F 18 offer to PAF in the 80's

[SQ8]

Economy of scale.. also came in..
At the time.. the hornet was being acquired by the canadians and the aussies only.. I am talking about late 82..The F-16 by then.. was in service with the IAF, Several european air forces and was being considered by Turkey and Egypt..

 

[All-Green]

Salaams

F-16 was the ideal platform for Pakistan Airforce, a truly multirole lightweight champion and we had planned for a 100 of these birds in our Airforce.

Time has proven that the falcon is a great workhorse which performs extremely well in all roles and is able to generate a high sortie rate.
To date it is one of the most agile and maneuverable aircraft with great G handling at all speeds.
To me it is still the best bang for buck fighter.

F-18 was developed to be a Naval Strike aircraft and has evolved a lot since the 80s when there were major gripes regarding its range and payload.
Nonetheless, i have great respect for this lethal platform which had become a legend in its own right.
The decision to get F-18s (if there was any room for it) could only have taken had we inducted F-16s in the numbers we had planned for, but we never got that far did we?

We shall never know whether PAF would have gone for F-18 if we had not been sanctioned and F-16s had been inducted in the numbers originally envisioned.
To run two major new and very different aircraft inductions in parallel would certainly have been ill advised and without justification.
However if it was a decision between F-16 and F-18, i would certainly have gone for F-16s again.

 

[SQ8]

Its because we bought F-16's that we were able to keep them running..
Where would we have gotten critical spares for F-18's from?

 

[ejaz007]

A good question by Santro.
It was because a number of friendly air forces were using F-16 that we managed to keep them airworthy.
F-16 was the right choice.

 

[All-Green]

A good question by Santro.
It was because a number of friendly air forces were using F-16 that we managed to keep them airworthy.
F-16 was the right choice.

Actually it was not just the friendly countries but the sheer volume of F-16 committed nations that made it a good choice.
Friend or not, everybody considers a business proposal and weighs its pros and cons.
After all, who does not want to do business?