F-16 down.

[Bereta_Eder]

(translation)

F-16 fighting aircraft fallen and crushed at 13:05 noon, 3 miles east of the aerodrome of Ageialou while flying at an altitude of 1.500 feet. Fortunately the pilot of the aircraft, Sminagos (mil term) Theodore Pliatsikas, managed to use to system of automatic thrust of his seat and is good in his health. helicopter of the Military Airforce has transported the pilot, for cautionary reasons, to the 251 general Hospital of the Airforce.

According to initial assessments the fall of the aircraft is due to the suck in of a bird in the tourbine.

And my euglote question: a damn expensive equipment as is the F16 can go down because of a damn bird? And we aren't why be training pigeons as defence mechanisms?

[SlowwHand]

Hell, yes, a bird can take down a plane.
The amazing part is at such a low-level the guy was ok.

[Giancarlo]

Possibly... but I only heard about smaller Cessnas doing this.. crashing because they were hit by birds... but many.

[JohnT]

"And my euglote question: a damn expensive equipment as is the F16 can go down because of a damn bird?"

Think about it... the turbines are supposed to be feeding air to the engine. When a bird hits a fan that is going thousands of RPM's a minute, that fan is toast.

[CerberusIV]

A bird can make a real mess of the inside of a jet engine. Of course, it also makes a real mess of the bird but that must be small consolation to the bird.

This has always been a problem with jet aircraft,particularly on take off and landing and short of trying to scare birds away from airfields no-one has come up with a good answer.

Incidentally, F 16's aren't expensive. They are obsolescent and mediocre airplanes. F 22's and Eurofighters are expensive.

[Giancarlo]

An F-16 mediocre and obsolescent? Sure they might of been around for twenty years but they are hardly mediocre.

[JohnT]

Well, they're expensive if you're, you know, the Greek government.

[Bereta_Eder]

An F-16 is not a rifle hence it is expensive, for any government. And unfortunately the Greek gov. will be amongst a handful of EU govs to buy Eurofighters too, and build them.

http://www.eurofighter.com/Default.asp?Flash=True

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Fez
An F-16 mediocre and obsolescent? Sure they might of been around for twenty years but they are hardly mediocre.

If they're that cheap, maybe we can order some for the USS Apolyton.

[SlowwHand]

F-22's, I don't believe, aren't even in use yet.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by paiktis22
An F-16 is not a rifle hence it is expensive, for any government. And unfortunately the Greek gov. will be amongst a handful of EU govs to buy Eurofighters too, and build them.

http://www.eurofighter.com/Default.asp?Flash=True

My country is buying and building Eurofighters too.

But we are also buying F-18s.

[CerberusIV]

F 16's are cheap for the airframe and engine. What costs is how good a radar and weapons fit you equip them with. The US and Israeli planes are pretty good, the Greek and other european NATO planes are not.

It is all relative but the planes coming into service over the next five to ten years are a lot more capable than any F 16, as well as vastly more expensive.

It is still a lot of money to lose compared to the cost of a pigeon though.

[Seeker]

They show up on the radar of countries that use SAM-2 and 3 missiles.

The new ones supposedly don't.

They can only track a few targets at a time.

The F-22 can aquire something like a dozen targets at once so that it can't be overwhelmed by a swarm of ancient Chinese MiGs as easily.

They are more nimble than the F-22, but that's something you want if you plan on actually fighting a real air force, which is only a consideration for Pakistan and India (Pakistan uses F-16s I believe. They probably don't have the dough to upgrade yet).

Canada still uses the very old CF-18. It's had lots of uprades, but it's still old. Since it would be major part of Canada's contribution to any war in our interest, they should really be replaced with F/A-18s that can work with our yankee 'friends' more easily. As it is, they are in danger of becoming 'symbolic' like our armoured forces.

[Bereta_Eder]

F-16s can be equiped with plenty of extras (electronic warfare comes to mind) and are themselves versatile and upgraded. Eventually though they will become obsolete but are not now, definitely.

[SpencerH]

F-16's cost about $20M each. The F-22's cost about $100-150M each! Crazy!