F-16 Falcon Thread, News, Pics, videos

[Equation]

I didn't know where to put this but it's VERY SAD NEWS! My condolences to all the victims families.

MADRID (AP) — A Greek F-16 fighter jet crashed into other aircraft on the ground during NATO training in southeastern Spain Monday, killing at least 10 French and Greek military personnel, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said.


Another 21 people were injured in the incident at the Los Llanos base, which sent flames and a plume of black smoke billowing into the air, the Spanish Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Rajoy told Spain's Telecinco news program in an interview Monday night that eight of the dead were French and two were Greek. Eleven of the injured were Italian and 10 were French, he said.

Five of those hurt suffered severe burns and were transported to a Madrid hospital for treatment, and the rest were undergoing treatment in the city of Albacete near the base, the Defense Ministry said.

The French Defense Ministry said five from the country were seriously injured. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will head to the scene Tuesday.

The two-seat jet was taking off but lost thrust and crashed into an area of the base where other aircraft involved in the NATO exercise were parked, the Spanish Defense Ministry said. At least five jets were damaged and a statement from Italy's defense ministry said "numerous" helicopters were damaged.

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Smoke rises from a military base after a plane crash in Albacete, Spain, Monday, Jan. 26, 2015. A Gr …
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the crash "a tragedy that affects the whole NATO family."

The Spanish ministry said the jet that crashed was taking part in a NATO training exercise called the Tactical Leadership Program.

According to a U.S. Air Force website, TLP was formed in 1978 by NATO's Central Region air forces to advance their tactical capabilities and produce tactics, techniques and procedures that improve multi-national tactical air operations.

The 10 NATO countries participating in the program are Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.

The first TLP course took place at Germany's Fuerstenfeldbruck Air Base. It has been held at the Spanish base about a two and a half hour drive from Madrid since June 2009.

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[Jeff Head]

My Condolenses to the family and friends of so many los as well.. May God b;less them and their families, and may the fallen RIP.

That is a significant loss for the French in terms or personnel and aircraft. Those aircrews are highly trained and important personnel.

And 2 Rafales, 2 Mirage 2000Ds and 2 Alpha Jets gone so quickly. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment..

 

[Miragedriver]

Officers of the Chilean Air Force advise Colombia Air Force not to buy second hand F-16s

( defensa.com ) Interested in acquiring Lockheed Martin F16 ( the Tranche C / D ) to complement the fleet IAI kfir that were recently repowered and due to technical problems they have had with the drop of 4 active units and delivery phase , the Colombian Air Force (FAC ) has decided to study and apply the experiences of several users F16 , visiting for it bases where they are deployed .

-FACh- Chilean Air Force, has been one of the destinations of commissioned officers for this purpose and according defensa.com has noted , the FACh would have recommended their Colombian counterparts to consider all possible variables if they decide in the future buy F16s second hand due to some technical problems experienced fleet acquired by Chile to the Netherlands in 2005 , consisting of 18 units of F16 MLU M2 ( 11 F - 16AM and 7 F- 16BM ) and in 2008 18 units over F16 MLU M4 .

In fact, apparently the FACh has made known to the FAC , that its program of modernization of F16 aircraft, rushing ENAER under the supervision of the Dutch company " Daedalus" under the program " Pacer Amstel " which seeks to standardize all aircraft to Tape level 4 , presented disadvantages and cost has been higher than initially established , which adds to the inconvenience of having three different versions of the aircraft , considering that include fighters F16 Block 50 / 52 new .

In the past , the largest Henk Effing , an officer of the Royal Netherlands Air Force , said that the F16 aircraft sold to Chile suffered some changes before delivery , stating " Even were changed parts firsthand antiques and shabby " ; also held that , " The US gave permission on condition that a number of changes to software hacieran aircraft , radar configuration , wiring and cockpit ; the ability to fire air to air missile guidance radar and AIM-120 AMRAAM antiradiation weapons , as the Shrike and Harm " was removed.

