Why the F-16XL Lost to the F-15E

In February 1984 the U.S. Air Force chose the F-15E Strike Eagle over General Dynamics' F-16XL for its Dual-Role Fighter: a long-range, two-seat, night and all-weather strike aircraft that could still fight air-to-air. This film explains why, and what that choice did and did not prove. We follow the F-16XL from its cranked-arrow wing, developed with NASA Langley to carry far more fuel and to tuck bombs in low-drag rows under the wing, through its Air Force flight tests at Edwards, where it carried twice the bombs of a standard F-16 farther but lost speed in hard sustained turns and landed fast. We look at what the F-15E's case rested on: four modified F-15s, synthetic aperture radar, conformal fuel tanks and a smaller airframe change. Then the government's own audit: the General Accounting Office's January 1984 report shows the F-15E cheaper to add to aircraft already planned, and the XL-derived F-16E cheaper as a whole airplane, in the Air Force's August 1982 estimates for 400 aircraft. The same report criticized the lack of a common yardstick, and the Air Force replied that fixed criteria could predetermine the result. We hear from the test team (Lt. Col. Edwin Thomas, Maj. Patrick Talty), from the F-16's designer Harry Hillaker, and from General Dynamics' program manager Randy Kent, and we follow both XLs into NASA flight research on supersonic laminar flow and digital flight controls. The public record gives the Air Force's stated rationale but not the internal weighting of each factor; the test-team accounts were given after the decision, and the manufacturer's accounts are its own. If you flew, maintained or built either F-16XL, or worked on the Strike Eagle evaluation, corrections and memories are welcome in the comments. #F16XL #F15E #StrikeEagle