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Here are excerpts of an interview by Harry Hillaker, who was an engineer at General Dynamics, and is considered the father of the F-16:

” …..The real issue is how to apply technology. For example, the F-15 represents a brute-force approach to technology. If you want higher speeds, add bigger engines. If you want longer range, make the airplane bigger to increase fuel capacity. The result is a big airplane. The F-15 was viewed as highly sophisticated because it was so big and expensive. In my mind the, the F-15 was not as technically advanced as the F-4. The F-16 is much more of an application of high technology than the F-15. We used the technology available to drive the given end, that is , or was, to keep things as simple and small as we could. It is a finesse approach. If we wanted to fly faster, we made the drag lower by reducing size and adjusting the configuration itself. If we wanted greater range, we made the plane more efficient, more compact. …You can, for example, get a higher thrust to weight ratio by increasing the thrust. You can also get a higher thrust to weight ratio by leaving the thrust alone and reducing the weight, which is what we did on the lightweight fighter (the thrust on the F-16 was fixed at 23,800lbs with the original P&W F100 engine). ….The range equation can be treated like the thrust to weight ratio. The typical approach to increase range is to simply increase fuel capacity. But increasing fuel capacity increases volume, which means more weight and more drag. People think that big is better. It’s not. With the lightweight fighter, we wanted to achieve our ends through different means. We increased range by reducing size. ….Smaller aircraft have less drag. People always talk in terms of drag coefficients. But drag coefficients really don’t tell you that much. For example, the drag coefficient of an F-16 is about the same as that of a F-4. However, the F-16 has about one third the drag of an F-4 in level flight. At angle of attack, it is about one-fifteenth. The airplane’s (F-16) exceptional maneuverability is a consequence of that lower drag and a higher thrust to weight ratio.”

Turn performace is not just solely based on wing loading. The Convair F-106 Delta Dart has a wing area of 697 sqft. and an empty weight of around 24,000 lbs. which gives a wing loading of 34.4 lbs/sqft. This figure is extremely low, however the F-106 does not have the best ITR or STR of a fighter. Now the Typhoon weighs about the same but has a wing area of 538 sqft. And we all know that a Typhoon can run rings around an F-106 in a turning battle. The real issue is how to apply the technology.. Having the lowest wing loading will do you no good if your jet suffers from trim drag. Same for the Mirage 2000. It has lower wing loading than a Rafale. But we all know that a Rafale has both higher ITR and a higher STR than a Mirage 2000.

The same with fuel fraction and range. The F-16′s fuel fraction is pretty much ideal (31.5%), because with anything above 35% and you have basically a flying gas tank (which would be very vulnerable to shrapnel in a dogfight). The F-16 with its low frontal drag, and unstable design (no trim drag) is the reason why it has overall lower drag and very good range for such a small fighter.

If you want to read all of Harry Hillaker’s interview, It was printed in “CODE ONE” the company magazine (General Dynamics). However, I believe it can be found on the web.

From Frank

I’d like to get your take on the fundamentals of range for small vs. large jet fighters. The F-16A came out with 31.5% fuel fraction and had longer range than the F15A with a marginal 27%. It is reported that the F16A not only had longer range than the F15A, but longer range than any jet fighter in the air force (hence my confusion when Zbigniew states that he F=16 range is “unusable for real combat”). However, the F-15C improved to 30%, and I do hear these statements made that large aircraft have “inherently” greater range than smaller ones.

The math is captured in the Breguet range equation, which states:

Jet Aircraft Range = (Lift/Drag) * (Speed / Specific Fuel Consumption) * NaturalLog(InitialWeight/FinalWeight).

I don’t see any terms in this equation which inherently favor larger aircraft. The cruise speed of the F-15 is almost identical to the F-16 and slightly favor the F-16 (570 mph F-15 vs 577 mph F-16), presumably selected to provide maximum range. Fuel fraction is captured in the argument of the logarithmic factor and slightly favors the F-16. The F-15 and F-16 use basically the same engine with identical SFC per engine. The F-16 has less induced drag due to superior aerodynamics. So, it seems the simple aerodynamic calculation should favor the F-16.

But, all the official ranges you see for the F-16 are down-spec’ed to be for air to ground carrying a heavy load, or with high loiter time (> 2 hours) in air to air to air mode. I never see a direct comparison while similarly configured, almost like this is a plan to conceal the facts. I also note that the conformal fuel tanks for the F-15 are very rarely used for air to air missions, and that the Block 50/52/60 F-16′s also have a conformal tank option.

Thus the only reason I really see for the F-15 to have much greater combat range is “specsmanship” favoring it. If it is given equal benefit of air to air load (a proportionately lower load) and drop tanks / conformal tanks, it seems the F-16 should be quite competitive and possibly superior.