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Back to bottling my Grenache

 

[FORBIN]

My Condolenses to the family and friends of so many los as well.. May God b;less them and their families, and may the fallen RIP.

That is a significant loss for the French in terms or personnel and aircraft. Those aircrews are highly trained and important personnel.

And 2 Rafales, 2 Mirage 2000Ds and 2 Alpha Jets gone so quickly. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment..

Rafales damaged only.

 

[Jeff Head]

Rafales damaged only.

Glad to hear that.

Badly?

 

[FORBIN]

64th Agressor Sqn based to Nellis.

 

[SamuraiBlue]

Here is an interesting vid from the past, test flight of the XF-2 lead plane now known as the F-2.

 

[aksha]

this is one pretty plane,
as the developers say ,this was a superior plane to the original f16
wonder why it was never marketed, they could have even picked mmrca contest with this plane
F16 XL

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Two additional capabilities of the F-16XL contribute to survivability. First is improved instantaneous maneuver ability coupled with greatly expanded flight operating limits (with bombs), and second is reduced radar signature resulting from the configuration shaping.


For a decade and a half, many fighter tacticians have stressed the paramount importance of being able to sustain a high turn rate at high Gs. The rationale was that with such a capability, enemy aircraft that cannot equal or better the sustained turn rate at high Gs could not get off a killing shot with guns or missiles.


With developments in missiles that can engage at all aspects, and as a result of having evaluated Israeli successes in combat, the tacticians are now leaning toward the driving need for quick, high-G turns to get a “first-shot, quick-kill” capability before the adversary is able to launch his missiles. This the F-16XL can do. Harry Hillaker says it can attain five Gs in 0.8 seconds, on the way to nine Gs in just a bit more time. That’s half the time required for the F-16A, which in turn is less than half the time required for the F-4. The speed loss to achieve five Gs is likewise half that of the F-16A.


All of these apparent miracles seem to violate the laws of aerodynamics by achieving greater range, payload, maneuverability, and survivability. Instead, they are achieved by inspired design, much wind-tunnel testing of shapes, exploitation of advanced technologies, and freedom from the normal contract constraints.


The inspired design mates a “cranked-arrow” wing to a fifty-six inch longer fuselage. The cranked-arrow design retains the advantages of delta wings for high-speed flight, but overcomes all of the disadvantages by having its aft portion less highly swept than the forward section. It thus retains excellent low-speed characteristics and minimizes the trim drag penalties of a tailless delta.


Although the wing area is more than double that of the standard F-16 (633square feet vs. 300 square feet), the drag is actually reduced.
Although the wing area is more than double that of the standard F-16 (633square feet vs. 300 square feet), the drag is actually reduced.

The skin friction drag that is a function of the increased wetted (skin surface) area is increased, but the other components of drag (wave, interference, and trim) that are a function of the configuration shape and arrangement are lower so that the “clean airplane” drag is slightly lower during level flight, and forty percent lower when bombs and missiles are added.

And although the thrust-to-weight (T/W) ratio is lower due to the increased weight, the excess thrust is greater because the drag is lower – and excess thrust is what counts.

 

[Scratch]

Being a demonstrater at first, the F-16XL became one of the two contenders in the USAF ETF contest. The other contender being a modified F-15D. The aim was to find a sucessor to the F-111 for deep strike / air interdiction missions. The Eagle variant had two engines and required much less redisign. So the eventual F-15E won that in the early 80s I think. The two or so F-16XL went to NASA for further testing I think. But by then, with the USAF commiting to the F-15E and no other nation in need of such a fighter, the program essentially ended 30 years ago. So it was really completely unlikey, IMO, that it would have been revived for theMMRCA RfP.

But nevertheless, an intriguing and good looking design indeed.

 

[SamuraiBlue]

this is one pretty plane,
as the developers say ,this was a superior plane to the original f16
wonder why it was never marketed, they could have even picked mmrca contest with this plane
F16 XL

It resembles the Saab 35 Draken.