying the F-35 'Flying Piano' to replace our F-16's...

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