Abstract and Key Factors: Within the Nineteen Seventies, the long-lasting Air Power F-16 almost grew to become a Navy service fighter referred to as the Vought Mannequin 1600.
-To go well with Navy wants, the design was modified extensively, gaining extra weight, stronger touchdown gear, a bigger wing, and higher radar.
-Regardless of these adjustments, it misplaced to Northrop’s YF-17, which developed into right this moment’s Navy F/A-18 Hornet.
-Issues over the Vought 1600’s single engine and low consumption design, which posed a threat throughout service operations, sealed its destiny.
-The Vought 1600 stays a captivating “what if,” illustrating how shut the F-16 got here to shaping the Navy’s service aviation historical past.
Meet the Navy’s Misplaced Fighter: How the F-16 Virtually Landed on Plane Carriers
The F-16 Preventing Falcon has been the U.S. Air Power’s workhorse fighter for greater than forty years, and at one level, it appeared like a carrier-capable model would do the identical for the U.S. Navy.
Greater than 4,600 F-16s have rolled out off the meeting line because it first took to the sky in 1974, and even amid this period of stealthy supercomputers just like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-16 power stays the spine of America’s air dominance. With some 1,245 of the fighter nonetheless in operation underneath the Air Power’s banner, the F-16’s broad multi-role capabilities and sheer efficiency make it one of many world’s prime fighter jets, regardless of being sufficiently old to have seen the unique “Star Wars” in theaters.
Right now, F-16s fly for america, Israel, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, and extra… however essentially the most stunning place this extremely succesful 4th era fighter might have ended up is on the deck of America’s supercarriers. Shortly after the F-16 received the Air Power’s new Air Fight Fighter (ACF) contract in 1975, then-Secretary of Protection James Schlesinger pushed the U.S. Navy to undertake the brand new fighter as properly.
The F-16 had carried out properly in its pursuit of the Air Power contract, and if the Navy might additionally discover use for the Preventing Falcon, Schlesinger reasoned, the Protection Division might procure the jet in increased numbers and streamline logistics for each branches.
This line of considering, in fact, would finally result in the acquisition nightmare that has been the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which was additionally supposed to be a single fighter platform that might meet the disparate wants of the Air Power, Navy, and Marine Corps, in addition to overseas patrons. The F-16, then, might have develop into the same boondoggle (or possibly confirmed the idea sound) if the Vought Mannequin 1600, or carrier-capable F-16, had ever made it into service.
To ensure that the YF-16 to search out its future because the Air Power’s workhorse fighter, it first needed to cope with stiff competitors within the type of Northrop’s YF-17. The YF-17 was a light-weight prototype fighter first designed to function a lower-cost different to America’s most dominant air superiority fighter within the trendy period, the F-15 Eagle. Within the minds of army leaders, the big, highly effective, and costly F-15 introduced extra energy to bear than was actually vital for a lot of fight operations, and as such, a less expensive however nonetheless extremely succesful jet might complement America’s fleet of Eagles by assuming these decrease stakes roles.
In the end, the YF-16 would outperform the Northrop’s YF-17 in testing oriented particularly towards the Air Power’s wants, nevertheless it wouldn’t be the final time these two highly-capable platforms would discover themselves competing over a contract. Actually, because the Navy mulled over the concept of changing the F-16 for service use, it as soon as once more discovered stiff competitors within the type of Northrop’s YF-17.
Neither Common Dynamics (the maker of the F-16) nor Northrop (who made the YF-17) had ever constructed a carrier-fighter earlier than. With a profitable contract on the road, each corporations sought out companions with carrier-aircraft expertise. Common Dynamics teamed up with Vought to transform their new F-16 Preventing Falcon into the Vought Mannequin 1600, and Northrop paired off with McDonnell Douglas to enhance upon their YF-17 design.
The brand new iterations of each of those fighters needed to place a bigger emphasis on the Navy’s major wants on the time: Specifically, long-range radar capabilities for intercept missions and multi-role capabilities to help the kind of air-to-ground fight operations America has come to leverage closely all through the previous few a long time.
It appears counterintuitive right this moment, with the F-16 so expertly filling the position of an assault plane in addition to a fighter, however the authentic idea behind the F-16 was to create a no-frills fighter constructed to do nothing however dominate the skies. Its designers at Common Dynamics, internally referred to as the “Light-weight Fighter Mafia,” sought to maintain the “gold-plating” they believed frequent in new fighter applications away from their new jet. “Gold-plating,” of their minds, together with a variety of issues we now consider as virtually normal in a 4th or fifth era fighter, like fireplace management radar, digital countermeasures for flying in extremely contested airspace, radar-guided missiles, and–maybe most significantly–floor assault capabilities.
By the point the F-16A started to emerge, it might have a few of that gold-plating the “Light-weight Fighter Mafia” so disdained, like an AN/APG-66 radar and a few intrinsic ground-attack capabilities. It nonetheless lacked radar-guided air-to-air weapons, forgoing them in favor of the heat-seeking Sidewinder missile. These additions made the F-16 a greater candidate for the Navy’s wants than it might have been as initially imagined, nevertheless it nonetheless didn’t fairly match the invoice.
To be able to meet the wants of the Navy, the Vought 1600 was bigger than the F-16A, stretching some three ft longer, with a 33-foot 3-inch wingspan that was a full two ft broader than the Air Power’s model of the fighter. The breadth of the wings grew, masking a complete of 269 ft and giving the plane higher stability at decrease speeds. The fuselage was flattened a bit and made broader, and its cover was designed to pivot ahead, which was totally different from the F-16, however can now be discovered on the F-35.
