Air Force Chief Responds To Possibility Of Buying New ‘Block 80' F-16s
Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin today responded to questioning regarding the potential of a new version of the prolific F-16, a so-called Block 80, as a way of increasing the combat mass of the service in the future. While the Air Force doesn't at this point have a plan to start buying Vipers again, it's certainly interesting that the topic is up for discussion, especially with the service looking hard at how it will balance its next-generation fighter requirements, while introducing the F-47 crewed stealth fighter and Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones. At the same time, it continues to buy the F-35A stealth fighter and the F-15EX.
Alongside Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall and Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, Gen. Allvin was testifying before the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Senator Thomas Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked Allvin about the potential need to buy new aircraft to replace the Air Force's oldest fighters, some of which will still be flying into the 2040s.
'Focusing on just the next decade, then, our current acquisition options are pretty limited,' Cotton said, before asking Allvin: 'Would you be able to use newly built U.S.-configured Block 80 F-16s to strengthen our strike fighter fleet, if Congress can find additional funds for such an effort?'
'Looking at what that would be to take that export variant and adapt it to a Block 80, and the time it would take, and where that would fall in the production line, I'd have to get back with you with more details to see if that would be an advisable situation,' Allvin responded.
'I'd really have to look at what the defense industrial base can do on that,' Allvin added, 'because my sense is that the current Block 70 is really eating up a lot of production lines and production capacity and all the FMS [Foreign Military Sales].'
At this point, it's worth noting that it's unclear whether the Block 80 exists as a concept for the Air Force or whether the designation was being used in the hearing in a purely speculative way. TWZ has reached out to Lockheed Martin for more details.
Obviously, however, Allvin was happy to consider the idea of a new version of the F-16 for the service, even if only on a hypothetical level.
Undoubtedly, the in-production Block 70/72 F-16C/D aircraft are already highly capable, featuring sophisticated avionics, mission systems, active electronically scanned array radar and a digital electronic warfare suite.
The supposed Block 80, however, would presumably be more capable still, as well as being adapted for the specific needs of the Air Force.
Aside from the Block 80, Cotton also asked if the Air Force would potentially have a place for the Block 70 (and the related Block 72), currently being built by Lockheed Martin in Greenville, South Carolina, for export customers.
MYTHBUSTER
MYTH: The F-16 is a legacy, outdated technology from the 70s.FACT: The F-16 is a critical piece of 21st century security, connecting assets in the battlespace. The newest, most advanced F-16, Block 70/72 offers capabilities to air forces around the world!
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— Lockheed Martin (@LockheedMartin) August 11, 2023
Again, Allvin said he would take the question for the record and come back with a fuller response. In particular, he said he would have to look in more detail at 'what the export variant can and can't do, and any sort of adjustments we would have to make to make it more easily integrable with our U.S.-built fighters. I would need to see what the integration opportunities and costs would be before I can give you a good answer.'
Whether Block 80, or Block 70/72, there remains a big question over whether an Air Force order for these jets would be feasible, given the limited production capacity at the Greenville plant, as you can read more about here.
Interestingly, the possibility of the Air Force buying new-production Block 70/72 aircraft to bolster its tactical aviation fleets in the near term has come up in the past.
Back in 2021, the outgoing Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Will Roper, suggested the service might want to order an advanced version of the F-16, such as the Block 70/72.
'As you look at the new F-16 production line in South Carolina, that system has some wonderful upgraded capabilities that are worth thinking about as part of our capacity solution,' Roper said, in an interview with Aviation Week.
The idea was quickly shot down by the then Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was vehement that the F-16 — even a much-improved version — was not the right choice for the future Air Force. In particular, he pointed to the F-16's inability to receive software updates at the speed that's desired and its lack of open-architecture software protocols that would allow it to be rapidly reconfigured.
At the same time, Brown did, however, bring up the possibility of a 'clean-sheet design' for a future fighter, which he described as a 'four-and-a-half-gen or fifth-gen-minus' aircraft. This would be cheap enough to be procured in the numbers required to eventually replace the F-16.
