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Title: F-16 hits the big luck!Why is this fighter of the United States always not good?
I have just heard a news full of military confusion about the crash of a US F-16 fighter in the Yellow Sea, which is really a curious and worrying thing. I decided to take a closer look at why this legendary fighter has been caught in crashes so often.
Frequent crashes of warplanes: what the hell is going on?
Imagine an F-16 fighter plane crashing over the Yellow Sea, and although the pilot escaped safely, the plane sank to the bottom of the sea. In an emergency, the United States and South Korea teamed up to salvage the wreckage of the F-16 and bring it to the surface. You may wonder why this crash is so stress-focused on "again".It turned out that in September of the same year, another F-16 also had a crash. And throughout 2023, the number of frequent F-16 crashes has reached 5.
This legendary F-16 fighter has been in service since the late 70s and has been attracting attention for its high performance, advanced technology and relatively economical cost. The F-16 adopts a subversive non-static stability design, coupled with an advanced flight control system, which allows the aircraft to maintain extremely high maneuverability in flight. It also performed very well in aerodynamic design, fuselage structure, power system, etc., and was once regarded as one of the most successfully designed fighters in the world.
The beauty of the design of the F-16.
The fuselage of this fighter has a compact design and uses a large number of alloys and composite materials to increase the structural strength. Powered by a high-performance turbofan engine with excellent thrust, the F-16 has excellent speed, acceleration and climb rate. In terms of aerodynamic layout, the F-16 chooses a full-moving tail and a delta wing with leading edge flaps, which allows the aircraft to maintain good handling and stability in both supersonic and subsonic flights. In terms of avionics, it is a highlight, equipped with an advanced radar system, with excellent air-to-air and air-to-ground combat capabilities. Overall, the F-16 is designed to be a versatile fighter that not only excels in air interception, but can also perform a variety of missions such as ground strikes and long-range attacks.
Why are there so many crashes?
However, the question arises, why does such a well-designed fighter plane crash so often?Some people may wonder if there is something wrong with Lao Mei's technology, or if there is a flaw in the design. But let's think about it. As a legendary fighter, the F-16 has participated in many battles and undergone many upgrades, and it should have exposed technical or design problems as early as the last century. However, this did not happen.
What's more, the production line of the F-16 has already formed an extremely mature system, and each part has a corresponding index, and the technical workers have long been "familiar with the road". Moreover, Lockheed Martin has always been a reputable manufacturer, and they will not engage in "tofu scum engineering" because of a little cost, which is not worth the loss for themselves. In particular, the F-16 that crashed in December is the version used by the US military for its own use, and it will definitely be stricter in controlling the quality of production.
Maintenance and logistical pressures.
So, what exactly is the reason for the frequent crashes of this legendary fighter?While discussing technology, we may have overlooked a very important issue, that is, the maintenance of the fighter after it enters service. This is not questioning the technical capabilities of the U.S. military, but rather speculating that there may be pressure on the U.S. military's logistical replenishment, which has led them to reduce their maintenance investment.
Although the United States has the largest spending in the world, it has many military bases around the world and has to maintain a huge fleet, which has put considerable pressure on military spending. Judging by the structure of military spending in 2022, the Navy undoubtedly accounts for the lion's share. Among the various branches of the armed forces, the budget allocation of the army, air force, and navy is not small, and among them, it is necessary to further divide the budget for research and development, construction, procurement, and so on. Under such an allocation, the budget that can be invested in the maintenance of fighters will be reduced accordingly.
F-16's helplessness in the changing times.
Such a way of allocating military spending makes the US military's F-16 seem a little "overwhelmed". Nowadays, the United States has a large number of fifth-generation stealth fighters, and relatively "old" models such as the F-16 are naturally no longer as highly valued as in the past. This also made the F-16 gradually ignored, coupled with frequent sorties, which made it a little overwhelmed.
In summary, the reason for the frequent crashes of the F-16 is not a technical or design problem, but probably more related to logistical replenishment. This situation may be regrettable, but it is also an inevitable consequence of the changing times. On the one hand, the rapid development of military technology has led to the emergence of more advanced fighters, and on the other hand, the maintenance costs of older models are gradually increasing. The F-16 seems a little helpless in this era of change, but it is still a legendary fighter that has left its own glorious history.
The F-16 crash may be a thought-provoking opportunity, and we can't help but wonder whether the rapid development of military technology means that the aircraft is bleakIn this era of rapid change, should we have more respect and review of the glorious fighters of the past?Let's think deeply together and work together on this topic that has attracted much attention.