Lockheed Martin Corporation announced on January 10, 2024, the transfer to the Slovak Air Force of the first two F-16 Block 70 fighters manufactured for them under a 2018 agreement for the supply of 14 aircraft. At the Lockheed Martin facility in Greenville, South Carolina, the Slovak side received the first single-seat fighter F-16C Block 70 built for Slovakia (US Air Force registration number 20-4001, serial number EX-1, Slovak tail number "1001") and the first two-seat F-16D Block 70 (US Air Force registration number 20-4013, serial number EY-1, Slovak tail number "1101"). Both of them remain in the United States for the time being to train Slovak personnel and will arrive in Slovakia along with several other aircraft planned for delivery in the summer of 2024.
The first Lockheed Martin F-16D Block 70 Viper two-seat fighter aircraft built for the Slovak Air Force (USAF registration number 20-4013, serial number EY-1, Slovak tail number "1101") (c) Lockheed Martin
Recall that in December 2018, the Slovak Ministry of Defense signed agreements and contract documents with the American side in Bratislava for the purchase of 14 American Lockheed Martin F-16V Viper Block 70 fighters (12 single-seat F-16C and two two-seat F-16C) for the Slovak Air Force through the American intergovernmental military sales program Foreign Military Sales (FMS)16D). The cost of the purchase, including equipment, weapons, technical support and training, amounted to more than 1.6 billion euros, which made it at that time the largest defense contract in the history of independent Slovakia.
Under the terms of the agreement, Slovakia was to receive the first of the 14 ordered F-16Vs in the fourth quarter of 2022, with the completion of delivery of all Slovak aircraft by the end of 2023. However, Lockheed Martin faced serious problems in organizing the production of F-16V aircraft at the Lockheed Martin facility in Greenville (South Carolina), where the American corporation is transferring production of the F-16 from the plant in Fort Worth (Texas). It was planned that serial production of the new-built F-16V at the Greenville facility for two launch customers of this modification (Bahrain and Slovakia) would begin in 2022. However, in fact, the backlog in the schedule for organizing F-16 production there has already been two years. Only on January 24, 2023, the first F-16 aircraft manufactured in Greenville took off (the first two-seat F-16D Block 70 fighter for Bahrain - a fighter with the registration number of the US Air Force 18-0011, serial number EB-1 and the Bahraini tail number "1611"). It also became the first F-16V of the new construction, and was officially transferred to the Bahrain Air Force on March 10, 2023. The next F-16 aircraft in Greenville - the first single-seat Bahraini F-16C Block 70 (USAF registration number 18-0001, serial number EA-1, tail number "1601") - took off only on June 29. Then, on September 29, the third aircraft built in Greville was lifted into the air - the first single-seat Slovak F-16C Block 70 (USAF registration number 20-4001, serial number EX-1, Slovak tail number "1001"). Finally, in December, two more Greenville-built F-16D Block 70 took off - on December 15, the first Slovak (USAF registration number 20-4013, serial number EY-1, tail number "1101") and on December 19, the second Bahraini (USAF registration number 18-0012, serial number EB-2, tail number "1612"). On January 5, 2024, the second Bahraini single-seat F-16C Block 70 took off (USAF registration number 18-0003, serial number EA-3, tail number "1603"). Thus, only now can we talk about the real beginning of mass production of the F-16 in Greenville. Since the last production F-16 was produced at the Fort Worth facility in 2017 (for the Iraqi Air Force), now the actual serial production and delivery of the F-16 of the new production have resumed again after more than a six-year hiatus.
According to the updated schedule, the first F-16V Block 70 will now arrive in Slovakia only in the summer of 2024, and the completion of deliveries of all 14 aircraft is expected by the end of 2025. As part of the Slovak Air Force, the F-16 Block 70 will replace 12 MiG-29 fighters already decommissioned (including two MiG-29UB) as part of the Tactical Wing named after Major General Ott Smika (Taktické krídlo generálmajora Otta Smika) at Sliac Air Base (Three Oak airfield) and will become the only combat component of the Air Force. As you know, Slovakia has already withdrawn all its 12 MiG-29 fighters from the Air Force at the end of August 2022 and transferred them to Ukraine in March-April 2023. The delay in the delivery of the F-16V Block 70 left Slovakia without its own combat aircraft for more than two years.
Slovakia became the second customer of the newly built F-16V fighter jets after Bahrain, which concluded an agreement on the FMS line in December 2017 for the supply of 16 new Block 70 aircraft (ten single-seat F-16C and six two-seat F-16D), with an option for three more. According to the updated schedule, all 16 contracted aircraft will arrive in Bahrain in 2024-2025.
Also, by now Lockheed Martin has firm contracts for the supply of new-built F-16V Block 70/72 aircraft through FMS for Taiwan (66 fighters of the Block 70 version), Morocco (24 versions of Block 72), Bulgaria (16 versions of Block 70) and Jordan (12 versions of Block 70). In general, Lockheed Martin expects to maintain F-16 production in Greenville until 2030, having sold up to 300 newly built F-16 aircraft on the foreign market during this time, bringing their production rate there to four units per month.
Work on upgrading F-16 fighter jets from a number of operators to the F-16V level is also being transferred to the Greenville facility from Fort Worth, as well as the manufacture of appropriate modernization kits for work in customer countries. To date, Taiwan has ordered the modernization of F-16 fighters of previous releases to the level of F-16V Block 70/72 (the starting customer of the entire program under the 2016 contract, the modernization of 138 F-16A/B Block 20 aircraft, the delivery of upgraded aircraft is being carried out by the Taiwanese Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation since 2018), Greece (modernization 83 F-16C/D Block 52+ and Block 52+ Advanced, delivery of upgraded aircraft has been underway since September 2022, the main work is carried out in Greece), Bahrain (modernization of 20 F-16C/D Block 40) and Morocco (modernization of 23 F-16C/D Block 52+ fighters). As can be seen, work on the modernization of the first aircraft for Greece and cars for Bahrain was carried out and is still underway in Fort Worth, but, as stated, the Moroccan F-16s will already be fully modernized in Greenville.
The F-16V (Viper) Block 70/72 modification is claimed by Lockheed Martin as the most advanced version of the F-16 fighter family. This modification is equipped with a new Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) with AFAR, a new Viper Shield electronic warfare system, a more powerful on-board computer, an updated cabin with large-format indicators, an upgraded engine, a thermal imaging search and tracking system, improved data transmission equipment, high-precision GPS navigation equipment and an automatic ground collision avoidance system (GCAS). The aircraft has the ability to integrate most types of American modern aviation weapons and install conformal fuel tanks. The resource of the Block 70/72 aircraft is 12 thousand hours, which is twice as much as that of the previous F-16 series. The difference between the Block 70 and Block 72 modifications lies in the equipment with engines of the Pratt & Whitney F100 and General Electric F110 series, respectively.
The first Lockheed Martin F-16C Block 70 Viper single-seat fighter built for the Slovak Air Force (USAF registration number 20-4001, serial number EX-1, Slovak tail number "1001") before the first flight at Lockheed Martin in Greenville, 09/29/2023 (c) Lockheed Martin
The first Lockheed Martin F-16D Block 70 Viper two-seat fighter aircraft built for the Slovak Air Force (USAF registration number 20-4013, serial number EY-1, Slovak tail number "1101") (c) Lockheed Martin
