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I wasn't a fighter pilot (sadly) or maintenance guy, they could probably give you the best answer.  But I did used to be a CFI-I and if I could guess it would be a performance issue, more weight and drag?  Or they just don't do the mission types that other places use them for, like israel?, increased loiter time?

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17 minutes ago, dsahling said:

 if I could guess it would be a performance issue, more weight and drag?  

From what I've heard the CFT's don't alter performance drastically if at all at all. The main reason behind them was to free up stations 4 and 6 in order to carry more stuff that goes "bang". 

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21 minutes ago, dsahling said:

I wasn't a fighter pilot (sadly) or maintenance guy, they could probably give you the best answer.  But I did used to be a CFI-I and if I could guess it would be a performance issue, more weight and drag?  Or they just don't do the mission types that other places use them for, like israel?, increased loiter time?

 

Weight nor drag are the issue. They were designed with these factors in mind. In fact, they're better than the standard underwing fuel stores. 

 

It's simply a money issue. 

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Not an expert by no means...I thought/read somewhere, that it had to be installed during the manufacture of the ac. Not able to be done as a major refit during long term depot level maint.. I have no reference to this, I can't remember where I read this.

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Probably the easiest answer is that all the USAF F-16s are significantly older, and were not built with the capability in place for the CFTs. The export customers that have them purchased new build F-16s with that capability "baked in."

 

It would be a great deal of money, work, and effort to retrofit that capability to older aircraft, something that the foreign F-16 operators are also not doing. With enough money anything is possible, but with these aircraft, the cost/benefit analysis has determined it to not be worthwhile.

 

Hoops

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6 hours ago, ST0RM said:

 

Weight nor drag are the issue. They were designed with these factors in mind. In fact, they're better than the standard underwing fuel stores. 

 

It's simply a money issue. 

Good point, my mistake on the drag been a while since I've flown😋

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I have to believe that these still add some weight and drag to the airframe.  Otherwise, we truly have some miraculous engineering going on here.  

 

As such, maybe some users still feel that drop tanks are the preferred solution.   

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You'd never take the time to dump fuel in a dogfight, so we can discard this. 

 

The whole point of the conformal fuel tanks - regardless of fighter type - is to have tanks that you don't have to drop when dogfighting. So no need to drop nor dump :) 

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1 hour ago, 11bee said:

I have to believe that these still add some weight and drag to the airframe.  Otherwise, we truly have some miraculous engineering going on here.  

 

As such, maybe some users still feel that drop tanks are the preferred solution.   

 

 

They do add weight and drag to the airframe. Just not as much weight and drag as traditional pylon gasbags.

 

Cheers,

 

John

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2 hours ago, Niels said:

The whole point of the conformal fuel tanks - regardless of fighter type - is to have tanks that you don't have to drop when dogfighting. So no need to drop nor dump :) 

 

The whole point of conformal tanks was to free up two more wing stations for weapons while maintaining the range added by underwing tanks.

 

Production CFTs are only on blocks 50+, 52+ and 60, none of which are in the USAF inventory.

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4 hours ago, CF104 said:

 

 

They do add weight and drag to the airframe. Just not as much weight and drag as traditional pylon gasbags.

 

Cheers,

 

John

But on the flip side, if needed, externals can be jettisoned while CFT's aren't going anywhere. So if the pilot gets into a jam, he's stuck with an extra 1,000 pounds or so of sheet metal, plus the weight of any residual fuel that is left in the tanks.   Current F-16's are already pretty heavy.    CFT's only make things worse from a dogfighting standpoint. 

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Remember CFTs are primarily (not exclusively) used on two-seaters, which are primarily tasked with air-to-ground missions, not air-to-air.

 

And yes, USAF tankers make the point moot for USAF CFTs.

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The CFT's have nothing to do with increased fuel load therefore greater range during combat ops. A F-16 fitted with CFT's, underwing tanks, and a full loadout of weapons will not get off the ground. The only time you'll see both CFT's and underwing tanks carried together  is when the a/c is in a long distance transit. 

 

With CFT's fitted you're carrying an additional 160 gal of fuel over a pair of standard 370 gal drop tanks. The most common CFT config is with the 300 gal Centreline tank fitted as well, which is carried to offer a better centre of gravity.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Alternative 4 said:

Surely the USAF's huge tanker fleet negates the need for CFT's. It seems more cost effective to buy 1 tanker that can refuel any place in the USAF, rather than spend the same money on adding extra tanks to the F-16.

More than one country is spending a lot of money to take away our tanker advantage. 

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Full weapons load is normally not used anyhow - weapons load is governed by distance to target, mission profile etc. 

This is why you will see the F-16 flying with ie 4xGBU-38 although it can carry much heavier loads. 

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17 hours ago, habu2 said:

Remember CFTs are primarily (not exclusively) used on two-seaters, which are primarily tasked with air-to-ground missions, not air-to-air.

 

And yes, USAF tankers make the point moot for USAF CFTs.

 

From what I have read, the tankers are the main point for the USAF not dealing with CFT's on Vipers. :cheers:

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