iscover
The F-16I79 offers the benefits of an "in service" aircraft, a highly reliable and widely used engine and a capable radar and naval attack system. Against this weighs a reportedly higher flyaway price compared with the F-5G and the fact that any nation buying the F-16I79 will have to ask itself why it had to settle for a "detuned" F-16 when so many nations, indeed of delicate political leanings, have been able to purchase the USAF-specification F-16A.
Update – The FX Fighters
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One of the few popular political/military judgements made by ex-President Jimmy Carter was the freeing of US aircraft manufacturers to pursue export fighter sales to a broad range of countries under the guise of the FX fighter concept in January of 1980.
Up to that time US manufacturers had been able to pursue export sales only to the NATO countries and selected allies such as South Korea, Japan and Australasia. The embargo went so far as to prohibit flying demonstrations of US fighters at the 1978 Farnborough Air Show and virtually handed hundreds of multi-million-dollar orders to such rivals as Dassault, British Aerospace and even Mikoyan who revelled in the political nobbling of the world’s foremost producer of combat aircraft.
Enter the FX.
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