Somewhere down the road a few years, all those aging F-16s...who knows? I see market potential and that's a sexy upgrade to the standard retrofit package that market will be offering.
Just a day dream. But then, I still live to see the F-23 fully developed and in service. *sigh* What a great F-14 replacement it would make, not to mention revive the "who has the better fighter argument?" between the Navy and AF.
The Mig-21/Mirage-III/F-5 upgrades have been popular for one reason- Cost. Such aircraft are not a threat to their vendors hawking newer platforms. The 21 or Mirage-3 don’t come anywhere close to anything to a Mig-29 or Mirage-2000.
That’s not the same case with a souped up F-16 like the F16U. Barring all aspects stealth, it can match or even better the F-35 in some parameters. Which is precisely the reason why LM happily peddles barebones upgrades like the F-16V variant.