Dogfight : F35 vs F16

[GScholz]

The F-16A may have cost that in the late 1970s. The F-16 is still in production, and a new Block 60 F-16E/F will cost you upwards of $60 million. Typically $80+ million with optional equipment.

... if the F-35 gets in the dogfight to begin, he's screwed up.

No more so than any other jet fighter.

[GScholz]

The Upgraded Block 61 F-16E+ the UAE bought cost them almost $200 million each. The technology in these jets is exceedingly expensive these days.

[PJ_Godzilla]

18.8 was C/D... Raising the question, how did UAE manage to outprice F-35..?

[GScholz]

F-16C/D was back in the 1980s. A new F-16E = $60M+. F-18E = $60M. Eurofighter = £125M. Rafale C = €69M. F-15K: $100M.

No such thing as a cheap modern fighter jet. Not in the west anyway. The cheapest you could get is probably the JAS-39 Gripen E. I've seen unit flyaway price estimates as low as $49 million.

[Krusty]

I'd say, after that, you're better off sending 7 F-16s. Pity we can't re-spool the lines. Why 7? Because, at 18.8M per copy, that's how many you get for the cost of one F-35 STRIKE fighter.

Price per hour of flight time is quite high on F-16s these days. Your price is far below actual cost as well.

However, to answer the quoted part above, all you need to do is look up HUD cam footage on youtube of an F-16 strike package trying to enforce a no-fly zone over Kuwait or Iraq or whatever it was. The entire strike was delayed diverted, disrupted, and essentially shut down by the amount of SAMs filling the skies. They were 100% defensive for half an hour straight and ended up pulling back (and, if I recall losing a plane or two in the process) and evading for their lives the entire way out.

Just saying "Send the F-16s in" doesn't work. It hasn't worked in a long time. Look at the cost/benefit analysis done for the F-117 during Gulf War. Instead of needing an entire HARM strike team and supporting jammers just to temporarily disrupt some of the SAM centers, then on top of that needing multiple redundancies in the planes assigned and payloads because they would be stopped before dropping or have to evade, and on top of THAT needing AWACs, tankers at 3 or 4 positions along the route to refuel these 100-plane missions, 4 F-117s could do on their own with no support.

That was in 1990. The F-16 is old (and falling apart these days) and sending it into a hot area doesn't work. Hasn't worked since the late 1980s. This is a 1970s short range interceptor design. It was never built or designed for strike capabilities, or even for long range flights.

[GScholz]

...how did UAE manage to outprice F-35..?

They're the first production of a new model, so they naturally incur more development costs. In time it will come down to the $60 million range. The most advanced F-16s in the world aren’t American. That distinction belongs to the UAE, whose F-16 E/F Block 60/61s are a half-generation ahead of the F-16 Block 50/52+ aircraft that form the backbone of the US Air Force, and of many other fleets around the world. The Block 60 has been described as a non-stealth budget alternative to the F-35A, and there’s a solid argument to be made that their performance figures and broad sensor array will even keep them ahead of pending F-16 modernizations in countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore.

The UAE invested in the "Desert Falcon’s" development, and the contract reportedly includes royalty fees if other countries buy it. Investment doesn’t end when the fighters are delivered, either. Money is still needed for ongoing training, fielding, and equipment needs, and the UAE has decided that they need more planes too.

It's a very good fighter, but... no stealth. To continue the submarine analogy it's a fast and maneuverable sub with good sensors, but it is noisy...

[Vraciu]

18.8 was C/D... Raising the question, how did UAE manage to outprice F-35..?

It didn't.

The (total program cost per) unit of the JSF is seven to FIFTEEN times that of any F-16.   And then you get to pay for the motor.

I've posted the numbers over and over and over again.

Unit price per a 2015 Defense Committee report (US Congress):

F-35A (USAF) costs $148 million.
F-35B (USMC) costs $251 million.
F-35C (USN) costs $337 million.

And don't give me this "current unit cost" argument because that doesn't fly.  If I buy ten airplanes at $300M and get ten more for free then they each cost me $150M.

[Krusty]

Math is funny in how you can make up a lot of things and justify the outcome because numbers add up. Looks like somebody's been reading too much "war is boring" blogs.

Fact is that every US congressional report that comes out since the first two planes posted a price tag of 220+ Million Dollars (sans engine) has been dropping significantly. That includes multiple reports within the same year, and going from batch to batch. Meanwhile inflation has been rising steadily while that price has been going down. That 80-85 Million range will be when it is in full production and not LRIP (Limited Range Initial Production) batches. That should kick in for the full production run in 2018. LRIP is always more expensive, but allows for rapid advancements in design changes on the production line which otherwise might take 10+ years, as with the F-16s.

