In the history of world aviation (especially combat) there are many really legendary aircraft. Some of them, being created during the Cold War, were and will be produced for a long time. One such aircraft is the F16. This fighter is planned to be produced still (at least) until 2017. This is one of the most numerous vehicles of the entire NATO bloc.
Key Specifications
- The crew is one pilot.
- The total length of the glider is 15.03 m.
- The total wingspan is 9.45 m (if missiles are suspended on the wing pylons, the wingspan is exactly 10 meters).
- The maximum height of the glider is 5.09 m.
- The total wing area is 27.87 mĀ².
- The size of the overall chassis base is 4.0 m.
- The gauge is 2.36 m.
- The mass of an empty aircraft is within 9.5 tons. Variations are possible depending on the types of additional fuel tanks and the model of engines installed.
- Take-off weight - from 12.5 to 14.5 tons. Dependence - as in the previous case.
- The maximum speed of the F16 fighter is 2 M at an altitude of 12,000 meters, and about 1.2 M near the ground.
How did his story begin?
The history of the aircraft begins in the mid-60s. After failures in Vietnam, the Americans came to the conclusion that they needed a specialized lightweight fighter that would immediately gain air supremacy. As part of this program, the F-15 model was quickly created, but it turned out to be unnecessarily complicated and very expensive.
That is why in 1969 a program was launched to create a simple and cheap fighter capable of simultaneously fulfilling the functions of an interceptor in simple weather conditions. The fact is that in those days the main enemy of the US Air Force was the MiG-21, which was armed not only with the USSR itself, but also with a number of other countries of the socialist bloc. It was hard and not too maneuverable for the F-15 to wage a battle with the brisk Migas, and therefore it was urgently needed to change something.
The beginning of the creation of a new aircraft
At the very beginning of 1972, the Air Force came up with an offer to all the largest American aircraft manufacturers. It was assumed that the state order would go to the company that won as a result of an open tender. Soon there were only two real applicants for receiving the order. They were firms General Dynamics and Northrop. Two years later, they presented their experimental models, called the F-16 and YF-17.
The first aircraft was built according to the classical scheme, using one engine. YF-17 was a twin-engine. The second car was good, but again it was too expensive and difficult to manufacture. It is not surprising that the winner in the tender was F16. The fighter was much simpler, and the prospects for its mass serial production were much more real. However, the "loser" YF-17 is not forgotten. It was the developments on this project that formed the basis for the creation of the F / A-18 Hornet carrier-based fighter.
Cheaper construction
To reduce the total cost of the structure, Pratt & Whitney F100 engines were used in the design of the aircraft. They, by the way, were "borrowed" from the F-15 model. The developers took the chassis wheels from the Convair B-58 aircraft. However, you should not consider the new fighter a collection of borrowings. In particular, the glider of the car was completely new: it was developed from scratch, designed according to a revolutionary unstable scheme.
From now on, the flight depended not only on the skill of the pilot, but also on the continuous operation of the correction systems, without which it was simply impossible to achieve sane behavior of a brisk car at dangerous angles of approach. This is a cardinal difference between F16. A fighter with a speed exceeding 2 M on a pitch, in general, is pointless to try to level out manually. It is for this reason that the mechanical drive in the structure is completely absent, which was a revelation for world aircraft construction in those years.
In general, the aircraft is designed for extremely high speeds. Firstly, a completely new anti-overload chair was created for the pilots, which helped the person withstand accelerations up to 9G. Near the helm handle there is a special emphasis for the pilotās hand. The fact is that with maximum acceleration, the whole body of a person becomes much heavier, but because he simply physically can not keep his limbs in weight.
Ergonomics was given great importance: all the necessary controls were in the zone of easy reach and were very conveniently located. Thanks to this, the pilot was less tired when piloting; the presence of a second pilot in the cockpit was no longer required. However, there are still double modifications, but they are intended exclusively for educational tasks.
First problems
For its time, the new plane was a real breakthrough. In particular, there was practically no mechanical connection between the control units and the machine's executing systems. It is for this reason that one incident happened. When the first prototype F16 (fighter) took off, he began to twitch and scour the runway. Despite the anxiety of what was happening, the pilot still managed to gain the necessary speed and take off.
In the process of analyzing the incident, it became clear that the reason for the inadequate behavior of the aircraft lies in the outdated pilot training system, when they pulled the helm handle too much. Smart electronics immediately transmitted this force, which was excessive, to the engines and rudders, as a result of which the fighter began to ārunā along the runway. When the circumstances of the incident cleared up, the United States immediately began to rewrite the flight training instructions and prepare new training manuals.
Note that F16 is unique in this respect. An analogue fighter from domestic open spaces, that is, the MiG-29, requires a more complex training system for young pilots.
Current state of affairs
Today, all manufactured "old men" F-16 not only remain in service, but also prepare for full-scale modernization. True, the prospects for this have not yet been determined. So, in 2014, the Americans planned to equip all their aircraft of this model to the F-16V level. The last letter in the index stands for Viper, the "viper." It is planned to add an active phased array, install a more functional and powerful on-board computer. In addition, work was planned to improve the ergonomics of the cockpit.
According to experts, almost any F16 can be upgraded to this version. After a set of works, the fighter will become somewhat more maneuverable and survivable in modern air combat.
But, as we have already noted, the prospects for this endeavor are rather vague. The thing is a decent reduction in budget allocations. Huge amounts are spent on bringing the F-35 model to the āmindā, and something needs to be done with the fleet of new F-22s. Most likely, the modernized fighters will be exported, while the new F-35s are planned to dominate the US sky. In particular, many US allies in NATO have already shown interest in the prospect of improving their aircraft.
How good is the F-16 in the sky?