Regards,
Farron

Who said this:

“When the USAF put its own pilots in MIG-29s and SU-27s vs its same F-15 and F-16s; the USAF piloted Flankers and Fulcrums generally were superior to USAF piloted Eagles and Vipers. That is why the USAF had to press ahead and purchase the F-22 Raptor to regain its superiority in air to air combat”

I just saw the above comment about our relative ranking as analysts. But, I’m not trying to prove I am a better analyst. As I have always maintained, I am just a hobbyist who likes to read about the issues.

I would maintain I have brought some useful data to your attention which you seem to have been previously unaware of, as has Frank.

If you care about the quality of your site as a forum for correct data and objective discussion, you will welcome such submissions. If you don’t care to have the input because you have some other purpose, that’s fine by me.

Regards,
Farron

Though the issue of F-15 vs F-16 is a lame duck that only matters in the lesson it teaches, in the totality of performance factors the F-16 seems fully competitive with the F-15. On this subject Frank and I have both provided accurate numbers verified with third party references, so it is puzzling to me that you keep ferociously resisting what seem to be simple facts. This effectiveness is born out by the results of realistic trials, and to some degree by the combat record as well. The only problem with the combat results, as Frank has pointed out, is that victory over inferior competition only proves your varsity is better than the enemy junior varsity.

The F-15 and F-16 are now old aircraft that are probably only still highly effective when facing competition at least a step behind the best. The published Red Flag results are that the F-22 achieves at least a 10:1 kill ratio against them using BVR engagement based on stealth and AESA surprise and high radar missile Pk. If the F-15′s and F-16′s could close within WVR, they would probably give a good account of themselves, as they still can against most of the potential opponents. But, this result does indicate that stealth / AESA / BVR missiles are here to stay as dominant factors that must be accurately taken into account, though they are not the only factors. Numbers and cost will still matter.

Sprey might be very arrogant, but that is not really the issue. The issue is if his lifetime of work still has lessons for us today. He counsels maximum practical effectiveness based on numbers and real combat results, which is sometimes hated by other experts who want to call the shots based on their opinion, their career goals, and money. No senior officer, DoD official, or defense company executive likes to be publically proven wrong, and Sprey did a lot of that over his career.

Sprey’s approach to figuring out what is most effective is very similar to the true story movie “Moneyball”, where the 2002 Oakland Athletics under manager Bill Beane used statistics to select the best available players. The primary issue was not how a player looked and was judged by baseball experts promoting their own careers, it was his on-base percentage and his cost. Using this approach the Athletics put together a highly competitve record setting team with less than 1/4 the budget of major market teams. Though this statistics based method was hated by the old timers of baseball (it reduced their value as gurus of the game), it worked beautifully and has now been fully adopted across professional baseball.

We are still left with the open question as to how the United States should define its future fighter fleet. The F-22 “high” and F-35 “low” mix strategy has been damaged by both aircraft being sky high in cost. The F-35 is as heavy as the F-15, has become the most expensive defense program in U.S. history, and is taking so long that much of its edge may be lost by the time it is deployed in volume.

What should we do about this? My own opinion is that some Sprey / Moneyball type thinking might do some real good, and that the most likely result would be for the Air Force to add a true “low” to the mix with a lightweight semi-stealth fighter. Carrier deck space is so precious that the Navy may be better served with more expensive full stealth aircraft. But for the Air Force and its volume needs we could reuse much of the R&D results from these high end fighters and their subsystems at lower cost in a disciplined lightweight design. Such a fighter might give 80% of the bang of the F-22 / F-35 for 30% of the buck, allowing volume procurement and the regular flight training needed to keep fighter pilots in peak condition. Perhaps a fighter drone should also be added or even substituted for the low end.

Regards,
Farron

Let’s say North Korea invades the South. F-16s can take off only from bases that are no more than 550 kms away from the inter-Korean border (unless you want to fly them only to the southern tip of SK). That limits your choices greatly to bases in SK itself and in northwestern Japan. If NK destroys these bases with its huge arsenal of SRBMs and MRBMs – tough, your F-16s have nowhere to take off from. If you can’t even make it to the fight, let alone win the fight, you’re useless.

Let’s say you need to win superiority over, and bomb, Iran. F-16s can take off only from bases that are no more than 550 kms away from Iran. But Iran has a huge arsenal of missiles with ranges up to 2,500 kms (though most have a range of no more than 1,200 kms), so if Iran destroys all bases that are within 550 kms of its borders (and it can easily do so), your precious F-16s can’t take off.

Let’s say China invades Taiwan. To win, you must first establish air superiority over Taiwan. The only base close enough to Taiwan for F-16s to operate over there is Kadena, a totally unhardened, unprotected base. If China destroys it or even its runways (it has more than 1,600 SRBMs alone), tough – your F-16s cannot fly to Taiwan and are thus useless. All other US airbases in the region are way too far away for the F-16 to make it from those bases to Taiwan and back (or even just to Taiwan with no return trip back, in most cases).

A 550 km combat radius is not only inadequate, it’s downright pathetic.