On Jun 11, 4:07 am, "Paul J. Adam" wrote:

The F-16 and A-10 are good examples, both initially hailed by the
Lightweight Fighter Mafia as everything a combat aircraft should be
(though the ideal aircraft, according to the LWF, seems to have been the
A6M Zero...) and both being "ruined" by the addition of the useless,
wasteful electronics that let them do more than excel at range-shooting
on bright sunny days (and both subsequently demonstrating remarkable
effectiveness and longevity...)

Don't forget the ultimate example of this sort of thing: the A-4
Skyhawk. Heinemann's fanatical devotion to weight saving meant that
you had an excellent air frame capable of holding its own in a
dogfight (as Aggressor pilots proved on numerous occasions). And in
the hands of a determined pilot, well, ask the RN how effective it can
be as an attack aircraft. Unfortunately, it really took until the A4D2
(aka the A4B after the great renaming) to get an airplane that was
functional in more conditions than daylight only- with guided weapons,
adequate navigation systems, etc. The A4D2N (aka A4C), with all sorts
of fancy-pants radars and ECM's and so on was even more useful, and
not surprisingly, 4x as many A4C's were made as A4-nils. Heinemann was
a fantastic designer and I really admire his discipline about weight,
but I think he might have gone a bit too far with mission weight from
time to time.

Chris Manteuffel