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Familiar, fuel-efficient F-16 deserves respect

The F-16 Fighting Falcon will continue fighting for years to come.

With 1,245 now in service, the F-16 is the most numerous Air Force aircraft.

The service has operated 2,231 of the 4,200 F-16s manufactured by Lockheed Martin and was receiving new ones from the factory until March 18, 2005, when Brig. Gen. Jeffrey R. Riemer delivered the last to Shaw Air Force Base, S.C.

In some ways, the F-16 is like your next-door neighbor. You know your neighbor well. You’re friendly. But unless something unusual happens, a familiar friend is easy to take for granted.

Now, Air Force officials are managing a gradual drawdown of their remaining Fighting Falcons. They’ve dealt with tradeoffs between modernizing a perfectly good, but old, fighter and buying newer fighters. They’ve invested plenty in F-16s and will keep some of the planes for decades.

So far, the F-16 has made an extraordinary journey.

It owes its origin to wrongheaded Pentagon upstarts who campaigned in the late 1960s for a no-frills, lightweight fighter that would be smaller and cheaper than the F-15 Eagle.

Rarely have officials been so misguided. Fortunately, when the engineering team led by Harry Hillaker designed the F-16, it created a more robust aircraft than the “lightweight fighter mafia” had envisioned.

When delivery of F-16s began at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, in January 1979, we lived in a different world. The U.S. had only begun shaping strategy and doctrine to enable most war fighting to be done at night. The technology used in the newest combat aircraft was nearly all analog then: An F-16 pilot still relied on round dials.

The oldest F-16s in inventory, the sole F-16A block 15 and dozens of F-16C/D block 25s, 30s and 32s, still have analog instruments, nicknamed “steam gauges.” F-16C/D block 40/42s and 50/52s have digital instruments, or “glass cockpits.” In other respects, almost everything has changed.

The 1984 introduction of the AN/AAQ-13 and -14 LANTIRN navigation and targeting pods in the F-16C/D block 40 model was a turning point. LANTIRN stands for “low altitude navigation and targeting infrared for night.” By the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when the F-16 airframe was no longer new, U.S. forces had completed the switch to fighting at night. Our decision to do battle during the nocturnal hours marks one of the most profound revolutions in the history of warfare.

Today, navigation pods are no longer needed and LANTIRN has given way to the AN/AAQ-28 Litening II and AN/AAQ-33 Sniper XR targeting pods on most F-16s and some other fighters. We can’t always pick where and when we fight, but our effectiveness during the hours of darkness remains a vital tool.

According to plans, and depending upon production of the F-35A Lightning II joint strike fighter, the F-16 fleet will drop to 1,086 aircraft by the end of 2012, with 646 in the active force, 381 in the Air National Guard and 59 in the Air Force Reserve.

As one of the few single-engine fighters in the world, the F-16 suddenly has a new selling point: Fuel prices have become a serious issue for the Air Force.

Yes, it is familiar, ubiquitous and older than some of its pilots and maintainers, but today’s F-16 is like new wine in an old bottle. It is a thing of quality.

And the F-16 Fighting Falcon has never received the accolade it deserves.

The writer, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. His e-mail address is robert.f.dorr@cox.net.