But perhaps, after all, the idea of a potential future Air Force F-16 buy is not altogether dead.
Speaking today, Gen. Allvin stressed the importance of having 'not only the right capacity but the capability … to make sure that we have the right mix of the high-end to be able to dominate and be relevant in an Indo-Pacific fight, as well as other fighters that may not need to be as sophisticated as our fifth-generation, sixth-generation.'
Furthermore, Allvin said that CCA drones — at least as far as Increment One is concerned — will not be able to replace crewed fighters like the F-16 and the F-15E.
'My assessment [of the CCA] as of right now, it will not replace that. It will be a great augmentation. And its threshold is to be able to work with the F-35 and the F-22 even before the F-47 gets fielded, so it will help us deliver more combat capability at a better cost point. But as far as replacing the manned fighters, that remains to be seen. What we have built into Increment One, my assessment right now is that would not be a good one-for-one replacement.'
Meanwhile, the need to replace aging F-16s, which still serve as a backbone of the USAF's fighter fleet, is becoming more acute, Allvin noted.
'As we continue to keep the older aircraft, they do become more and more expensive to maintain,' Allvin said, while the mission capable rate 'is not what we'd like it to be.' He added that the average Air Force F-16 'was built right about the time the Cold War ended. So even those F-16s are getting pretty old.'
As of 2024, the mission capable rate (MCR) for the F-16C stood at 64 percent, down from almost 72 percent in 2021. This compares with 52 percent for the F-22, and 86 percent for the brand-new F-15EX.
The designated replacement for the F-16 should be the F-35 stealth fighter, although there have long been signs that the Air Force doesn't see this platform as necessarily the direct successor to all its legacy tactical fighters.
The Air Force F-35A buy is still officially pegged at 1,763 aircraft, but there have been reports that, as early as 2018, the service had prepared a study that called for these orders to be cut back to 1,050.
The Air Force is, notably, also buying F-15EX fighters, alongside F-35As, so clearly hasn't entirely given up on acquiring fourth-generation fighters.
In the past, Allvin has also raised the possibility of some kind of light crewed fighter that could serve as a future adjunct to more advanced and costly fifth- and sixth-generation fighters. Allvin presented a highly notional concept illustration for a light fighter last year, as you can read about here.
Despite the Air Force's commitment to the F-35, the Joint Strike Fighter program remains an enormously expensive one — the costliest in Pentagon history — leaving room for discussions, at least, about a cheaper crewed fighter. With advanced versions of the F-16 now being manufactured for export customers, it's perhaps no surprise that the Viper, or a further optimized iteration of it, is being at least discussed by some as potential equipment for the U.S. Air Force, too.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
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' We are looking at a demonstrable progression that spreads out the financial cost and incrementally improves capability.' Even before this, there had been indications that the service wanted to at least explore adding different drones to its future carrier air wing. The United Kingdom is not alone in this, with China and Turkey, most notably, also increasingly putting drones aboard big-deck amphibious warfare vessels and other non-conventional-takeoff-and-landing aircraft carriers. The Royal Navy kicked off the project with tests of the General Atomics Mojave short takeoff and landing (STOL), drone aboard the carrier HMS Prince of Wales in late 2023, as you can read about here. The Mojave's impressive STOL capabilities mean that no launch and recovery systems were required for these tests. The 'cat and trap' plan for drone operations aboard U.K. carriers is known as Project Ark Royal (named after the Royal Navy's last aircraft carrier that was capable of CATOBAR operations). If realized, the project will see the Queen Elizabeth class carriers start to operate drones able to undertake a variety of missions and then increasingly heavier, complex, and higher performance ones. Later on, full CATOBAR capability could also add fixed-wing crewed aircraft, too. After the Mojave trials, the next phase of Project Ark Royal aims to install some kind of recovery system on the Queen Elizabeth design, allowing operations by larger fixed-wing drones. Uncrewed aircraft in this category are an aspiration that the Royal Navy is already working toward under Project Vixen, which