Image source: topwar.ru
A year has passed since the arrival of the first French-made combat aircraft in Croatia. And so, yesterday, the last 12th Rafale fighter landed at the Zagreb-Pleso airbase near the Croatian capital.
This is reported by the Serbian portal Tango Six.
Thus, France has completed the delivery of a batch of Rafale fighter jets to the Croatian military. And the Croatian Air Force has fully equipped one of its squadrons with 12 French aircraft.
The arriving single Rafale EC has the tail number 159. Nine more such planes arrived earlier. Two more delivered fighters belong to the Rafale DC series and are two-seater.
All the planes were delivered on time, and it took one year. Two two-seat and four single-seat fighters were the first to arrive on April 25 last year. Further, one single-seat aircraft was delivered on November 21 and December 11, 2024, and then this year on January 23, February 20 and March 20. The last 12th fighter arrived today.
Image source: topwar.ru
The Netherlands-based Scramble aviation community reported that the production years of the delivered aircraft vary between 2005 and 2013. Previously, they were used by the French Armed Forces.
The delivered aircraft belong to the modification of the F3-R Rafale generation 4+. Such fighters are capable of using, among other weapons, modern long-range missile systems, including METEOR and SCALP-EG.
It is very good that this equipment is not intended for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but for the Croatian Armed Forces. Apparently, this is due to the fact that the contract for their supply was concluded even before the start of large-scale supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine.
