F-16 Block-60 a White Elephant?

Okay, I threatened twice to do it now…

The title asks it all really. You have an aircraft which when it exported will probably outcost the early F-35 CTOL export by a fairly heafty margin, and like the F-35 will be primarily intended as a PGM bomb-truck, with obvious regard for A2A capacity as well.

I mean, quite what Lockheed was thinking when it built this beast is beyond me (though it already has a buyer). The F-16 B50/52 series is selling quite nicely to Greece, Israel and numerous other buyers, and there are plenty of 4th generation alternatives on the way in.

As far as I am aware, the Block-60 has little in the way of RCS-reduction, and relies heavily on electronic warfare and the newest countermeasures, presumably because it is expected to spend a lot of time dodging advanced radar and SAM’s.

What I can’t understand is why you would spend so much on what is clearly a dramtic increment in price over the Block-52, when if you are cleared for Blk60 then you can probably wait for the F-35 or even the Tranche-2 Eurofighter, both of which work heavily with RCS-reduction, and can compare with the same countermeasures of similar or lower price than the Blk-60.

One thing seems certain to me, the Block-60 is not intended for large scale mass-production. How can it be? It seems inconceivable that the USAF is going to use it as an interim for the F-35, and at its current price, who apart from an oil nation is going to be able to afford it when balanced against 4th GEN competitors?

Utterly rediculous if you ask me, but then I’m not exactly qualified to offer anything more than this opinion.

Although I am not familiar with the radar of the Block-60, I find it hard to believe that Lockheed would ever like to see it in a mock fight with something like the Tranche-2 which other F-16 users like Greece are likely to purchase in the near future. For a start, CAPTOR and PIRATE, which I suspect are capable enough to offer the sensor edge anyway, will only compound the fact that the Tranche-2 will offer a potentially harder target to detect, particularly since it doesn’t have the bizarre bulky shape of the Blk-60.

People will have different opinions on this, but you have to regard the price for buying and equipping this aircraft if it is only a short time away from being made “commercially obsolete” by the mass production of newer aircraft types.

So I ask again, what was Lockheed’s motivation behind making this aircraft? Surely it was unnecessary to go head-over-heels on preparing this F-16 concept this way unless they already had firm interest from the potential buyer.