Fighting Falcon puts off retirement: F-16 to fly for USAF through 2048

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The last of the gunfighters will not be hanging up its holster any time soon. While the Trump administration has been playing Let's Make a Deal with Lockheed Martin and Boeing over the future of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Department of Defense has decided to extend the life of yet another old warhorse to fill the gap. At least 300 F-16 Fighting Falcons will receive structural and avionics upgrades that will allow them to fly until at least 2048, thanks to a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) with Lockheed Martin.

The Obama administration had already made plans for the A-10 Thunderbolt to stay in service until 2022 to fill the close air support role and had plotted an upgrade to the F-16 as well since 2012. But the task of pulling the trigger on the F-16 upgrade was left to the Trump administration. "Following F-16 Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) structural modifications, the US Air Force could safely operate [F-16C and D] Block 40-52 aircraft to 2048 and beyond," Air Force officials said in a release.

The F-16 was a product of a push by a group of analysts within the Air Force known as the "Fighter Mafia" for a lightweight fighter-a counterpart to the F-15 Eagle in what was referred to as a "high-low mix" (with the expensive, high-tech F-15 being the "high"). The F-16 was the winner of a "fly-before-buy" bake-off-an approach to procurement that many critics of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may be nostalgic for.

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