Why the Air Force didn't buy the best F-16

[Music] for more than 40 years now the f-16 fighting falcon has served as the backbone of the u.s air force's fighter fleet but one year before the first f-16 entered service the team behind it had already developed a better f-16 in the f-16 xl this fighter was so capable in fact that it went from being nothing more than a technology demonstrator to serving as legitimate competition for the venerable f-15e and the air force's advanced tactical fighter program ultimately it would lose out to the strike eagle based on production cost and redundancy of systems but many still contend that the f-16 xl was actually the better platform while this assertion is certainly subject to debate there's little debate as to whether the f-16xl could have been one of the most capable fourth generation fighters on the planet had it ever actually gone into service way back when the original star wars was still in theaters the first f-16 was still a year away from entering service but the team behind it had already started work on what would come to be called the f-16 scamp scamp stood for supersonic cruise and maneuver prototype and this effort wasn't about fielding another production fighter general dynamics had no intention of trying to sell scamp once it was done instead the whole premise behind the program was to quickly and cheaply field a platform that they could use to test the idea behind supersonic cruising or as we've come to know it today super cruising now that might sound like a capability that you'll only see on transformers or on harleys that are so expensive only lawyers can buy them but the idea behind super cruising was simple even if the execution was pretty complex modern fighters like the f-16 all come equipped with afterburners that they can use to dramatically increase the amount of thrust that their engines produce but all that thrust comes at a real cost using the afterburner to break the sound barrier and then to sustain that speed burns through a ton of gas really quickly but if you could design a jet that doesn't need its afterburner to maintain supersonic speeds it would mean covering more ground more quickly while still having enough fuel left over for the fight and even the return trip home hazard lee who's an f-35 pilot and also has a youtube channel that you should really check out wrote a fantastic article for sandbox news all about burning fuel in his f-16 i'll link to that article below but in it he talks about flying over the yellow sea with the afterburner engaged in his f-16 and having a fuel flow rate of over 50 000 pounds of fuel per hour now the f-16 can only carry around 7 000 pounds of fuel that means that at that throttle setting he would literally burn through all the fuel the jet could carry in less than 10 minutes and that's in a single engine fighter the problem could be literally doubled in a twin-engine platform like the f-15 or the f-22 and although the f-16 was literally brand new at the time accomplishing their goal would still mean a pretty thorough revamp first the wings were modified to incorporate a cranked arrow shape creating 25 more lift while allowing for effective control at both high and low speeds working in conjunction with nasa and using the company's own funds engineer harry hilliger and the men responsible for the original f-16 experimented repeatedly with slightly different iterations of the wings until they came up with a version they referred to as model 400 this new wing design which saw a 50 degree angle near the root of the wing for supersonic performance and a 70 degree angle where the wings extended for subsonic handling offered more than double the surface area of the f-16s wings incredibly helicare and his team were able to manage that without any increase in drag on the airframe thanks to more than 3600 hours of wind tunnel testing the design was very effective but it wasn't exactly practical it's all moving wingtips and vertical tail were meant for control but they performed poorly at low speeds and the wing design itself didn't allow for any hardpoints to mount bombs or missiles but then this was never intended to be a production fighter at the time and impractical as it may have been there was really no denying that this wing design led to a significant increase in fuel range and the designers were also aware that they could pull even more range out of this aircraft by leveraging the extra wing space to carry more fuel and they weren't the only ones who noticed citing the promising results of the f-16 scamp effort the u.s air force chose to buy into the idea of an even more capable f-16 so they provided hilliker and his team with two early f-16 airframes for conversion into a scamp-like design that they dubbed the f-16 xl although this new jet would be largely based on the existing f-16 the changes were dramatic including two fuselage sections added near the front and back of the aircraft that increased its overall length by some 56 inches the cranked arrow wings that had proven so effective in scamp were also added along with a new form of winged skin made using carbon fiber that saved some 600 pounds from the design those massive wings now fully realized gave the f-16 xl a nearly doubled fuel capacity and the additional lift coupled with 633 square feet of underwing space to leverage allowed for the addition of an astonishing 27 hardpoints for ordinance most remarkable of all this new f-16 xl seemed to outperform its smaller predecessor in nearly every way prompting the air force to take an interest in the idea of actually building this new iteration fighter in an air-to-surface mission this new f-16 xl could carry as much as twice the payload of the standard f-16 alongside a full complement of air-to-air weapons which would have included four amraams and two aim-9 sidewinders and even with all that hate under wing it could still fly up to 44 further than the original f-16 if instead you were to equip the two aircraft with equal payloads the xl would be able to fly about twice as far as the original f-16 but this effort wasn't just about adding