By Logan Williams, Warrior Editorial Fellow
The F-16 was originally designed to be a lightweight, low-cost, and highly-maneuverable multi-role fighter aircraft, optimized for dog-fighting, which could augment the capabilities provided by the USAF’s more expensive, dedicated air superiority fighter, the F-15.
The F-16’s lightweight design is what enabled it to become such a versatile fighter jet platform, with superb maneuverability, for the time. However, the lightweight platform is also the source of the F-16’s greatest weakness. The F-16 was optimized for short-range dog-fighting, not the long flights required to penetrate deep into enemy-held airspace. The F-16 has a maximum take-off weight of approximately 40,000 lbs, which is very little compared to the afore-mentioned F-15 (which was designed for the long-haul flights required for air superiority missions, and has a max take-off weight of approximately 68,000 lbs). The F-16’s limited take-off weight is well surpassed by modern aircraft such as the F-22 (over 80,000 lbs) and the F-35 (65,000 lbs).
The F-16’s reduced take-off weight inherently limits the aircraft’s fuel capacity, which sits at just 7,000 lbs of internal fuel. Conversely, the legacy F-15 has approximately 14,000 lbs of internal fuel, the USAF’s newer F-22 air superiority fighter and the F-35 multi-role fighter have 18,000 lbs of internal fuel.
The drastically reduced fuel capacity of the F-16 reveals the airframe’s greatest weakness, which is the aircraft’s limited combat radius — the combat radius is the farthest distance that an aircraft can fly, and return, without requiring air-to-air refueling. The F-16 has a combat radius of approximately 300-400 miles. The F-15, the F-22, and the F-35 each have a combat radius that nears 1,000 miles. While this fuel capacity can be increased externally, with conformal fuel tanks or drop tanks, the added weight comes at a high cost to the aircraft’s weaponry. The result of this severe deficiency is that the F-16 is entirely dependent upon air-to-air refueling to operate.
During the development of the exceptional F-35 fifth-generation fighter, the Pentagon’s pursuit of new technological frontiers transformed this aircraft from a versatile and inexpensive concept, into a futuristic, high-tech, high-cost multi-role fighter jet.
For example, the F-16 can take approximately six months to a year to assemble from start to finish; the fly-away cost of the F-16 does not exceed $60 million, at its highest point. By comparison, the F-35 can take up to two years – or even longer – to construct, and has a fly-away cost of over $80 million at its lowest point.
It is interesting to note that, in the Biden Administration’s National Defense Industrial Strategy – the first of its kind, ever – two of the methods through which the Pentagon is hoping to achieve its goal of revolutionizing the acquisition process for defense materiel, are the limitation of the impulse to unnecessarily over-customize new weapon system designs, and the reduction of “scope-creep” or the problem of producing a weapons system that is no longer suited to the purpose for which it was commissioned due to the Pentagon’s happy-to-glad upgrading — i.e, the DOD wants defense contractors to stay on task.
What the United States’ air power really needs is a true replacement for the F-16, an aircraft that can cut the cost of an F-35 in half, or into a third, and which can be assembled quickly – a truly mass-producible airframe. Most importantly, however, due to the logistical dilemma posed by the United States’ air-to-air refueling strategy, and the unique difficulties of attaining and maintaining aerial dominance in a near-peer conflict, this new aircraft’s primary attribute must be an extended combat radius.
Extended Combat Radius
In a worst-case war scenario in the Pacific, postulated by a thesis published through the U.S. Marine Corps University, China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities might be able to completely exclude U.S. aircraft from penetrating the first island chain (includes the entirety of the South China Sea, Taiwan, Okinawa, and likely South Korea, but excludes the Philippines), and China would successfully establish an FEZ (fighter engagement zone) that extends to the second island chain (including the Philippines, the Mariana Islands, Guam, and Japan extending from Tokyo, south). This worst-case scenario also hinges upon the assumption that China’s A2/D2 capabilities will inhibit, or completely restrict, the entrance of the United States’ naval aircraft carriers into the South China Sea. Furthermore, this worst-case also presumes that the risk of continued bombardment of United States’ airfields close to Taiwan will discourage, or prevent, these airfields’ continued utilization — as in, this paper makes the reasonable assumption that China’s bombardment would not be “one-and-done” so-to-speak, but rather, that it would be a recurring and vexing threat.
