F-16 fighter jets that first flew as early as 45 years ago are still in widespread service. Of the 4588 F-16s that have been in service since 1978, 3000 are still in service and are equipped in 25 countries and regions. The air force is equivalent to about 15% of the total number of global fighter jets. The F-16 has become the most popular and most widely used fighter in the world, with production lines in the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Korea and Turkey.
F-16 Fort Worth production line
F-16 is indeed exhausted in some aspects, especially the sensors, but the aircraft’s mobility and agility are still extremely Competitive, the lightly loaded F-16 is still extremely threatening in line-of-sight air combat. The excellent basic design makes the F-16 very suitable for modernization and upgrades, so many modern improvements and derivatives of the F-16 have appeared so far.
In 1984, General Dynamics proposed the F-16 "Agile Falcon" program as a low-cost alternative to the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program. The "Agile Falcon" wing area has been increased by 25%, the engine has been upgraded and some basic F-16 improvements have been incorporated. Although the "Agile Falcon" eventually lost to the F-22, some of its features were introduced into the production of F-16C/D Block 40, and greatly affected the development of Japan's Mitsubishi F-2 support fighter.
"Agile Falcon"
At roughly the same time, General Dynamics developed a large-scale redesigned arrow delta for the Enhanced Tactical Fighter (ETF) project F-16XL, as a result, the aircraft lost to the F-15E "Strike Eagle" in February 1984. In 1993, General Dynamics proposed the F-16X "Falcon 2000" with a similar concept. The wing shape changed from an arrow-shaped delta to a butterfly-like F-22, and it was sold to the UAE under the name of F-16U.
F-16XL
F-16U
It is obvious that the major redesign of the above advanced modification is not cost-effective at all, so Lockheed Martin will subsequently Attention is turned to conservative upgrades to the F-16, retaining the basic structure of the F-16C/D, and upgrading new sensors and systems to enhance combat effectiveness.
The first attempt in this regard is F-16ES (Strategic Enhanced), which is an extended-range model of F-16C/D, equipped with low-altitude navigation and night infrared targeting (LANTIRN "Blue Shield") pods The built-in low-resistance photoelectric sighting system developed on the system is also equipped with a conformal fuel tank (CFT). The range of the standard F-16C Block 50 is increased by 40%.
F-16ES verification machine
F-16ES was promoted to Israel at the end of 1993 as a replacement for F-15I, which eventually led to the UAE The developed F-16E/F Block 60 came out.
DESERT Falcon
With liquid-cooled AN/APG-80 active phased array radar, new electronic warfare system, more powerful General Electric F110-GE-132 engine, built-in front When the Block 60 "Desert Falcon" entered service in 2005, it was undoubtedly the most advanced and most combative F-16. Some people insist that until today, the aircraft can still retain this title.
F-16E
It is worth noting that although it is very advanced, the UAE is still the only customer of Block 60. Part of the reason is that the United States is worried that Block 60 will affect the sales of the new F-35 joint strike fighter, and part of the reason is that many sensitive systems on the F-16E/F cannot be exported due to changes in US export regulations.
AN/APG-80 radar
This led Lockheed Martin (which acquired General Dynamics’ aircraft division in 1993) to sell Block 60 to Singapore, to sell Block 60-based F-16IN to India, and to sell the so-called F-16BR to Brazil. "Super Viper" (Super Viper) Block 62+ repeatedly hit the wall. The F-16IN was announced at the Indian Airshow in 2009 and participated in India's medium multirole fighter (MMRCA) bidding. The aircraft is called the F-16IN "Super Viper" Block 70/72, but it has no similarities with today's F-16V Block 70.
The original F-16IN, to a certain extent, is more advanced than the current F-16IN
Even the UAE requested in 2014 to buy another 30 slightly improved F- At 16E/F Block 61, it was also rejected by the U.S. government, which basically cut off the export of the "Desert Falcon".
The U.S. Air Force’s plan to build an all-stealth fighter fleet also dispelled Lockheed’s idea of selling Block 60 to it. In fact, General Dynamics delivered 2,231 U.S. Air Force F-16s in March 2005. The last batch of Block 52.
upgrade and life extension
However, the continuous delay of the F-35 project prevented the aircraft from directly replacing the F-16 according to the original schedule, which forced the US Air Force to start. A project was made to maintain the overdue service of 300-400 F-16s and wait for the slowly increasing number of F-35s.
The US Air Force plans to implement two upgrades at the same time, one is the F-16 Structural Life Extension (SLEP) Upgrade, the other is the CAPES upgrade, which extends the life and upgrades the avionics at the same time to enable the F-16 to continue to serve while improving the survivability and combat capabilities.
The aircraft to be upgraded is selected from approximately 640 Block 40/42 and 50/52 batch F-16C/Ds in active service of the US Air Force, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Squadron. According to the plan, the upgraded F-16 will remain in service until after 2048. The
SLEP upgrade is designed to extend the life of the F-16 from the current 8,000 hours to 12,000 hours, thereby adding 8-10 years of additional service life to each aircraft. This upgrade is being implemented. Some F-16s will replace the wing or replace the upper wing skin and related accessories during the life extension. In addition, many outer skins and some structures of the fuselage will also be replaced.