The relatively middle-aged F16 aircraft has a degree of maneuverability that is rare for Western cars, only slightly inferior to the domestic Su-27 and MiG-29. This is largely due to the fact that this aircraft became the first mass-produced fighter in the design of which new computerized control systems were used to ensure the glider's stability in any conditions, regardless of the actions of the pilot himself.
Impressions of the pilots
Almost all the pilots who were first given the F16 plane experienced real pleasure in controlling new equipment. The machine is characterized by excellent controllability, the āvolumetricā lamp in the form of a bubble provides excellent visibility, and indicators that display information directly on the glass allow the pilot to be aware of any changes in the state of the car without being distracted by the study of instruments.
The US military particularly liked the ease of training young recruits. So, if it took months to test attacks on ground targets on other planes, the F16 Fighting Falcon fighter required no more than two or three sorties. Colossal volumes of fuel and time were saved. The accuracy of the bombing of the new aircraft was such that the pilots nicknamed the aiming mark on the display a "death point". Despite this, he still had some problems, and not all of them were ācosmeticā.
Operational problems
But there are also disadvantages to the new car. Firstly, both engineers and the military themselves have repeatedly noted that due to the presence of only one engine in a machineās design, its actual combat survivability may be small. Israeli pilots especially stress this. They are held in high esteem by the F-15. With two engines, this machine repeatedly allowed pilots to return to base when one of them crashed as a result of a MANPADS missile.
Secondly, the air intake is too low. Because of this, the F16 fighter, the technical characteristics of which are understood in the article, needs very good airfields, cannot be operated in dust storms and from unpaved runways.
There are problems with the landing itself. Many pilots on the "Fighting" transplanted from the F-4. This aircraft was notable for its considerable weight, and therefore it landed tightly and reliably. But the F16 fighter (photo of which you will find in the article), with its light weight and one engine, when landing, even experienced pilots often start to "bite" by jumping in the lane. As a result, there is a rapid wear of the chassis, which is very dissatisfied with the maintenance personnel, who constantly have to change torn tires.
Many pilots complained about the lateral position of the helm handle. Because of this, it was necessary to make changes to the design: they added an artificial backlash, thanks to which the handle was located as if in the center. After that, the new F16 (fighter, the characteristics of which are considered in the article) became much more ādearā to the old generation of pilots who were used to the central location of the helm.
The unprecedented openness of testing a new aircraft still could not reveal all the design flaws. So, in the very beginning of the 80s it suddenly turned out that the famous "smart" automation sometimes gives a catastrophic malfunction. As a result of this, several pilots died at once, who completely lost control a few meters above the ground during complex maneuvers.
Considering that the first shipments were not equipped with the most impressive navigational equipment, the pilots sadly called their planes āCessna with missilesā, indicating the low reliability of the machine, which did not exceed that for simple civilian equipment.
I had to add advanced protection against power surges, as well as introduce additional batteries into the design that prevented voltage sagging in some specific cases. At present, practically all possible āchildhood diseasesā have already been completely defeated, and the pilots are not experiencing any problems with the operation. Given that there are at least a dozen countries among the operators, we can confidently talk about the fairly high reliability of the F-16 and its good prospects in the field of further modernization.
"Practical use"
In April 1981, these aircraft participated in raids on Palestinian refugee camps, being part of the Israeli Air Force. By the end of the month, an F16 fighter plane drove off a Russian aircraft (then Soviet), which was controlled by a Syrian pilot, and soon the Falcons shot down two Mi-8s belonging to the Syrian military contingent. The triumph, letās say, is dubious, since even a pilot operating a much older machine could have shot down a couple of transport helicopters without even making visual contact with them.
In mid-July, a much more convincing victory was won when an Israeli pilot shot down a Syrian MiG-21. In the first Lebanon war, five F-16s were shot down by the Syrians, who were flying by then on the MiGah-23. In general, the Israelis often used this aircraft as an attack aircraft. So, in the same 1981, they in a "gangster way", without warning or declaration of war, invaded Iraqi airspace and bombed the Osirak reactor near Baghdad. The construction was completely destroyed, the link of the fighter aircraft had no casualties.
From 1986 to 1989, Pakistani pilots shot down a number of Afghan transport aircraft, helicopters (including one Mi-26), and also shot down one Su-25 attack aircraft, which was piloted by Alexander Rutsky. Did the old MiG pull against the F16? At that time, only MiG-21s could be armed with the Afghans. In combination with the low skill of the pilots, he physical could not resist the new technology.
But all these are episodes in which the American allies ātestedā the new equipment. Did they use this plane on their own? Yes, it was.
Panama invasion and other episodes
But this episode cannot be called exciting with all its desire. Yes, the whole link of these fighters took part in the invasion of Panama, but the Panamanians did not have airplanes at all, and therefore there were no cases of air battles in that war.
But during the war in the Persian Gulf, it was the F-16 that was the coalitionās most massive vehicle, making at least 13,450 sorties. A total of 249 pieces of equipment participated in those events. Officially, it is believed that at that time the Americans lost about 11 aircraft wrecked, and another five damaged. Whether these figures correspond to reality is another question. Efficient aircraft still remained in Iraq, and there were pilots too.
Did you meet F16 (fighter) in battle against the MiG-29, our counterpart to the Fighter? Not. Pilots who had the opportunity to pilot both of these machines evaluate them equally. They have their own advantages and disadvantages, both aircraft perfectly keep their course and have excellent maneuverability. So thereās no need to talk about any real superiority or lag in technology. In principle, our MiG, which has two engines, in the event of a MANPADS missile entering one of them, has some chances to āstumbleā to its airfield. For the F-16, damage to or destruction of the motor will be fatal.