To be able to stand up to service landings, heavier responsibility touchdown gear needed to be affixed to the Vought 1600’s stomach, alongside the usual service gear like a touchdown hook. The fuselage itself was made stronger and so as to provide the engagement vary the Navy wanted, a pulse-doppler radar for past visible vary concentrating on was additionally added.
All instructed, the structural adjustments wanted to make the F-16 into the Vought 1600 added greater than 3,000 kilos to the plane. Additional adjustments had been made to the fuselage and wings as subsequent iterations of the Vought 1600 got here to fruition. The V-1602, as an illustration, had much more wing space at 399 sq. ft, and was given a heavier GE F101 engine.
Regardless of the adjustments made to the F-16 to fulfill the Navy’s wants, the mixed Common Dynamics/Vought effort would finally lose out to Northrop and McDonnell Douglas’ YF-17, which might later come to be referred to as the F/A-18 Hornet, and its personal successor, the Block II Tremendous Hornet.
The YF-17 might not have minimize it for the Air Power, however the Navy noticed promise in a scaled-up model of the fighter, because of its superior vary, and certain, security.
The Vought 1600’s low-lying consumption positioned simply above the nose-wheel was thought-about an actual threat on the flight deck of a Navy service, because it might actually suck unsuspecting sailors straight into it. This wasn’t the primary time Vought confronted this kind of criticism, because the pilot-favorite Vought F-8 Crusader’s giant, low consumption had already earned it the nickname “the Gator,” due to its tenacity for gobbling up sailors.
F-16. Picture Credit score: Iowa Nationwide Guard.
Importantly, the F-16’s light-weight design and lack of radar-specific weapons made it poorly suited to all-weather operations like intercepting fighters or bombers en path to a service strike group.
“I identified that the F-16 carried solely AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and so they had been clear-air-mass missiles. In clouds, a radar missile just like the AIM-7 Sparrow III was required,” former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James L. Holloway explains in his e book, “Plane Carriers at Conflict: A Private Retrospective of Korea, Vietnam, and the Soviet Confrontation.“
“This functionality, with the mandatory radar steerage system and heavier pylons, had been included into the F-18 design, however the F-16 wouldn’t accommodate an all-weather missile system with out in depth redesign and added weight.”
Nevertheless, based on Holloway’s e book, Protection Secretary James Schlesinger was nonetheless useless set on pushing the Vought 1600 onto the Navy. To be able to settle the talk as soon as and for all, Schlesinger invited Admiral Holloway to his workplace to debate the Navy’s subsequent fighter. Regardless of Schlesinger telling Holloway that his workplace was too small to deliver greater than two of his subordinates to the dialogue, Holloway walked into the Secretary of Protection’s workplace to search out greater than a dozen folks ready for him. Schlesinger ambushed the admiral, eager to make use of his superior numbers to push the Vought 1600 onto the Navy.
Holloway stood agency, nevertheless, highlighting the priority of his engineers that the Vought 1600 was apt to bang its engine on the flight deck throughout service landings, which might trigger injury to each the deck and the plane. When the boys gathered in Schlesinger’s workplace argued that issues like that could possibly be mitigated with higher pilot approach, Holloway grew pissed off. Clearly, anybody peaching about improved pilot approach to offset a fighter’s design shortcomings had by no means tried to land on the pitching deck of an plane service that was barely seen towards a seemingly infinite backdrop of stormy seas throughout nighttime operations.
A Belgian F-16 Preventing Falcon receives gas from a KC-135 Stratotanker, assigned to the 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron, whereas flying over Afghanistan in help of Operation Enduring Freedom, Feb. 25, 2011. (U.S. Air Power picture/Grasp Sgt. William Greer)
The YF-17 additionally supplied a second engine, which might imply the distinction between getting a jet again to its service or having to dump it within the sea if something went incorrect with one in all them.
In the end, it could have been the supposed weapons for every platform that grew to become the deciding issue. As a result of the F-16’s design wouldn’t accommodate an all-weather missile system with out in depth modifications, the Vought 1600 might have been capable of handle service operations, however nonetheless wouldn’t meet the exacting wants of the department.
In fact, the F-16 would finally achieve the very capabilities it lacked on the time, each within the type of Sparrow missiles and finally AMRAAMs. Had comparable capabilities been part of the Vought 1600’s pitch, we might not have seen the almost 4 a long time’ price of service out of the Hornet and Tremendous Hornet household that now we have. As an alternative, the Navy would have been flying F-16s alongside F-14 Tomcats off of their flattops, and the Tremendous Hornet can be one other what-if fighter within the annals of army historical past.
In fact, the Vought 1600 wasn’t the one legendary American fighter that very almost discovered its manner into Uncle Sam’s service fleet. At one level, a considerably upgraded iteration of the F-117 Nighthawk almost discovered its manner into Naval service. And only a few years later, the same effort virtually positioned F-22 Raptors on the Navy’s flight decks.
In regards to the Writer: Alex Hollings
Alex Hollings is a author, dad, and Marine veteran who focuses on overseas coverage and protection know-how evaluation. He holds a grasp’s diploma in Communications from Southern New Hampshire College, in addition to a bachelor’s diploma in Company and Organizational Communications from Framingham State College. This primary appeared in Sandboxx Information.
