Alright, Jow Forums. The F-16 has a long and stellar combat record...

It will stick around for a while, even if not in US service. Production was still going on in 2017 afaik.
Some poorer country which can't afford or justify the cost of a replacement will milk every single flight hour out of the airframes.
If LockMart gets the Indian deal (not sure if it's still on the table), it'll be even longer.

Retards get confused by them and start parroting memes about "eef muh wun engin full durr."

Its a single engine lightweight fighter, its going to be flying as long as the MiG-21 has been

Have any aircraft ever been brought back into service after being mummified in an Arizona boneyard?

The one in the video was at Davis-Monthan AFB for 15 years in storage and was converted into a QF-16 by Boeing and still hit 40,000ft altitude and mach 1.4. There are a couple hundred F-16s in flyable condition at DMAFB.

Oh, I know it works, and having all those aircraft mothballed would be a big plus if you suddenly found yourself fighting World War III. I'm not questioning the theoretical viability of it, just wondering if any of them actually have been brought back into service after being sent to a boneyard.

I don't believe any F-16s have been brought back into service after being mothballed, other than as target planes. One B-52 was brought back into official USAF service after being stored there for decades, I am only aware of this one however, tail #61-1007.

*Correction, it was stored for almost a decade when brought back, 7 years.

thought they were going to put thrust vectoring on some?

There was the F-16 VISTA testbed back in the 90's, but I'm unaware of any current plan to add thrust vectoring to F-16's.

Attached: NF-16 VISTA cobra.webm (577x431, 2.06M)

P-51 and B-29. I think there have been others but those were dragged out of mothballs in 1950

The main way it would become truly obsolete would be if the USAF way of war moved over heavily into a large number of UAVs & UCAVs networked with less numerous manned aircraft using a high-bandwidth LPI data-link (like a future version of MADL). At this point the F-16's lack of computing power, sensor fusion, and VLO features would probably make manned F-16s more of a liability than an asset in peer warfare. Though perhaps the QF-16s could be used as stand-off missile trucks until a dedicated unmanned replacement is brought into service.

Aussie F-111s were repaired and a few were replaced by parts and aircraft taken from the boneyard.

Compared to the J-10C, all F-16s are already outdated as far as single engine 4.5 gens go.

Attached: DdNwS8PV0AAwXwK.jpg (2000x1334, 224K)

Nani the fuck? I never thought I'd see an F-16 doing a Cobra.

Here's your (You), now go shit up another thread.

as opposed to russian planes which have no functioning engines

It wouldnt be so tapped out if we had actually gone ahead with the GOAT delta, F-16XL.

>Oh, I know it works, and having all those aircraft mothballed would be a big plus if you suddenly found yourself fighting World War III.

If you suddenly found yourself fighting World War III, you'd probably want to take the resources you'd spend refurbing them, and spam cheap UCAVs instead.

I think they took one b-52 from there to replace one lost in an accident

IMPRESSIVE

When it is no longer cost-effective to maintain them. Which is fast approaching, but until then there's no reason not to use them.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. A thousand premade F-16s with unmanned control conversions would be a quick, cheap and effective UCAV option compared to X-47-like aircraft.

>lack of computing power and sensor fusion
That seems like a much easier problem to fix through upgrades than anything related to the actual airframe. The F-16s would be on the USAF chopping block by then because there's no point in keeping your least capable aircraft when you have new ones coming in, but that's very much relative- upgraded F-16s will still be very relevant in other countries' service well after the US has stopped using them, even if it's as UCAV nannies.

Attached: F-16C.jpg (1024x768, 33K)

Watch the birdie!

The other issue here is that the F-16 is fucking tiny - there's no room to fit all the sensors and so on without further crippling its performance.

well they are the cheapest to maintain and cheapest to fly (lol one engine) and they have a future being drones to fly wingman for f35s.

So, a little while longer.

f-117s are still on stanby.

If only because they look fucking awesome as hell. That and their stealth is still really fucking great.

that's because it won't need the new sensors because it will be flying with newer planes like the f-35 that will be quarterbacking the mission.

In theory if you were using the F-16 as a dedicated UCAV nanny you could just pylon mount all that. Obviously it's not as good as a plane purpose built for that purpose but it's definitely workable.

Its still a reliable, inexpensive bomb truck that can defend itself from many threats. It's no longer state-of-the-art, but remains quite capable.

Its primary problem is one of survivability vs. a peer or near peer. In those scenarios it is venerable to both surface to air missiles and enemy combat aircraft. The best counter to these is to package the F16 with dedicated EW and Wild Weasels along with air superiority fighters - IF those assets are available.

Plenty long. F-4s and F-5s are still in service, only now just being phased out. MiG-21s are still in service. So long as it can carry bombs and safely fly, it will be useful, even if it requires escort by more capable aircraft.

Most F-117s were destroyed. A few were kept for training and evaluation purposes.

Considering the F-15 is still relevant, I'd say quite a while!

Not that you're necessarily wrong, but the F-15 will definitely outlast the F-16 in US service. The F-16s were always the cheaper option, and they can be replaced in their role by F-35s and UCAVs in the short term while the F-15s cannot.

Well, the F-15Cs will go away sooner or later, the F-15E's are still relatively new.

That's true, I was just having fun!

>Jow Forums
>fun

SOON

Attached: Erik's future 2020 Gripen.jpg (1600x900, 132K)

Le epic funny meme hahaha XDDD (it’s funny because you don’t understand what you’re talking about at any level but if you pretend to have a long standing opinion about this subject you can feel like you’ve contributed to the discussion)

F-16V is not really pushing the limits of anything.

F-16s biggest weakness is that its designers are still adding ballast weights to it when it gets miniaturized components.

It has software that you program instead of real time gyro/ accelerometers to determine its own load. If a deep modernization was done, the only major limit is the airframe cant hold an F-35/ F-22 engine, so it would need a redesign.

Well, that and the fact that the original performance requirements mandated a ludicrously tiny fuel fraction. Which gimped both the final versions of the Viper and Hornet.