you can read more about here. Finally, the Queen Elizabeth class design is planned to be reworked with catapult launch gear, allowing the warships 'to operate the heaviest aircraft you can imagine,' in the words of Col. Kelly. That would include larger, high-performance drones, but potentially also crewed fixed-wing aircraft, which would be a very significant development for the Queen Elizabeth class. As it stands, the carriers are unable to operate fixed-wing airborne early warning aircraft or airborne tankers, putting limits on their offensive operations. In the future, these functions could potentially be taken on by a catapult-launched fixed-wing aircraft, whether crewed or uncrewed. A replacement for the carrier air wing's airborne early warning capability will become especially urgent, with plans to retire the current Merlin Crowsnest helicopter, which currently fulfills this role, at the end of 2029. According to previous reports, the Royal Navy has already been looking at different catapult launch solutions, including the U.S.-developed Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), the introduction of which has been far from trouble-free, as well as the U.K.-developed Electro Magnetic Kinetic Induction Technology demonstrator. Finding room for complex launch and recovery systems, as well as fielding the manpower to maintain and operate them, will be a challenge no matter how much extra space the vessels have to accommodate them. As we have explored in the past, there are many more technological hurdles for the Royal Navy to overcome, beyond the launch and recovery systems. It will also need to develop control stations, datalinks, unique procedures, and much more to ensure the drones can be safely and effectively integrated within the carrier air group, for example. Even working out the intricacies of deck handling and flow integration involving drones combined with crewed fixed-wing jets and helicopters will be a considerable effort. The Queen Elizabeth class has a notably wide deck, but there's no angled landing area, which would enable simultaneous launch and recovery operations. Also unclear is to what degree drones could operate from the carriers' existing takeoff ramps, which are required to make the maximum use of the STOVL F-35B. Ultimately, however, the Royal Navy might look to a loyal-wingman-type drone, of the kind that the U.S. Navy is working on under its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. These uncrewed aircraft will be highly autonomous but still designed primarily to work closely together with crewed platforms, at least initially. In the past, the U.S. Navy has said it wants to have uncrewed platforms make up the majority of its future carrier air wings, with up to 60 percent of all aircraft on each flattop being pilotless in the coming decade or two. The kinds of ambitions the U.S. Navy has for its CCAs would certainly seem to tally with the aspiration to field 'autonomous collaborative platforms' aboard the U.K. carriers. Last year, General Atomics presented a vision for how a new uncrewed aircraft, a carrier-capable member of its Gambit drone family, could fit into a future air wing aboard the Queen Elizabeth class carriers. A rendering, shown below, featured a catapult-equipped HMS Prince of Wales with a Gambit-series drone ready to launch. The rendering also depicts an air wing that includes carrier-capable MQ-9B drones fitted with a STOL kit, a separate concept that General Atomics unveiled in 2022, as well as F-35Bs. 'We first started thinking of this as a carrier-capable version of Gambit 2, our air-to-air UCAV [uncrewed combat air vehicle] variant, so that's what is reflected on the Farnborough booth graphics,' C. Mark Brinkley, a General Atomics spokesman, told TWZ at the time. 'Lately, we've been thinking of it as a new concept we're calling Gambit 5, designed for carrier launch and recovery, but weapons delivery need not be a primary requirement. It could be ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] focused, like Gambit 1, or even some hybrid.' Other options for the Royal Navy might include a version of the U.S. Navy's MQ-25 Stingray, which is initially being developed for aerial refueling, but which could potentially be adapted for other missions, including surveillance and electronic warfare, and even strike. As well as the MQ-25, the MQ-28 Ghost Bat, a loyal-wingman-type drone designed by Boeing's Australian subsidiary, seems to have attracted some official interest in the United Kingdom. In February, Rear Adm. James Parkin, Director Develop for the Royal Navy, gave a presentation that included a slide with a Boeing rendering showing a variant or derivative of the MQ-28 with a visible tailhook landing on a Queen Elizabeth class carrier. .