Comments by "Arthur Mosel" (@arthurmosel808) on "F-36 Kingsnake the return of the F16XL? #avgeek #blender3d #f36 #king #snake" video.

  1. One of my favorite cautionary studies. The F-16 was not originally developed as an air to air fighter, nor an all weather fighter. It was to be the cheap assistant to the more expensive and much more capable F-15. The F-15 was meant to be an all weather air superiority fighter, using it for bombing wasn't even considered. I won't go through the changes over time that has made the F-15 into a fighter bomber and upgraded the F-16, except to say that look at funding concerns and the idea peer to peer warfare wasn't likely. Flash forward, the F-22 was meant to be the Supreme air superiority fighter and the F-35 a more limited fighter bomber. Cost overruns and increases, caused at least in part due to Congress reducing the number of aircraft being bought thereby increasing the amount of R&D costs in the unit cost, the cycle of higher costs further reducing the purchase, thereby increasing further increasing the unit cost until the F-22 purchases were stopped. This effected the F- 35 by forcing the Air Force to improve its air to air capability, requiring redesign; while requiring it to meet Marine desires for a STOL/VSTOL capable aircraft and a Navy version meant major design changes for each role (in point of fact somewhere between 40 and 60% of the aircraft is different, enough to say that they could just as easily be given their own designation). All this created further delays and increased costs, and that has slowed purchases, with the usual affect of increasing costs. So, we have new cheaper (compared to F-22 nd F-35) F-15 model and possibly a cheaper improved F-16 version to provide the numbers of aircraft needed. Would this work in a peer to peer conflict remains to be seen.
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