Strange Looking F-16 Airframe In Palmdale — Military Forum

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Strange Looking F-16 Airframe In Palmdale

boeing767mech From United States of America, joined Dec 2000, 992 posts, RR: 3
Posted (1 year 11 months 1 week 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 10657 times:

Just got back from Palmdale and saw a strange looking F-16 airframe. It is sitting along Ave P outside the Lockheed Plant 42 area. Does anyone know what the story is behind this airframe? First I was thinking it was used for a movie prop but it doesn't look like something that was made for a movie because most everything in movies in CGI nowadays.

David

Never under-estimate the predictably of stupidty

6 replies: All unread, jump to last

ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3244 posts, RR: 0
Reply 1, posted (1 year 11 months 1 week 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 10612 times:

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I'll take a guess and say it's one of the F-16XL prototypes. IIRC F-16XL was the F-15E Strike Eagles competition.

Looks like maybe it's modified for other research.... That intake looks like one of the sonic boom reduction projects....

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ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3244 posts, RR: 0
Reply 2, posted (1 year 11 months 1 week 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 10600 times:

Well now I'm not so sure about the XL. XL was a two seater and had no horizontal stab.

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ebj1248650 From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 1932 posts, RR: 2
Reply 3, posted (1 year 11 months 1 week 5 days 1 hour ago) and read 10593 times:

Isn't that the airplane that was used to test the F-35's air inlet design? Take a close look at the inlet.

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ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3244 posts, RR: 0
Reply 4, posted (1 year 11 months 1 week 5 days 1 hour ago) and read 10583 times:

Quoting ebj1248650 (Reply 3):
Isn't that the airplane that was used to test the F-35's air inlet design?

Could be. There's a pix of it on this page... scroll down a bit... Too bad it's not a pix of the whole airframe.

http://www.jsf.mil/f35/f35_technology.htm

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boeing767mech From United States of America, joined Dec 2000, 992 posts, RR: 3
Reply 5, posted (1 year 11 months 1 week 4 days 21 hours ago) and read 10437 times:

Quoting ZANL188 (Reply 4):
Quoting ebj1248650 (Reply 3):Isn't that the airplane that was used to test the F-35's air inlet design?
Could be. There's a pix of it on this page... scroll down a bit... Too bad it's not a pix of the whole airframe.

http://www.jsf.mil/f35/f35_technology.htm

That makes sense considering it sits about a mile away from where parts of the F-35 are built and the prototype was built. Thanks for the information. Hopefully Lockheed will put this airframe in a museum or at least take it across the street and let it sit in Joe Davies Airpark once they get all the piece put back on it.

David

[Edited 2011-06-12 20:29:54]

Never under-estimate the predictably of stupidty

oly720man From United Kingdom, joined May 2004, 6180 posts, RR: 11
Reply 6, posted (1 year 11 months 1 week 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 9598 times:

More pics here along with some descriptions.

http://www.zone-five.net/showthread.php?t=13552

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