Once there were many popular lightweight fighter aircraft:
Some samples of 60th - 70th front line aircraft by an empty weight:
MiG-21 ~10,000lb
Mirage III ~15,000lb
F-5E ~10,000lb
F-104 ~14,000lb
Later the weight of even smallest production aircraft increased, the 80th:
Mirage 2000 -16,300lb
F-16A - 16,300lb (the lightest model of all)
Now in 90ths and 2000th we can see some weight reduction in fighter aircraft
Saab Gripen - 12,600lb
AIDC F-CK-1 - 14,300lb
HAL Tejas - 14,300lb
KAI FA-50 - 14,300lb
All the planes with good T/W ratio having good missile and bomb load flying from 1.6 to 2.0M.
Note the reduction of the weight? Also some of them are not considered as frontline fighters like F-16 (apart of Gripen) and rather the replacement of aging lightweight fighters, AIDC F-CK-1 designed to replace F-5 and HAL Tejas is replacement for aging MiG-21 Bison and the FA-50 is rather upgraded trainer (with latest avionics and good engine)
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Interesting factors:
- With modern electronic technology the avionics weight become lower
- The carbon fiber reinforced plastic allows to build a lightweight airframes + improvement in engines it is easier to improve T/W ratio even for small fighters.
- They are much cheaper to operate and still carry relatively good load of bombs/missiles...
What do you think? Will we see more lightweight fighters in the main stream (empty weight <=15K) or they would be the "underdogs" in the modern fighter aircraft environments?