If there were any photo of this or document what says that it is possible…
I’m hoping someone here has a document or photo showcasing this, because the JASDF really likes running fuel tanks on said pylons and nothing else.
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Even though the station 5/7 pylons are distinct from those used on Stations 3, 4, 8 and 9 they still have the ASM markings. This suggests that either the capability exists on the F-2 already, or they are compatible with the pylon for future integration with the aircraft.
Guided armament on inner pylons is also not unusual, with even basic F-16s before the conception of the F-2 regularly using various types of guided bombs or missiles on them. Though since this would also take the space of the fuel tanks commonly carried alongside the ASMs I understand why this isn’t usually done (if at all).
I really hope we can get more material on this, as this would not only allow loadouts of up to six ASMs at a time, but also allow combined ASM / AAM-4 loadouts.
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Nice! Hopefully that’s a good enough excuse to get the stacked ASM loadout for the F-2A
Fingers crossed that the devs aren’t stubborn and refuse to give the F-2A its full loadout… Proper loadout implementation and changes is almost always like trying to pull teeth once they make up their mind…
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XF-2A. Mechanical radar, 9Ls and 7Ms - exactly the same armament as the AJ right now. Could be placed at the same BR.
Then first production F-2A with AAM-3 added and CAS abilities.
To be fair it’d have more AIM-7s, APG-68 radar, better flight performance, still higher T/W than the F-16As (even if lower than the F-16C) and more countermeasures. I’d expect that to be maybe 13.0-13.3 for it
I thought the F-16A and C were tied on T/W, as the more powerful engine was offset by more weight.
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Not even 2 tech trees so far have AESA radars on tech tree vehicles, it’s just France.
F-18E also started its life with a mechanical scan radar.
30SM is PESA.
@IzumoKai54
An AIM-9L AIM-7F only F-2 would be interesting, but I somehow doubt it’d be 12.7. Guess we’ll see what their F-16AJ plans are in the future.
And no flares since it’s a completed prototype of a production vehicle it doesn’t get Kikka treatment.
That would depend on the dynamic thrust. I don’t really have those, so I’m just going by static installed thrust as shown in War Thunder, where the F-16C has ~16% increase in empty weight, but ~28% increase in thrust over the F-16AJ (Block 10 with 220 engine).
I was still wrong though, considering F-2 also has ~29% increase in empty weight over the F-16AJ currently featured in the game. So unless there is more info on the alleged thrust increase of the IHI-129 engine (which more likely just comes from a comparison with the PW engine of the Block 40) the F-2 doesn’t have better T/W than the F-16A, but isn’t much worse either.
If the F-2 gets ME mode it would also lose less energy in a turn, which would make up for it, but that’s depending on the really optimistic idea that Gaijin care about it.
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It’s a completed prototype that was only armed once the production F-2 was finalized, so its armament is equal to that of the early service F-2, including flares.
The first XF-2 to be armed, XF-2B 63-8102 which was used for the first radar and weapons testing already had the countermeasures installed during testing.
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I just noticed the HUGE flaps on that thing. All that additional drag and lift might be useful in some scenarios.
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Gotta prove that aircraft’s radar isn’t AESA.
Both for increasing our knowledge, and potential options.
Either way not for a while since XF-2 requires more work than F-2 in game development.
It is AESA, AN/APG-68 was only intended to be used if J/APG-1 prototype wasn’t ready in time. Since J/APG-1 was ready in time it was directly mounted to the fourth prototype as intended.
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Over on the research server someone did a rough calculation of turn performance from a video. While this isn’t a completely reliable measurement it does give a broad range for turn performance ranging from ~26°/s @ 450km/h (absolute worst case, no ME and constant max AoA) to as high as ~36°/s @ 450km/h. Using a more realistic average, this is comparable to the performance of the Rafale in game. (If I got any of this wrong please correct me, I didn’t do the calculations)
Combine that with a G limit of 10G (12G with overload) at any weapon load, that would translate into a 15-18G structural limit in game, which will be rather powerful.
Really the main things holding it back will be the lack of HMD, restricted 4/4 missile load and T/W on the low end of top tier, but as long as Gaijin doesn’t do something really weird with the flight model (like just copying the F-16) it will still be a capable 14.0 in its own way.
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A bit optimistic, but makes sense given what we know. I say optimistic because the entire rest of the WT community just assumes fat F-16 and not that I can blame them if they’re just looking at a surface level. My assumption is that it should be quite literally the zero of top tier but I think that would get EFT/Rafale pilots angry.
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Conjecture.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Eurocanards but some people assert that they are better than F-22 in a dogfight because of some footage of the Rafale having one in its gunsights in DACT, the reality is we don’t know the actual conditions regarding what happened, such as if the Rafale started behind the F-22 when the engagement started.
Yes, EFT and Rafale have very good flight performance, but don’t discount some of the other fighters such as the F-2, late J-10 variants, etc.
F-2 is much more than a bigger F-16C with AESA.
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I thought the APG-68 did get installed for its first flight? But either way having an AESA radar at a ‘low’ BR (Kfir C10 says hello) won’t be much of a problem when its limited to Sparrows.
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ME mode for reference for everyone:
I did some T/W calculations way back and this is what I came up with.
All weight in kilograms and thrust in kilonewtons. Fuel load at 50% max capacity.
F-16A-B10
Empty: 7,570
Fuel: 3,140
Armaments: 506.8 (6x AIM-9L/M)
Total: 11,216.8
Thrust: 105.7
T/W: 0.96F-16C-B50
Empty: 8,950
Fuel: 3,200
Armaments: 887.2 (6x AIM-120A)
Total: 13,037.2
Thrust: 131
T/W: 1.025F-2A
Empty: 9,527
Fuel: 4,637
Armaments Full: 1252 (4x AAM-3 + 4x AAM-4)
Total Full: 15,416
Thrust: 131
T/W: 0.867Armaments Alt: 1070 (2x AAM-3 + 4x AAM-4)
Total Alt: 14,964
T/W Alt: 0.893Armaments Alt 2: 546 (6x AAM-3, I think it’s possible?)
Total Alt 2: 14,710
T/W Alt 2: 0.908F-2A (same fuel as F-16C-B50)
Empty: 9,527
Fuel: 3,200
Armaments Full: 1252 (4x AAM-3 + 4x AAM-4)
Total Full: 13,979
Thrust: 131
T/W: 0.956Armaments Alt: 1070 (2x AAM-3 + 4x AAM-4)
Total Alt: 13,797
T/W Alt: 0.968Armaments Alt 2: 546 (6x AAM-3, I think it’s possible?)
Total Alt 2: 13,273
T/W Alt 2: 1.006
At first glance it looks bleak for the F-2 but remember the F-16A runs circles around the F-16C even with worse T/W. The extra wing area, ME mode, higher G load, all should add to better turning, in theory.
Also something to note, maybe F-2 can get away with less fuel since it’s the same engine as the Block 50. I just did 50% for both just to get a baseline.
EDIT: I added another section with same fuel as F-16C-B50 just to get a airframe to airframe comparison. Something to note, the F-2 has better T/W than the Block 10 while carrying a bit more fuel and slightly heavier AAM-3s.
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A Viper Zero you could say…
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