What this means is that the US requires fighter aircraft with sufficient “combat radius” and refueling technology to project power from beyond the A2/AD threat zone.
What the United States’ air power really needs is a true replacement for the F-16, an aircraft that can cut the cost of an F-35 in half, or into a third, and which can be assembled quickly – a truly mass-producible airframe. Most importantly, however, due to the logistical dilemma posed by the United States’ air-to-air refueling strategy, and the unique difficulties of attaining and maintaining aerial dominance in a near-peer conflict, this new aircraft’s primary attribute must be an extended combat radius.
The USAF ‘s new mass-producible, multi-role fighter (henceforth, MP-MRCA, for simplicity’s sake) would not require all of the technology of the F-35 aircraft. In reality, it would only require reasonable stealth that produces the radar signature of an F-35 (or, perhaps, a slightly larger radar signature), an AESA radar for increased “beyond visual range” capabilities, and sensor fusion. The new MP-MRCA would not need advanced electronic warfare (EW) capabilities, since that could be achieved by integrating the new fighter with the F-35, flying squadrons with a mix of F-35s and the MP-MRCA, in which the primary role of the F-35 would be to support the new fighter with its specialized, high-tech capabilities.
Again, to re-state, the singular characteristic required by this new fighter would be a drastically increased combat radius, preferably in the 1400-mile range, capable of striking Chinese forces within the first island chain, without aerial refueling. Crucially, this would need to be accomplished without sacrificing weaponry, stealth, and the mobility which allows for the F-16s superb dog-fighting capabilities.
It is interesting to note that, during the Cold War, many of the United States’ multi-role aircraft did possess a more extensive combat radius, notably the F-111 Aardvark, which possessed a combat radius of just over 1,100 miles, under ideal conditions. This increased combat radius came largely through the F-111’s primary function as a strike aircraft, which required a vastly larger maximum take-off weight, which thus translated to an expanded fuel capacity. Generally, the sacrifice made in order to achieve this increased carrying capacity is the loss
of aircraft maneuverability. A true replacement for the F-16 should preserve its superb dog-fighting capabilities, which are what made the F-16 an exceptional aircraft platform.
In search of the solution, the Pentagon may want to first examine what Lockheed Martin accomplished for India, with the F-21, which took an upgunned F-16 and gave it a combat radius approximately equal to the United States F-35 fifth-generation fighter — again, at little cost to weapons capability.
Notably, the USAF could seek a specialized, aerodynamic, non-traditional fighter airframe, which naturally contributes to increased fuel efficiency. Unfortunately, whenever the words “specialized” or “non-traditional” are used, especially in conjunction, it often –,if not always – translates into excessive costs and eventual difficulty integrating the new platform with the existing force.
Interestingly, the USAF’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation fighter adopts a blended-wing body (BWB) design, which has been known to increase fuel efficiency by up to 30-percent in some aircraft. Unfortunately, the NGAD fighter is expected to have a fly-away cost of over $400-million per-tail, and to be more technologically-complex than the F-35; thus, while the NGAD fighter might be a solution to the combat radius deficiency and the aerial-refueling dependency of the USAF’s current fighter fleet, it is decidedly not a solution to the cost and mass producibility issues.
Logan Williams currently studies at the University of Connecticut. He is an International Affairs Researcher; Work Published in Newspapers, Magazines, and Journals, Such As: Geopolitics Magazine, Modern Diplomacy, Tufts University’s The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Democracy Paradox, Diario Las Américas, International Affairs Forum, Fair Observer, History Is Now Magazine, UNC at Chapel Hill’s American Diplomacy, The Center for Military Modernization’s Warrior Maven Magazine,
