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Originally Posted by dragoon500ly
The final answer is, nobody knows for sure. Modern aircraft being made of exotic materials and expensive electronics...it sure won't be like turning out 24 P-51Ds a day! The best guess for the F-16 is about 15 days from start to finish. How much this could be cut down is up in the air, that's why I crack jokes about GD going to three shifts a day, it really is the only way to produce enough F-16s to match the needs.
A lot of web sites talk about F-16/15/18s going all over the world...in real life, the USAF would be busy bringing squadrons up to wartime strength and struggling to build a reserve of ac. My own best guess is that nobody else will be getting front line aircraft, it would even be doubtful that F-16A/Bs would be sold, they can, after all, be sent into depots for full rebuilds. Older birds like the F-4s would be sold, and ac like the F-5s/F-20s would be the most likely ones sold overseas.
I tried to reason out a logical chain that would allow the RAF to pick up F-16s, but the major problem is this is a bird that the Brits do not fly, have no pilots tried to fly it and no support crew trained to maintain. It is very doubtful that the Falcon would ever serve in the RAF. The needs of the USAF/USMC/USN would almost certainly keep all front-line production for their own use. As one previous poster has noted, the Army seized tanks, certainly aircraft can be seized as well.
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Well nobody's talking about WW2 levels of production her, but we are talking about wartime production is going to be running a lot higher than peacetime levels, and the US can build things quicker than anybody when its puts its mind to it.
Does anybody have an actual accurate statistic for how many F-16's the USAF has on hand in the mid-1990s? By my reckoning its could be over 1,400 and that's not including aircraft that are being built.
I have the RAF getting the F-16's in 1996, not in the middle of 1997 when the US armed forces might realy have a problem with US war production going to other countries when they need it themselves. Also the F-4 which I have the F-16's replacing is also an American aircraft, as is the Hercules, the Sentry and the Chinook, and the RAF has been flying US aircraft since WW2. RAF pilots are very well trained, highly competent and experienced. I think only US, Israeli and perhaps Australian and Canadian pilots match them in flying hours. The F-16 is one of the most common USAF aircraft stationed in Europe and is also used by many other NATO countries. How hard would it realy be to send RAF Phantom pilots and ground crew on a crash training course to one of the dozen or more air bases across Western Europe which support F-16 operations?