Modest Proposal. Let's do the F-16XL to make up for F-35 capability shortfall!

Modest proposal.

Let's do the F-16XL to make up for F-35 capability shortfall!

What do I mean exactly?  We take the best of the F-16's that we have on hand and we do a 3 piece upgrade to AESA equipped fighters we have.

Piece 1.  The wing.

That wing.  It captures everyone's attention because its so radical and futuristic looking.  My love of it is the range increase it gives! Wikipedia isn't precise but we're looking at a range of almost 3k miles.  Hows that for a deep penetration missile truck?  Mach 2 top speed! Ceiling of beyond 50K feet!

Piece 2. Divertless Intake.

Divertless inlet.  Expanded maneuver envelope.  But the biggest benefit is no engine stalls or anomalies.  I'm sure there is more to it but I just believe that this is the way to go with this modest upgrade.

Piece 3.  P&W F-119 Engine.

P&W F-119.  The F-22 engine.  What do we get out of this?  An engine that has demonstrated the ability to supercruise.  It's in the inventory now.  And last but not least it is thrust vectoring capable.

Summation.

These upgrades would give us performance upgrades to the F-16 that should allow it to go toe to toe with the SU family of monsters out there and win. We're talking about pure performance too.  Increased range, speed, payload etc....

Leadership have painted themselves into a corner.  They rolled the dice on the F-35 and its time for us to save them from themselves.  So how do we do that?  We make proposals that are reasonable (notice I didn't say free) and we make the case for clawing back the air superiority that has been squandered while trying to get the F-35 to work.

The time has come to start making hard choices.  We can't allow religious belief in the F-35 to hold sway over rational examination of that program. In short we must start working on Plan B now.  We can't wait till a war starts to try and get it done on the fly.