@RoyalNavy briefing on future unmanned rotary capabilities at #IMHelicon, but note the carrier landing MQ-28 Ghost Bat… #drone #drones — Gareth Jennings (@GarethJennings3) February 21, 2023 Outside of larger drones (and potentially even CTOL crewed aircraft), the review also sees a place for 'single-use drones' aboard the carriers. Already, the Royal Navy has conducted trials involving smaller, jet-powered drones, with the QinetiQ Banshee Jet 80+, best known as a target drone, being launched from HMS Prince of Wales in 2021. An adaptation of this, or a similar drone, could fulfill this role. The Banshee can be launched using a portable catapult from the deck of the carrier, and — provided it's not expended — it can be recovered via parachute and land in the water after completing its mission. The Royal Navy's experiments with smaller carrier-based drones are being carried out under Project Vampire, which specifies the use study of 'lightweight, fixed-wing carrier-borne crewless autonomous systems,' for which the twin-jet-engine-powered Banshee provides a useful surrogate. Operational drones in this class could provide the carrier air wing with important new vectors for carrying out missions, including strike, electronic warfare, and surveillance. Notably, after its appearance on the Prince of Wales, an operationalized version of the Banshee appeared in combat in Ukraine, as you can read about here. Most intriguingly, the hybrid air wing should, 'eventually,' also feature 'long-range missiles capable of being fired from the carrier deck,' the report recommends. The explicit mention of a missile (rather than a drone) suggests that the Royal Navy is looking at the option of launching a cruise missile from the carrier, perhaps even a hypersonic weapon. A ballistic missile is also a possibility, albeit less likely. Currently, only the Russian Navy operates a carrier with provision to launch its own cruise missiles, something you can read about in depth here. However, in recent years, there have been questions about whether the P-700 missile tubes on the Admiral Kuznetsov were still active, let alone whether they were filled with live rounds of the anti-ship missiles. This is more or less academic now, anyway, with the Admiral Kuznetsov out of operational service since mid-2022 and little sign that this will change anytime soon. While the Admiral Kuznetsov was outfitted with cruise missiles to maximize the offensive weapons that could be directed against U.S. Navy Carrier Battle Groups and high-value convoys, the Royal Navy would likely be looking to add an additional land-attack capability to its carriers. On the other hand, a dual-use missile could also be a possibility, especially with a resurgence of interest in anti-surface warfare. Long-range cruise missiles would also not have to be stowed in below-decks launchers, as in the Admiral Kuznetsov, which would require significant changes to the internal layout of the boat, but could instead be fired from the flight deck using a truck, trailer, or container-based launcher. Currently, the Royal Navy uses conventionally armed Tomahawk cruise missiles to arm its Astute class nuclear-powered attack submarines. However, it also plans to provide a Tomahawk capability on its forthcoming Type 26 and Type 31 frigates, via the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS). The current Type 45 destroyer also has the potential to be retrofitted with a Tomahawk capability. The Tomahawk has a range of around 1,000 miles with a 1,000-pound unitary warhead. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom is increasingly looking at new long-range strike weapons, notably a 'deep precision strike' weapon with a range of over 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) that it is pursuing with Germany. While details of the missile are yet to be finalized, it could well be developed with the option to be fired from carrier decks as well as ground launchers. New heights in military cooperation – Defence Ministers Healey & Pistorius agreed: develop 2,000km Deep Precision Strike Capability joint procurement of Sting Ray torpedoes for P-8 Poseidon aircraft strategic land systems partnership continue BOXER co-operation — German Embassy London (@GermanEmbassy) May 16, 2025 Whatever happens, there's no doubt that these plans for the so-called hybrid air wings are full of technological challenges. Not only will it be complex to introduce these new capabilities on vessels that were not originally designed for them, but it will be a very costly endeavor. Coming at a time when there are many competing high-profile U.K. defense programs, it remains unclear how realistic these aspirations are, from a fiscal perspective. Contact the author: thomas@
