Time to change our F16s

If the Mig 21 of India can down a F16 of the Pakistan airforce which India claimed, I think it's really high time to change our F16s.

As a lightweight multirole aircraft plane, the F16s of today is not getting her value back like the old days.

Current models are not cheap with all the upgrades that's going on. Maintenance and operational flight hour cost is piling up. Why are we still having the F16s when she had already lost her primary role as a cheap and good plane?

I strongly suggested we get the Gripen. We could customised the Gripen to our needs which I think the Swedish maker would be gladly obliged. They are willingly to let the Brazilian have the technology transfer, so I think with a certain amount of orders, we could actually customised the Gripens.

F35s is a good plane. No doubt about it. But I believed it's only suited as a role of force multiplier. Low speed, low payload and high cost for being stealthy, doesn't add up to be a good replacement for a lightweight workhorse like our F16s. However, we still need them to link our forces and make our war effort more efficient. Very good plane to deep strike enemy's top valued target like power stations, oil and gas facilities, anti-air facilities etc. However, we do not need the amount that is going to replace our F16s.

We have the F15SGs for deep strike, air superiority or maybe as an missile carrier in the future either for A2A role or anti-ship mission. The F15SGs with her twin engines are heavy fuel drinkers. Cost per plane is over 100+millions. That's a lot of money for a airframe design in the 70s!

I strongly believed that to be a workhorse plane for our tiny nation, we need a lightweight multirole plane, should be of ease of maintenance, reasonable low cost per plane, low operating cost, high turnaround rate even at countryside.

With the Gripen in the inventory, we could mix our A2A missile with the European arsenal like  "Meteor" replacing AIM120. If there's a war broke out and our US ally is being block out from supplying us the missiles, our planes will be sitting ducks on the field.

Look