range and payload the f-16 xl was capable of supersonic speeds at higher low altitudes all while carrying its mighty payload and it had no trouble climbing quickly with bombs under wing despite the added wing fuel and ordnance weight this aircraft still somehow managed to fly 83 knots faster than the f-16 on military power at sea level and a mind boggling 300 knots faster on afterburner at high altitude even while carrying a full bomb load even its structural limits were higher than the f-16a originally the f-16a was rated for just 5.58 g maneuvers and the xl was cleared for up to 7.2 gs general dynamics ended up building two prototype f-16xls for testing but as testing progressed it became clear that this new iteration of the f-16 design was worth more than just demonstrating technology in search for a useful place to put this new jets capabilities the air force decided to enter it into the enhanced tactical fighter competition which aimed to feel the capable replacement for the f-111 aardvark not long after the etf program changed names to the much harder to say dual role fighter program but despite this shift in titles the goals stayed the same to field an aircraft capable of penetrating deep into enemy airspace for interdiction missions without the need for a fighter escort the f-16xl with its significant fuel range good performance and hard points for 27 weapons seemed like a perfect fit for the job but it wasn't the only aircraft competing for this contract standing between the f-16xl and operational service was another highly capable platform the f-15e strike eagle just like the f-16 xl the strike eagle was a modified version of an existing fighter the venerable f-15 eagle the eagle was america's top of the line air superiority fighter boasting an undefeated record in dogfights that holds to this very day unlike the f-16xl however the f-15e shared the vast majority of its design with the two-seater f-15d that was already in production so right from the get-go there was really no doubt that the f-16 xl would probably be the more expensive option thanks to its significant design departure from the f-16 that it was based on but it also offered a great deal of capability its massive wings made it more stable than the f-16 while its wind tunnel tested design made all that wing area serve no detriment to the fighter's overall handling f clifton berry who was the editor-in-chief of air force magazine at the time got a chance to ride in the backseat of the f-16xl and he said and i quote here jim applied afterburner and the aircraft accelerated smoothly from mach .95 through 1.0 and 1.2 in seconds even with the heavy bomb load aboard the aircraft went supersonic without a tremble handling characteristics at mach 1.2 with the heavy ordnance load were remarkably similar to those of the standard f-16 without bombs the f-15e only brought 15 hardpoints to the table but it's important to note that that's still a lot it also delivered a higher top speed at mach 2.5 versus the xl's 2.05 and had a higher service ceiling at 60 thousand feet versus the xl's 50 000 but the most important difference was the strike eagle's second engine because these aircraft were intended to fly deep into enemy airspace without much support it stood to reason that they were going to be exposed to a great deal of anti-aircraft fire having two engines meant one could be damaged without the aircraft going down it may really have been that survivability in conjunction with the lower cost of development that ultimately won the contract for the f-15e but many within the air force saw that win as bittersweet there was no doubt that the strike eagle was an incredibly capable platform but the f-16xl's fans felt as though that it never should have been competing with it in the first place instead it should have been supporting it much like the f-16 and f-15 support one another today like northrop's yf-23 that ultimately lost out to lockheed martin's f-22 raptor the f-16xl has since been remembered by some as an aircraft that may have been better than the jet we ultimately got with concerns about dollars and cents ultimately making the decision rather than maximum capability if you'd like to learn more about the yf23 i recommend you check out our video all about it and just like all hypothetical situations it's really impossible to know if the f-16xl could have performed as well as the f-15e but one thing we do know for sure is that the strike eagle has since proven itself in combat time and time again it clearly wasn't a bad choice but with the f-16 xl's incredible chops in mind there really can be no doubt that the air force would have been better off with both of these fighters in its stable if only money really had been no object but instead of flying alongside the strike eagle as some had hoped the f-16 xl eventually found its way to nasa where it played an important role in developing the super cruise capability that we'd eventually field in america's next top-tier air superiority fighter the reigning king of the skies f22 raptor and with that excuse to show off some f22s and yet another edition of sandbox news i'm alex hollings make sure you swing by sandboxnews.com today and every day for all the latest in news entertainment and motivation from all around the force if you got anything out of today's video don't forget to click like and subscribe down below and leave me a comment i have a blast reading them all and of course don't forget to tap on that bell icon so you never miss a drop from sandbox [Music] news

Channel: Sandboxx

Views: 353,365

Rating: 4.9271288 out of 5

Keywords: air force, military aviation, f-16, fighter jet

Id: rSyaAMAW8Ng

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/bootybootyholeyo]

I daresay the f15e was a better choice, but the cranked arrow is no doubt far cooler looking

[u/DTURPLESMITH]

F-16XL would have been a great wild weasel platform.

[u/halfbarr]

Congrats to Sandbox for this one, great video and its already inspired a few others into doing their own, Dark Skies has just released one.

[u/MarianHawke22]

Ace Combat players will know this one.