# Does the P&W F100 turbofan engine of the F-16 really produce this much power?

I've been trying to calculate the power a P&W F100 engine on a F-16 is producing using some of the available data on thrust and velocity and I ended up with a number that I want to confirm. Here's how I made the calculations.

First of all, I don't want my calculations to involve any complications due to the altitude and its effect on the engine thrust, so I just chose to make my calculations at sea level. Wikipedia states that the maximum speed of an F-16 at sea level is 1,470 $$km/h$$ which is ~$$408$$ $$m/s$$.

Secondly, I found out that jet engines in general produce different thrust at different speeds. I did some research and found that turbojets produce somewhat constant thrust at subsonic speeds and gain extra thrust at supersonic speeds, while turbofans suffer degrading thrust with speed with a degree depending on the bypass ratio of the turbofan. I found that high bypass ratio turbofans suffer much more thrust degradation at high speeds compared to low bypass ratio turbofans. which means that low BPR turbofans fall somewhere in between the turbojet and high BPR turbofans according to their BPR.

I found that P&W F100 Wiki gives a bypass ratio of $$0.36:1$$, then looking at this thrust vs speed graph, which confirms what I concluded above, I could determine that the F100 engine with 0.36 BPR can have no more than 10% thrust degradation at mach 1.2. I also think that using the afterburner shifts the curve further up since more air is now entering the core than before without increasing the fan flow and therefore the engine behaves even more like a turbojet than a turbofan. Overall, I think it would be safe to say that the afterburner thrust at Mach 1.2 at sea level will not degrade more than 10% and so the F100 engine thrust will become 0.9×127 kN = $$114.3$$ $$kN$$

Now the power is simply $$P = F . v$$ = $$(114.3 × 10^3) × 408$$ = $$46.6 × 10^6$$ $$W$$ or about $$62,000$$ $$hp$$.

So my question now is: Are my calculations acceptable to a certain degree or are they completely off and I didn't take into account another significant factor?

EDIT: I have another question. I'm assuming here that the engine is producing full thrust at the sea level to counter the air drag and achieve the quoted speed. But is this a correct assumption? In other words, could an F-16 fly at its maximum speed at sea level while not using the maximum thrust?

• In answer to your edit, it is possible for an aircraft to exceed is maximum speed (e.g. a limit speed - Vmo/Mmo) while not using max thrust. In an aircraft designed for supersonic flight like the F-16, the maximum theoretical speed is probably much closer to its design limit speed than it would be in an airliner, but there will be a difference Mar 2, 2020 at 18:49
• Also, the first question is more of a physics question than an aviation one, while the edited one is more aviation-related Mar 2, 2020 at 18:50