3 ms·
What was planned in the past, and the reality today, are not the same thing. There's over 2,000 F-16's in the field, and that qty. of F-35's will never be buil
by redis_mlc 7y ago
What was planned in the past, and the reality today, are not the same thing.
There's over 2,000 F-16's in the field, and that qty. of F-35's will never be built because of the cost and mfg. capacity.
So likely the F-35 will be used where possible, backed up by thousands of older planes.
To give you an idea of how serious the cost/mfg. problem is, the late 1950s F-5 is in heavy use for the foreseeable future - training, adversarial Top Gun fighters, research, drones - you name it. The little fighter (4,000 made) is saving us billions now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-5
- zepearl 7y agoThanks about the reminder about the F-16s - wasn't aware that so many were still active. I think that I remember that the F-5 was in the original "Top Gun" movie, that it was near its end-life when the movie was shown (I investigated after watching the movie), and that in the movie it had the role of a simulated MIG-antagonist. (gosh, I LOVED that movie when I saw it as a teenager) Maybe the stagnation of engineering/production of F-35 and/or alternative models is caused by Russia/China not pushing for similar capabilities? There have been news about some new fighters but I didn't read anything about them being mass-produced... .