Ideally, this kind of trick should be outlawed. You shouldn't be allowed to take the decades-old / existing F-16, create a slightly different / superior variant of the same base plane, and start calling it F-21, covertly whispering to potential buyers that it's just one step short of America's flagship - the F-22 [when in fact it isn't]. Lockheed Martin's F-16 bid failed in India because of these reasons - cost, capability, technology-transfer, industrial cooperation [offsets], threat of future sanctions, and Pakistan [Pakistan already has F-16s]. Lockheed realized that the name "F-16" is more of a baggage than an asset here in India. So it changed the name of the offering to F-21. Losers!
