10K hours on a 29 year old F-16

[Will Collier]

freeradical wrote:
[quote=Will Collier]
[quote=Racer X]
I forget which fighter they were talking about for close ground support maybe a decade ago, but it could only have sustained gunfire for 4 seconds, and the A-10 for over 16. Does the F-35 even have guns? Or would it just be a load of missiles?

F-35 does have a gun. Whether it should or not is another matter.

Most fighters have very limited cannon fire duration. It's less than a second for F-15 and F-16 IIRC, they only carry about 500 rounds. The M61 is a 6,000 round per second minute cannon (thanks Joe), so you do the math.
From what I understand, the J-20 does not have a gun.

I guess the thinking is that if it gets to the point where a stealth fighter needs a gun, the jig is up.

I agree with this.
So does Chuck Yeager. He's said for years that putting a gun on a fifth-generation fighter is stupid... and he's right. If one of those jets ever gets in a visual-range dogfight, by that point a great many things will have gone terribly wrong.