Will the USAF upgrade their remaining fleet of F-16s (or those models that can be upgraded) to the V model until their scheduled decommissioning in 2025? Does anybody have any information on that?

No "agenda". Just curious. Can't be too careful these days regarding such topics.

From Wikipedia:


Hence the question if those "service life extension upgrades" will bring the current fleet to "V" standards.

Given the tired state of most of the F-16 fleet, it wouldn't be worth significantly upgrading more than the small fraction that are still relatively fresh, and then only in the event that there are drastic future cuts to the F-35 and B-21 programs.

i frankly have no clue what the USAF plans to do or what it should do in the future.


at this point it seems the USAF is completely at a loss as to whether it wants manned aircraft or unmanned aircraft to take the lead in its airforce.

i have the feeling that the USAF is about to become a joke by unmanning its airforce before it's ready.

I highly doubt they'd put the money into upgrading to the V standard. If they did want V-level planes, I think they'd just buy them new, but I don't see that happening either.

Not all of them are old, the final USAF delivery was only in 2005.

As well, the production line is probably going to shut down shortly, so any future new builds would face the considerable hassle of a production restart.

i find it rather amusing how many times the US shuts down aircraft production lines.

out of all the stupid US gov't behavior I think that the shutting down of military aircraft production lines has got to be near the top of the list.

the us gov't is rarely so consistently wrong as it is with the shutdown of aircraft production lines.

The F-16 is still more than capable in countering any potential adversarial aircraft. Upgrading to the V standard would just be icing on the cake.

I don't think the government makes that call, it's up to the manufacturer (Lockheed, in this case). If US isn't buying them, and no one else is, why keep the production lines open? It's a big expense to Lockheed if they're not selling any.

I guess the government could just pay Lockheed to keep it open, but that seems like a lot of money to spend if we don't know that we're going to buy any.

But also keep in mind that potential adversarial aircraft may also include other F-16 variants (among others, E/F Block 60), F-15SAs, Rafales and Eurofighter Typhoons (UAE, Pakistan, India, Saudi-Arabia....possibly even Turkey). Not very likely ATM, but possible.

So, IMO, if you're going to upgrade anyway, spend the extra bucks and do it right. Buy cheap, buy twice.

From what I've gather, they're still fairly competitive with newer designs as far as lower attitude WVR goes, but are showing their age beyond that, especially when it comes down to avionics.

A quick visual example:



Getting V'ed would take care of the avionics issue, but then it becomes a threat to the F-35 and B-21 programs.

Also, bear in mind those nifty new Block 60s are also a little more portly and not nearly as nimble as the older A & C models.

I doubt the USAF will get any of them. Even with the latest F-16s delivered in the early 2000s, it would likely come at brand new F-35's expense.

I have a friend that has worked on the F-16 line for years.
He feels that Lockheed has closed the line with the hopes of diverting all money and time building the new F-35s which has increased in production.
Someone else proposed to do the F-16 upgrades but that deal has not gone through.

I doubt that USAF will get the -V variant of the F-16 either from upgrades or either from being new build aircraft!

While the F-35 had it's delays in the past the program is definitely and currently now on track and on schedule (both in terms of development time and money wise). For example some sources like GAO recently stated that the USAF F-35A IOC would be delayed up to 2 years while USAF made an estimate that the F-35A would reach IOC somewhere from 1st of August up to October of this year but we all know here (I guess) that the F-35A reached IOC in the 2nd of August which proves that the program is definitely back on track despite the delays and cost overruns that it had a few years ago (something which unfortunately is quite "normal" with new and ground-breaking aerospace/technology projects).
So now that the F-35A entered IOC it's F-35 all the way for the USAF!

Regarding the F-16V it will be a great upgrade for air forces that currently operate the F-16, namely variants of the F-16 like the Block 50/52 or the MLU but for reasons such as lack of funds or don't/won't have enough "security clearance" they won't have access to the F-35 in the foreseeable future (for example Portugal in the former/first case or Iraq in the later/second case). For the same reasons there's the potential that new F-16 operators may appear in the future (specially considering the almost "insane" price/cost among potential competitors such as the Typhoon, Rafale and even the Gripen NG). And I believe that this is exactly what LM is aiming to with the F-16V.

