Is Lockheed dumping F-16s on India?
By Vineet KhareBBC Hindi
- 20 June 2017
- From the sectionIndia
They [F16] were originally conceived in the early 1970s as a "lightweight air-to-air day fighter".
But some commentators in India are asking if the agreement with the Tatas is an effort by Lockheed to offload old technology in India.
"India a dumping ground for obsolete weapons system?" asked defence expert Brahma Chellaney on Twitter.
Defence writer Rahul Bedi agrees with Mr Chellaney.
"F-16s developed in the '70s have already reached the optimum level of modernisation. The US Air Force has phased them out in favour of the much more advanced F-35s," he told the BBC.
In May 1971, the Air Force Prototype Study Group was established. Two of its six proposals would be funded, one being the
Lightweight Fighter (LWF). The
Request for Proposals issued on 6 January 1972 called for a 20,000-pound (9,100 kg) class air-to-air day fighter with a good turn rate, acceleration and range, and optimized for combat at speeds of Mach 0.6–1.6 and altitudes of 30,000–40,000 feet (9,100–12,000 m). The anticipated average flyaway cost of a production version was $3 million. This production plan, though, was only notional as the USAF had no firm plans to procure the winner. Five companies responded and in 1972, the Air Staff selected General Dynamics' Model 401 and Northrop's P-600 for the follow-on prototype development and testing phase. GD and Northrop were awarded contracts worth $37.9 million and $39.8 million to produce the YF-16 and YF-17, respectively, with first flights of both prototypes planned for early 1974. The first YF-16 was
rolled out on 13 December 1973, and its 90-minute maiden flight was made at the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) at Edwards AFB, California, on 2 February 1974. Its
actual first flight occurred accidentally during a high-speed taxi test on 20 January 1974.
Introduction into US service on 17 August 1978.
The F-16 had been scheduled to remain in service with the U.S. Air Force until 2025. Its replacement was planned to be the F-35A variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. However, due to delays in the F-35 program, all USAF F-16s will receive service life extension upgrades. In 2014 the USAF issued a RFI to SLEP 300 F-16 C/D.
In a departure from one of the F-16's original
raison d'etre, cost effectiveness, recent costs for both new and refurbished aircraft have risen significantly from its 1998 fly-away price. This cost led the Polish deputy minister for national defence Bartosz Kownacki recently to counsel against buying used F-16s, saying that buying a new F-35 would be better value. Which is an argument for lowering cost by production in India.
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. of India built 657 MiG-21FL, MiG-21M and MiG-21bis (of which 225 were bis)
The group set up to manufacture MiG-21 under licence (with its new factories planned in Koraput, Nasik and Hyderabad). Production at HAL started in the early-mid 1970s, by which time the Mig-21 had already been in service well over a decade and the design some 20 years old, since development of what would become the MiG-21 began in the early 1950s. The MiG-21 jet fighter was a continuation of Soviet jet fighters, starting with the subsonic MiG-15 and MiG-17, and the supersonic MiG-19.
During the 1980s, HAL also developed an advanced version of the MiG-21, known as MiG-21
Bison, which increased its life-span by more than 20 years. On December 11, 2013, India's second generation supersonic jet fighter, MiG-21FL was decommissioned after being in service for 50 years. The remaining MiG-21 Bisons of the IAF are scheduled to be phased out by 2019.
MIG-21
First flight 14 February 1956 (Ye-2)
Introduction 1959 (MiG-21F)
Produced 1959 (MiG-21F) - 1985 (MiG-21bis)
Number built 11,496 (10,645 produced in the USSR, 657 in India, 194 in Czechoslovakia)
that is a news... anyways JF17 as a front line fighter jet would be awesome against Su30Mki which is the front line fighter jet with your adversary ...
