FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1991
1991 - 3220.PDF
NEWS ANALYSIS A FIGHTING CHANCE With development of an F-15 replacement safely under way, the US Air Force has turned attention to replacing the F-16 and to finding a lower-cost, multi-role companion to the F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter. ""\TS Te're interested, we'd like W the business, but this has F-16 written all over it" — one contractor's unguarded an swer when asked if it would bid for the US Air Force's Multi-Role Fighter (MRF) contract echoes the private comments of others, which see affordability as the key issue in the search for an F-16 replacement. All the major US manufactur ers will respond to the service's request for information; most will provide data on new MRF designs, but many will back those up with proposals to up grade the F-16. General Dynamics (GD) will be relieved if MRF does prove to have F-16 "...written all over it". Faced with the prospect of its 1.6km-long F-16 assembly line at Fort Worth, Texas, running down after 1995, GD is prepar ing a strong industrial-base ar gument in support of its bid to win the MRF contract. The heart of its argument is that an F-16 derivative could be ready sooner, and more cheaply, than a new aircraft. According to GD calculations, the planned delivery rate of 96 MRFs a year, starting in 2005, will not cope with an 'estimated retirement rate that will see the majority of Air Force F-16s being withdrawn for service over ten years starting in 2013. To maintain a force level of 2,025 aircraft, the service will have to begin replacing F-16s earlier, the company argues. Timing is also critical for GD, which on current plans will deliver the last USAF F-16 in 1995 — ten years before the first MRF is handed over. In a bid to close the gap, GD will offer the USAF two alterna tives to a new-design MRF: an improved F-16 which could be delivered in 1999; and an F-16 derivative which could be deliv ered in 2001. They are only viable alternatives if the F-16 stays in production into the late 1990s. GD is banking on addi tion export sales — and possibly continued low-rate production for the USAF — to keep the line running at around 56 a year through the mid-1990s. Under the first plan, GD would simply switch to produc tion of an improved "Block 60" F-16 towards the end of the decade. The company delivered the first Block 50 F-16 in Octo ber but this latest production standard does not feature many of the improvements planned for the close-support F/A-16, recon naissance RF-16 and F-16 mid life update — all retrofit pro grammes. The proposed Block 60 would incorporate many of these improvements, including modu lar mission computer, terrain- reference navigation and helmet- mounted displays, in new pro duction aircraft. The upgraded aircraft would also benefit from growth ver sions of the existing General Electric (GE) F110 and Pratt & Whitney (P&W) F100 engines now under development. Block 50 is the first F-16 powered by the 130kN (29,0001b)-thrust im proved-performance engines (IPEs); Block 60 would likely receive the 160kN GE F110X or P&W IPE-94, both of which began ground tests in Novem ber. A Block 60 F-16 would not meet the likely MRF require ment for double the F-16's pay- load/range performance, GD admits, but the company be lieves it can stretch the capabil ity of the basic airframe by 25%. Because the Block 60 F-16 would not require a prototype it would be available sooner than the proposed F-16 derivative dubbed Falcon 21 by GD. This is in fact a family of designs emphasising stealth, long range or low cost depending on which route the USAF takes, says GD. Artist's impressions show an air craft with a stretched F-16 fuse lage and large delta wing. The Falcon 21 would have double the F-16's payload/range capabil ity with more manoeuvrability and greater stealth, says GD. The derivative approach would also offer a chance to incorporate technology from the Lockheed/ Boeing/General Dynamics F-22 — something the Air Force is considered likely to push for. Technologies which the Fal con 21 could incorporate in clude flat-panel cockpit displays, active-array radar and axi- symmetric thrust vectoring. GD and P&W plan to ground-test pitch/yaw-vectoring nozzles on their growth engines early in 1992, and GD and GE plan to flight-test a nozzle on an Israeli F-16 in 1992. The extent to which F-22 technology can be incorporated into any MRF, an improved F-16, F-16 derivative or new design, will depend on the cost. Some reports suggest a target flyaway cost of $25 million in 1992 dollars — not much more than an F-16 costs today — has been set. That could limit the programme to reworking the F- 16 with new avionics, engine and possibly wing. A model for this approach exists in the US Army's Longbow Apache programme. This calls for about one-third of some 800 AH-64 attack helicopters to be "remanufactured" with new cockpits and avionics and mast- mounted radar. Another third would be remanufactured to Longbow specification, but de livered without the radars. The remanufacturing programme would dovetail with the end of AH-64 production for the US Army and keep the Apache as sembly line open for export business into the next century. Even if MRF emerges as an F-16 upgrade, the work might not go to GD. Many, if not all, of the firms which respond to the USAF's request for informa tion with a new design will also propose an F-16 upgrade. In the same way that Boeing won the contract to build new wings for Grumman's A-6, GD could see its F-16 turned into an MRF by another company. BY GRAHAM WARWICK • "General Dynamics will be relieved if MRF does prove to have F-16 written all over it." 26 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11 - 17 December, 1991
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
