The F-2 — Why "a Modified F-16" Doesn't Cover It

There is exactly one aircraft in this game: the F-2. There are carriers and there are canyons, but you always fly the same jet.

This page is what that aircraft is, from publicly available material. At the end there are the numbers for the F-2 inside this game — what it actually weighs, and where it stalls.

1. FS-X — build one, or modify one

The F-2 began as FS-X, a 1982 requirement for a support fighter to replace the Mitsubishi F-1, with anti-ship attack as its primary mission.

A domestic design competed with modifying an existing airframe. The decision came in October 1987: a joint Japan–US development based on the F-16C/D. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was the prime contractor, with General Dynamics on the American side — that company’s fighter business moved to Lockheed in 1993, becoming today’s Lockheed Martin, so the F-2 was developed across that handover.

• First flight of the first prototype — 7 October 1995
• Entry into service — October 2000
• Final aircraft delivered — 27 September 2011
• Built — 94 production aircraft, plus 4 prototypes

2. Where “a modified F-16” stops being useful

The F-16 was the starting point, but more than 95% of the drawings changed. The most visible difference is the wing.

25% more wing. It was enlarged to carry heavy anti-ship missiles a long way, and that one decision sets how the aircraft flies. More wing at the same weight means flying slower and turning tighter.

What the F-2 is best known for technically is how that wing is made.

• A one-piece carbon-fibre composite wing. Rather than building spars and skins separately and fastening them together, the structure is cured as a single piece — an early application of this on an operational fighter. Lighter, with fewer parts and fewer joints.
• The J/APG-1 active phased-array radar. Instead of mechanically swinging an antenna, many elements steer the beam electronically. The F-2 was the first operational fighter in the world to carry one. It was later upgraded to the J/APG-2, substantially extending detection range.
• Digital fly-by-wire. The stick is not connected to the control surfaces; a computer sits in between. That is why how far you pull is not the same as how far the surfaces move.

There is also a two-seat F-2B, used for pilot training (see Where the F-2 Flies From).

3. Specifications

The published figures.

One engine. Unlike a twin, there is no second option if it quits, so managing thrust is managing survival — true of the real aircraft, and true here.

What it can carry is covered in F-2 Weapons.

4. What the F-2 in this game weighs

From here on, the game. The flight model carries lift and drag as dynamic pressure times a coefficient, and mass can be worked backwards out of that coefficient. Put in the real wing area of 34.84 m² and sea-level air density, and the answer is 12,702 kg — about 12.7 t.

That 12.7 t is the reference point everything is tuned against. The 240 km/h stall, the 280 km/h approach and the meatball’s glideslope onto the carrier were all measured there. On the real aircraft it corresponds roughly to landing weight, which is why the approach to a carrier stays manageable.

But the aircraft does not stay one weight in flight. Mass is empty weight plus what is aboard plus fuel, and it drops as the fuel burns.

What the reference 12.7 t is made of

Any stage that does not specify a load launches at exactly this weight.

Stages with tanks fly at 15.1 t

The stages that carry two external tanks — the Matsushima circuits and the formation missions — add 2,420 kg on top (180 kg of shells plus 2,240 kg of fuel). The same aircraft flies differently.

The tanks can be jettisoned in flight (keyboard J, gamepad dpad ←). Drop them and the weight returns to the reference immediately: the stall goes from 262 back to 240 km/h and thrust-to-weight gains a fifth.

What you see matches what is aboard. The six underwing stations carry that stage’s weapons (practice rounds if it is not a shooting mission), and the tanks appear only on the stages that carry them. Jettison them and they leave the model too.

Performance at the reference weight

Thrust is set against that same 12.7 t. Divide the published F110 figures by 12.7 t and you get the thrust-to-weight numbers above directly. Thrust itself is held as a force, independent of weight, so launching heavy lowers the ratio instead — exactly as it does on the real aircraft.

Fuel itself — the gauge, bingo and running dry — is covered in Controls. Where the model still departs from the real aircraft is covered in the second half of Stalls and Turns.

5. What comes next

The F-2’s successor is planned as the next-generation fighter being developed jointly by Japan, the UK and Italy (GCAP), with the F-2 expected to retire progressively from the 2030s.

Thirty years after its first flight, and a quarter century after entering service, the two things that made it distinctive — the wing and the anti-ship capability — still have no straightforward replacement.

Sources

• Mitsubishi F-2 — Wikipedia
• F-2 Fighter — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
• F-16C/D Block 50/52 — F-16.net

The game figures are from a title still in development and may change.

This article is commentary based on publicly available information.