Let's look at some other production (not LRIP) costs per-plane:

Eurofighter: 119 Mil
F-15K: 108 Mil
Rafale B: 98 Mil
Super Hornet -E (more recently marketted versions cost more, even): 78 Mil
Jas-39C: 69 Mil

Even sans engines, its price point is middle of the pack but its performance or "sales-points" if you prefer blows all the competition off the scorecard. In actual performance so far it has been a rockstar compared to currently serving combat-ready airframes. Keep in mind that's with a 7-G limitation on the software, which won't fully unlock until final production starts in 2018.

You'll notice the F-16 isn't on that list. That's because the 1974 era design is breaking down and horribly limited in what you can upgrade. It doesn't have any space, any cooling or even enough power generation to add on countless computer modules and technology upgrades. It's a dead end. The USAF has in recent years spent multiple Billions (with a B) on just stiffener plates and similar updates to keep the 1995-era F-16C/Ds semi-functioning in this modern day. Almost all of the airframes are at the very limit of their operational lifespan (allowed flight hours) and are developing microfractures in multiple bulkheads and wing mount points. Keep in mind this is just a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The stiffener plates are also externally tacked on, so it's not like they had to rip the sucker apart and put them on the inside of the plane. That's why those UAE F-16 E/F models are so damn expensive: They have every possible modernization packed into them -- no possible upgrades after that point -- and they have been heavily modified from the cheap original models. If production began on brand-new F-16s and the F-35 magically didn't exist, we'd be paying even more than the UAE for updated F-16 airframes (which would still have all the current deal-breaking shortcomings that the F-16 has now).

A good reference point on just how bulky and ungainly and unwanted these stiffener plates are can be found on the usaf-sig website. Remember the USAF had to allocate BILLIONS of dollars for this program just to keep these in the air until the F-35 is ready. This and other MLU projects for the F-16 have been costing hundreds of millions of dollars of additional operating costs to many international users as well.
http://www.usaf-sig.org/images/stories/Kit_Corrections/Viper_Article/Nirel2.jpg

And that's just to keep it from falling apart in mid-air, like some F-15s did not too long ago. Super Hornets are already past this point and are being retired to non-combat roles. They're taking legacy hornets (Cs and Ds) from low-hour units like the Marines or training squadrons and giving them the worn-our Super Hornets and using the still-viable legacy Hornets. To use a controversial example: The real reason the F-14 was retired was not the price per airframe, but the operating costs and maintenance costs. The common joke was to let Iran have more F-14s and they'd go bankrupt inside 5 years.

Every aviation branch in our military is horribly desperate for this F-35 airframe. That's a basic fact. We need new aircraft -- and I mean new designs, not "more of a 1970s design that doesn't work." So we're going to get them, regardless of what plane it is. Look at the options. The price point of the F-35 is comparable to any other contemporary that might even be a remote option, yet the F-35 in its LRIP state with software limitations is still besting all the competition in every example in any international competition it participates in.

No matter how you try to coin a phrase or create a perjorative name for it, this plane is coming, it will be the primary fighter of our air services (much as I have issues with the cross-service platform), and it is already performing better than anything we've got flying right now. That's not counting the fact it won't even be "finalized" for 2-3 more years.


What exactly do you want? Objectively looking at the price point, looking at the capabilities, looking at what progress they're making and how close they are to full production, what, exactly, are you crying out for or lamenting? The points you keep bringing up have little or no merit, IMO. There are many points you have made that are good (i.e. cheap marketting fluff to not include engine price in the cost), but these are not "deal breakers" so to speak and the ones you latch onto are unsubstantiated and even refuted by the facts.


As for me? I personally hate how they took one plane and forced it to be the basis of all three branches. That hasn't worked out most times in the past (with some exceptions) and kills/stifles the aviation world's minimal remaining competitive natures. They keep this up and we'll have a monopoly going which will just churn out crap and we have no alternative. Also, the variations are too much from branch to branch when they don't need to be. That ruins the entire point of using the same airframe. Have the AF unit use the same nose gear as the naval unit, for example. WHY create cost delays and problems and production divergence to implement hundreds of minor changes like that? The USAF used A-7s, F-4s, and other aircraft designed for the Navy with only moderate changes in the past. Tell them to suck it up or have fun in their grounded F-16 fleet. Seriously!

I have many issues I can bring up that are all very valid problems with this project and how it's been run so far. I am not happy in the least. Objectively, however, the constant wolf-cries of "the end is near!!!" get old.

I think that's all I'm going to say on this thread anymore. It's becoming repetitive. I welcome comments in general to further the conversation, discussion, or debate. There's not enough of that here to justify this thread. It's borderline politics, which I won't get sucked into.

[PJ_Godzilla]

I don't want to quote the long screed, but I'll paraphrase. It's in your third from last paragraph. only speaking for myself.

