What ever happened to the F-16 XL?

I remember hearing about a version of the F-16 where the wind was converted to a full delta wing configuration. As I recall it also had a vectored thrust engine, canards and front ventral fins that were supposed to allow it to yaw its nose without changing its direction of flight. Does anyone know anything about it?

There's a lot out there about it. It was an experimental project with very little hope of ever going into production.
www.f-16.net...

Originally posted by JIMC5499
I remember hearing about a version of the F-16 where the wind was converted to a full delta wing configuration. As I recall it also had a vectored thrust engine, canards and front ventral fins that were supposed to allow it to yaw its nose

Never had vectored thrust or canards (A really poorly written series of fiction books aka "The WIngman" series implied it did) as far as I know.

The number 1 aircraft (S/N 75-0749) was a single seat version while number 2 (S/N 75-0747) was a two-seat version. The aircraft were flight tested from mid-1982 through 1985 before being put into storage. The No. 1 aircraft was pulled from storage in 1989 and modified for test work with NASA for studies on supersonic laminar flow and sonic boom research (in conjuction with an SR-71). The second aircraft was returned to service at the Dryden Flight Research Center in 1992 and took over the supersonic laminar flow project from aircraft number 1.
www.wpafb.af.mil...

The inital design was to compete for a multi-role strike aircraft contract that was won by the F-15E

For more pictures and movies, the NASA Dryden site is excellent
www.dfrc.nasa.gov...

Thanks for the information. I wonder why General Dynamics never push for foreign sales of it? It seems to me that it would be a pretty good attack aircraft for a small country that was operating F-16s for air defense.

How did you guess that I was reading the Wingman books? I got 5 of them in a box of books that I bought at a yardsale.

[edit on 16-7-2005 by JIMC5499]

I remember those books. Along with the Guardians series. Fun reading, but man they were kinda painful sometimes. hehe Then they both seemed to just end. If you're looking for info on aircraft projects, try www.globalsecurity.org they're good with military stuff.

[edit on 16-7-2005 by Zaphod58]

Originally posted by Zaphod58
I remember those books. Along with the Guardians series. Fun reading, but man they were kinda painful sometimes.

I lost interest when he modified it to carry 32 sidewinders

JIMC5499

It was a pretty easy guess as that is the plane described in the book. A F-16XL with thrust vectoring and canards.

You mean it CAN'T carry 32 Sidewinders??? You just destroyed my faith in those books!

The F-16XL was supposed to be the development aircraft leading to a tactical version for the USAF that was to be known as the F-16E but the USAF selected the F-15E instead after Grummans bid to build the Tornado in the USA was defeated by the 'Not Invented Here' lobby.

Fred is spot on about the lack of canards and vectored thrust but the ventral front fins you mentioned were flown by GD, though not on the XL.

One of the F-16 prototypes was fitted with these and was known as the F-16CCV which stands for Control Configured Vehicle



If you can find my thread 'USN pre JSF project' you will also see details of a VTOL version of the F-16 which was based on wing of the XL version.

Also, regarding your question about foreign sales, once the USAF rejected the aircraft there tends to be a "well, if your own air force doesn't want it why should we?" attitude amongst potential customers. Nothing aids export sales better than a home order.



[edit on 17-7-2005 by waynos]

Originally posted by waynos
The F-16XL was supposed to be the development aircraft leading to a tactical version for the USAF that was to be known as the F-16E but the USAF selected the F-15E instead after Grummans bid to build the Tornado in the USA was defeated by the 'Not Invented Here' lobby.

.



I would of liked to have seen a GRUMMAN TORNADO with more powerful
engines AMERICAN of course and maybe stretched a bit. I honestly
liked the F-16XL.

The Second ship of the F-16XL was used to test luminar flow, as the right wing of the delta shaped was outfitted with a "glove" that was most noticable, both aircraft were, but the second prototype had a bigger one.

Shattered OUT...

Yeah, no F16 XL. I guess they decided small through large was enough

My guess is that they decided it wasn't really a marketable product. Of course in my opinion I think it ended up as the basis for the Isreali Lavi, which was the basis for the Chinese J-10.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
You mean it CAN'T carry 32 Sidewinders??? You just destroyed my faith in those books!

we could probably stack that many on one of them with a few modifications; but isnt the sidewinder the shortest range missle we have?

hmm maybe he was going helicopter hunting
dont be so hard on him guys; im sure theres a logical explanation

....

Looks kinda cool. Similar to Typhoon.

I don't know about carrying 32 Sidewinders, but I think that we could find a use for a plane that could carry 32 AMRAAMs. That would make China think twice about invading Taiwain.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
I don't know about carrying 32 Sidewinders, but I think that we could find a use for a plane that could carry 32 AMRAAMs. That would make China think twice about invading Taiwain.

With 32 AMRAAMs, any aircraft is considered a missile ship basically, but it would be cool, with a large amount of fuel, and all those missiles, you definetly don't need a gun cannon, and you can have less of those aircraft, you don't need 100 aircraft to defeat 200.

Shattered OUT...

It makes me wonder, if you're going to make a missile ship, why not just modify a B-52? Surely that can carry more the 32 missiles, and have the fuel capacity for a patrol with them.

You'd have to totally rebuild the radar system, and rewire the fire control to be able to datalink to the missiles. And most radar systems can TRACK 20+ targets, but only FIRE on 6-8 of them at a time.

The thing is, that the more missiles you have, the more powerful your FCS would need to be.

Shattered OUT...

the XL never worked good, all the lift vortexs induced by their sharped delta went to those small wing section in the aft of the main wing, that created negative lift (behind the CG) , inducing constantily "nose down" movement, with that wing they moved the CG more aft and lift vector even more , -it had an leading sweep of arround 70º!!!!,the M2000 has arround 58º-, so the autority on controls was very poor (due the lack of momentum), yes it look nice, but one thing is looking nice and other is an functional design

i dont remember if that plane had slats????


[edit on 19-7-2005 by grunt2]