Information supplied and copyrighted
by Joe Baugher
General Dynamics A-16
Last revised March 31,
2000
In the 1980s, the USAF set aside Blocks
60/62 for the A-16, a dedicated close air support version of the F-16.
However, the A-16 got wrapped up in the
debate about close air support. The supporters of the A-16 project wanted the USAF to
replace its A-10A Thunderbolt IIs with A-16s, arguing that the A-10 was too slow to
survive above a high-tech battlefield. Detractors argued that the A-16 had insufficient
range and load-carrying capability to make an effective attack aircraft, and, in addition,
it would be too vulnerable to enemy antiaircraft fire. The Army even got into the debate,
arguing that the Key West agreement of 1948 under which they were prohibited from
operating fixed-wing combat aircraft was now obsolete, and that the USAF's A-10s should be
turned over to them for use alongside AH-64 Apache helicopters. In 1990, Congress decreed
that some USAF A-10As and OV-10 Broncos be turned over to the Army and Marine Corps
beginning in 1991.
However, all of these plans came to
naught. On November 26, 1990, the USAF was ordered to retain two wings of A-10s for the
CAS mission and announced that they would retrofit up to 400 existing Block 30 F-16C/Ds
with new equipment to perform the CAS mission, effectively killing the A-16 program. No
order for the A-16 was ever placed.
Sources:
- Combat Aircraft F-16, Doug Richardson,
Crescent, 1992.
- General Dynamics Aircraft and their
Predecessors, John Wegg, Naval Institute Press, 1990.
- The American Fighter, Enzo Angelucci and
Peter Bowers, Orion, 1987.
- United States Military Aircraft Since
1909, Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowers, Smithsonian, 1989.
- F-16 Fighting Falcon--A Major Review of
the West's Universal Warplane, Robert F. Dorr, World Airpower Journal, Spring 1991.
- The World's Great Interceptor Aircraft,
Gallery, 1989.
- Modern Military Aircraft--F-16 Viper, Lou
Drendel, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1992.
- Lockheed F-16 Variants, Part 1, World
Airpower Journal, Volume 21, Summer 1995.
Back to the main menu
[Advertisement]
|
|
