Quick question, would the Philippine Air force ever look for a brand new Cheap fighter such as Taiwan's AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo or Pakistan's JF-17.
For future MRFs, many have something to say and the top three fighters I keep hearing and reading are the F-16, the SAAB JAS 39, and the F-35.
Now I’ll show my analysis on this based on what I know:
The first barrier is the price and availability. With the meager resources being devoted to the defense needs, the F-35 is out. There’s even no concrete guarantee (correct me if I’m wrong) that the US government will avail us such an advance fighter without the intensification of the “provocations” by China.
The second barrier is interoperability with the USAF aircrafts (since they are our treaty allies and we may need each other in contingencies or outbreak of hostilities) and the F-16 immediately passed the barrier. I don’t know about the Gripen so could somebody correct me if it seems like I wrongly infer that the Gripen couldn’t operate smoothly with the 5th generation USAF assets.
So that leaves the F-16 family. And in my opinion, buying older F-16s now then upgrading them later will not be fully beneficial or economical. We could prepare for the jets and their future pilots now then buy the F-16s later. I’m eyeing the F-16V especially since it could interoperate with USAF F-22s and F-35s more smoothly. [I'll give the links ASAP when I'm allowed to post links]
Let’s just hope the V model could be finished by 2015 and we could buy it before 2016 comes or else the F-16 production line will close by 2016 if no purchase is made by 2015. [I'll give the links when I'm allowed to post links. Here's the content: The Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon has been around for over three decades and so far there have been nearly 4,500 delivered. The F-16 will continue for many years to come and Lockheed Martin has today unveiled a new version called F-16V. The new version of the fighter jet was unveiled at the Singapore Airshow and has new feature enhancements to make the aircraft more formidable.
The F-16 V gets new active electronically scanned array radar (AESA), an upgraded mission computer and architecture, along with improvements inside the cockpit. Lockheed Martin says that all of those new features are things that have been identified by the USAF and international buyers as needing improvement. The AESA radar promises significant capability improvements for the aircraft and Lockheed Martin has developed a solution to affordably retrofit the new radar to existing F-16s.
The new F-16V configuration is now an option for new production aircraft with most elements of the upgrade available for earlier F-16s. The V designation comes from Viper, which is the nickname pilots have given the F-16 since it entered service.
“We believe this F-16V will satisfy our customers’ emerging requirements and prepare them to better interoperate with the 5th generation fighters, the F-35 and F-22,” said George Standridge, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics’ vice president of business development.
Today 26 different countries fly the F-16 and it is hailed as the world's most successful fourth-generation fighter. The upgraded AESA radar will also help F-16V to be more interoperable with fifth-generation fighters like the F-35 and F-22. The USAF is reportedly interested in upgrading between 300 and 350 of its F-16s to the new version.
Lockheed Martin has an order from Iraq that is large enough to keep F-16 production line open until the end of 2015; after that it needs additional orders to keep F-16 production going into 2016. ]