And that's also why counter evidence isn't viable.

F-16 is probably getting a lot of unquestioned love because it was developed to a much more pure design brief. As you noted in the para I cite, F-35 is developed to a compromised design brief, very likely in the name of realizing the cost-efficient side of what you note higher in your post; the price-volume death spiral. As volume decreases, the amount of fixed cost amortized per unit increases. That goes for not just the finished product but for example, the nose gear you cite.

But it's, in past at least, shown to be a false idol. However, there is no alternative, in this case. We don't, and can't, as you note, establish what could have been developed under purer design briefs for the F-35s multiple roles. Itr's a hypothetical argument versus a reality.

That's the nature of my beef, even as I've acknowledged that, yes, the pure design brief constraints may have changed... and yes, the F-16 is a limited and dated design with a big signature, radar-wise and probably thermally.

One small question remains in my mind regarding the purchase of incremental F-16s at this time, however. If UAE is still purchasing E models, then I'm assuming production capacity must still exist for them. I'd further assume that the price quoted baked in some production number assumptions on that capacity. I'd be curious to know just what the variaable cost is, as opposed to the fully accounted. 

[LCADolby]

So many pages of bile... Not one of you here realise that all this is back and forth is an appalling waste of time, go outside and play, you must be Vitamin D deficient by now.

[PJ_Godzilla]

I contest your point, and think it needs 56 pages worth of exhausting argumentation wrung from it.

Actually, that's exactly why I hijack late, then post and bail early. However, I also want to give Scholz some credit for getting me up to speed with a quick mental snapshot of the current environment. It's been over twenty years since I left the defense industry for the beloved Blue Oval, as I'm sure he could tell from my thinking about the threat environment.

 It's about 6a here. Time to go.

[Vraciu]

Another true believer or am I reading you wrong?

I have already made many of your points.   These were dismissed by the JSF cheerleader class.  They believe the official party line of the USAF and Marine Corps Flying Clubs.

For an abysmally low "joint" airframe percentage we get a flawed design that serves no one well for a ridiculous cost.   All of this because of the Marine obsession with a capability it has never used--and will never use. 

Our teen series is breaking down because we aren't procuring them.  This leaves the rest of the fleet--and those in the boneyard--to take the load until the Joint Strike Failure comes online.   I would rather buy Silent Eagles as a stop gap over this thing. 

This airplane is an expensive waste of time. 

It is not an F-22.  It was never meant to be an F-22.  It will never be an F-22. 

It is not an air superiority fighter.   It is an attack jet with limited self-defense capability.   That's it.

[GScholz]

However, I also want to give Scholz some credit for getting me up to speed with a quick mental snapshot of the current environment.

You're welcome.


Finally we have some concrete info on how pilots rate the F-35 compared to other aircraft. The Heritage Foundation has interviewed 31 F-35 pilots and made a report on their findings.

The whole report: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26232318/AH/BG3140.pdf

“Even pre-IOC, this jet has exceeded pilot expectations for dissimilar combat. (It is) G-limited now, but even with that, the pedal turns are incredible and deliver a constant 28 degrees/second. When they open up the CLAW, and remove the (7) G-restrictions, this jet will be eye watering.”



 

[PJ_Godzilla]

Another true believer or am I reading you wrong?


[/b]
It is not an air superiority fighter.   It is an attack jet with limited self-defense capability.   That's it.

No. See my note prior to Dolby's post. The real issue here, and the deficiency we face in arguing against the F-35, is that we're pitting a hypothetical "pure" design, indeed possibly 2, given the multirole nature of the '35, against a reality; the F-35 itself.

It's also, in part, why Krusty and Scholz's arguments about '16 are strictly trua and valid data, but still not purely comparable.

The real answer is, we will never know if:

A better air superiority fighter and a better strike aircraft could have been developed for the same combination of fixed and variable costs...

And even defining "better", in this context is one fraught with difficulty. My own strategic take is that compromised design briefs produce jacks of all trades, masters of none, but I am lacking an empirical pier for comparison to F-35.

OTOH, we know what the Eurofighter performance and costs are, likewise F-22. Thus, we can establish that a better pure AS aircraft ALONE could've been developed for equal or less.

Maybe that's it. F-35 becomes the next-gen strike a/c with limited but real self-defense capability. Let's hope USAF procures sufficient F-22s for the pure AS role (cue the next argument about the viability of F-22 versus, for example, Typhoon or any of the new Russian stuff). 

[Zoney]

Are there no longer any secrets? 

Does the U.S.A. no longer classify information about aircraft Top Secret?

How much information has not been made available that might speak volumes for the potential of the aircraft?

Without all the information, and the ability to understand it, you are just guessing.