F-16 wing undergoing structural refurbishment
CAPES upgrade includes the replacement of new active phased array radar, Terma AN/ALQ-213 electronic warfare system, and integrated broadcasting system (IBS), Cockpit Central Display Unit (CDU) and new supporting flight procedure software. IBS promises to enable F-16 pilots to obtain a deeper level of data fusion, linking the aircraft's own sensors with external information from the data link, and displaying them on a unified display, which is a high-resolution CDU display. It can also display synthetic aperture radar map and sighting pod video. The automated AN/ALQ-213 electronic warfare system can greatly reduce the workload of pilots and has a greatly improved human-machine interface.
The new cockpit brought by the CAPES upgrade
Phased array radar
Compared with the existing mechanical scanning radar, the performance is significantly improved, especially in terms of tracking accuracy, which will improve the effectiveness and kill rate of long-range missiles. In the long run, this phased array radar also has huge upgrade potential, can be used as a data link and has electronic attack capabilities. Since the phased array radar has no moving parts, the overall reliability will be significantly improved. In fact, even if up to 20% of the transmitter/receiver components are damaged, the performance of the radar will not be significantly affected. Production radarThe lifespan of the aircraft can be the same as that of the aircraft, or even twice the latter, without major repairs during the period. The
F-16 radar modification kit is designed without the need to modify the aircraft's A-level structure or wiring. The radar has its own liquid cooling heat exchanger and can use the existing F-16 radome and nose space.
Northrop Grumman developed the AN/APG-68 mechanical scanning radar for F-16 and the AN/APG-80 phased array radar for Block 60. The company provides AN/APG-83 active phased array radar for the CAPES upgrade. This radar is also called variable agile beam radar (SABR). It is derived from the F-35's AN/APG-81 radar. Replace the existing F-16 radar.
AN/APG-83
Norge’s dominance on the F-16 radar was challenged by Raytheon, Raytheon proposed the "Super Hornet" fighter AN/APG -79 A reduced version of the active phased radar AN/APG-84, which was originally called the Raytheon Next Generation Radar and later renamed the Raytheon Advanced Combat Radar (RACR). RACR uses AN/APG-79 and F-15E "Strike Eagle" AN/APG-82 radar architecture and many technologies.
AN/APG-84
The CAPES upgrade was cancelled in 2014 due to cost reasons. At this time, Lockheed Martin had selected the Northrop Grumman SABR radar for the upgrade.
At the same time, in March 2015, the US Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) issued a request for information to the contractor, requesting that some F-16C/D replace APG-68 radars for research and development, especially the National Police Force. Aircraft that perform aerospace control early warning missions. An F-16D from Edwards Air Force Base was used as the F-16 Radar Modernization Project (RMP) test bed to test SABR and RACR radars.
In June 2017, the U.S. Air Force selected AN/APG-83 radar to upgrade the National Police Force’s 72 F-16s to meet the U.S. Northern Command’s joint emergency operations requirements on homeland air defense. Ultimately, the U.S. Air Force hopes to use AN/APG-83 radar to upgrade 372 F-16s.
F-16V was born
Lockheed Martin at the 2012 Singapore Air Show for commercial purposes The F-16 with this upgraded configuration is officially called F-16V (V stands for "Viper", which is the informal nickname of F-16). According to different engine options, the batch of the aircraft is officially defined as Block 70 or 72, Taiwan is called the launch customer of this model. On October 16, 2015, the first F-16V prototype flew for the first time with SABR radar and F100-PW-229 engine.
F-16V can be a newly-manufactured aircraft or an upgrade kit. So far, the aircraft has obtained upgrade kits or new aircraft purchases from many countries and regions, and it is the F-16IN of India that has been completely transformed.
Although promised to be produced in India, the Block 60-based F-16IN still lost to the French Rafale in the MMRCA competition in India. After India’s “Rafale” orders were significantly reduced from 126 aircraft to only 36 aircraft, Lockheed Martin saw hope again and began to sell Block 70 to the country to replace the Indian Air Force’s aging MiG-21 and MiG- 27.
If it wins, Lockheed Martin will jointly manufacture the aircraft in India with Tata Advanced Systems Co., Ltd., and allow India to export the F-16 manufactured on its production line. In February 2019, Lockheed Martin will fly again in India. The F-21 fighter concept specially supplied by India was introduced at the exhibition. The aircraft is a further enhanced F-16V Block 70/72. The cockpit has a large-size display and is equipped with triple AIM-120 medium-range missile launching rail conformal fuel tanks. It is integrated with a retractable refueling probe.
F-21
in the first YF-16After 45 years of flying, the F-16V proved to be still a powerful product in the current medium-sized fighter market. It has grabbed a lot of market share in the competition, which proves the forward-looking design of the aircraft.
YF-16首飞
