USAF will upgrade F-16s ' computers to keep venerable Falcon fighters flying until the 2040s — popular 4th generation aircraft will have flown almost seven decades by the time they retire

• The US Air Force is seeking a 'Next-Generation Mission Compute' offering to replace the brain of its F-16 Block 40/42/50/52 jets
• The notice calls for open, swappable hardware that physically separates flight-safety and mission computing, with room for GPUs and AI
• Officials say these jets will serve into the 2040s, roughly seven decades after the F-16 first flew in 1974

The US Air Force is shopping for a new brain for its F-16 Fighting Falcons. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center F-16 program office will brief companies at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio about a Next-Generation Mission Compute system to replace the Modular Mission Computer in Block 40, 42, 50, and 52 jets, the core of the service's Viper fleet.

Demand for these is sky-high: all 24 one-on-one sessions with the program team were booked by September 24 2026, and an October 8 update limited sensitive sessions to...

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