Besides F-16 upgrades such as the Block 60 which is more advanced than anything that the USAF has in terms of F-16 variants (where the most advanced variants is still the Block 50/52) have been around for a few years now and USAF didn't show any interest on it, why would it (USAF) show interest on the F-16V?

Well, according to the Wiki article that I have quoted from, the USAF are going to upgrade their whole remaining F-16 fleet ("all USAF F-16s"). So if they are going to do that, anyway, I thought why not upgrade to the best standard there is?

Well, if they are not going "V", then maybe those Block 50/52s will get the Block 60 treatment (or something similar)?

I was thinking that maybe they want to have some options should the F-35s have any further teething problems or other yet unforeseen issues . I remember when the F-22 fleet was grounded temporarily due to problems with oxygen. Imagine if there hadn't still been F-15Cs around to fill the gap (in a hypothetical scenario where the USAF had bought a lot more Raptors and completely retired their F-15s ).

Well Wikipedia is not a 100% reliable source, although I admit I sometimes use it when I need information very quickly but I always keep in mind that Wikipedia has its reliability issues.

Anyway and according to the Wikipedia itself that quote (which is: "However, due to delays in the F-35 program, all USAF F-16s will receive service life extension upgrades") is based on a news from the Air Force Times released in September 2014.
But now 2 years later many things have changed in the meanwhile with for example the F-35B reaching IOC with the Marines during last year (2015) and during this year the F-35A reached IOC with the USAF itself.
This I believe could have changed those USAF plans. And in the end there's always the "available money issue".


I would say (and note this is only my own opinion) that even if some of the USAF's F-16s gets upgraded than this upgrade will be more focused into giving more lifetime to the airframes than any considerable improvements on avionics/sensors and that would be it.
Perhaps the radar of the current USAF F-16 fleet the AN/APG-68 could be improved to its latest version the AN/APG-68(V)9 which has SAR (Synthetic aperture radar) capability but don't expect anything "fancy" such as an AESA radar like the AN/APG-80 which equips the F-16E/F Block 60 or the SABR radar which will equip the F-16V.




I remember that a few years ago the entire USAF F-15 fleet got grounded as well. If I recall correctly it was a problem with the vertical stabilizers so as you can see problems that force a fleet to become grounded for security reasons during peacetime are not exclusive to the newer aircraft such as the F-22 or the F-35. I would even say that in a very few years from now the chances that the entire F-16 or F-15 fleet become grounded due to some technical/mechanical issue will be far higher than the same happening with the F-22 or the F-35.

A larger wing design, as has been proposed for decades, would have restored the lost agility and then some, but it was ruled out on account of potentially being a threat to 5th generation programs.

http://www.f-16.net/g3/var/resizes/f-16-photos/album11/album28/aae.jpg?m=1371937527

@ ricnunes

But that was kinda my point: if one fleet has to be grounded due to problems (potentially) affecting all aircraft of that fleet, having options is not the worst thing.

OTOH, maintaining two fleets of course costs a lot more money, especially if one of those fleets is aging fast.

Regarding a possible upgrade: here's an article from 2016.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense...f-16s/87021372/



Unfortunately the article does not specify the nature of the upgrade, but it says that - like you have mentioned above - the USAF F-16s will not receive an ASEA radar.

You want the F-16 Agile:

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_versions_article21.html

The Japanese developed the bigger wing for the F-2A with quite a few problems.........and its real value probably only involves extra fuel and 2 more weapon pylons in reality.

(Of course for an even bigger wing see F-16XL)

The US F-16 upgrade was called CAPES and was quite involved but that was ditched.

The FY17 Presidential budget includes a lesser upgrade

The purpose of the F-16 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar program is to develop, test, integrate, procure, install and sustain AESA radars plus spares for the Air National Guard, Air Force
Reserve, and the active duty Air Force F-16s, across all blocks of F-16 aircraft (Block 30/32/40/42/40/52). The new AESA radar will replace the legacy mechanically-scanned AN/APG-68 radar.

Development for the AESA JUON Radar effort begans in FY16.