06-28-2022, 07:19 PM
(06-28-2022, 02:25 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: More on Turkey, Finland, and Sweden. Seems like Turkey really didn't get any concessions, mostly just some nice words. Maybe there has been behind the scenes movement on the F16s they wanted that hasn't been made public yet. In any case, a big win for NATO, a big L for Russia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/world...rship.html
It's amazing how much demand continues around the world for F-16s. I believe the first F-16 was deployed sometime around 1980. There have been many upgrades and variants but still it is an aging platform.
Some years ago Lockheed was refurbishing some old F-16s for Israel. They asked for bids on an electronic assembly because the original manufacturer had gone out of business. I wasn't interested. It was a one-time special project; the product would have to be reverse engineered and the components tooled-up with no repeat business. We no bid.
Apparently all the other suppliers also no bid. Lockheed kept hounding us for a bid. Finally we bid a ridiculously high price and they accepted immediately. They didn't even try to talk down the price. I'm sure this is not the only example of supply chain issues with aging F-16s to keep operational.
I haven't been following the F-35 lately. The last I checked it was headed for failure; nightmare to maintain; software not completely debugged. My guess is the military may decide to cut its losses at some point and start from scratch on a completely new, cost-effective design. I'm too lazy to look up the latest status of F-35s.