NEW
It is the last from 36 aircraft ordered by Iraqi
government. The delivery is scheduled for
early 2018 according to Foreign Military Sales
agreements. Due the low level of Iraqi pilot skills,
two fighters were lost in training accidents in
United States, were the pilot's training takes
place. As most of the recent F-16's, the Iraqi
fighters are Block 52 standard.
The total number of fighters in different
variants built in Forth Worth plant is 3,640
units. First was completed in December 1973.
In the peak of production, 1987, the 286 planes
were built. Except the Texas plant, which
belong to General Dynamics later acquired by
Lockheed Martin, the F-16 fighters were also
built in few different locations worldwide. In the
Netherlands it was Fokker (until 1992), SABCA
in Belgium (until 1991), Samsung in South Korea
(until 2003) and Turkish Aerospace Industries
(until 2012). Due the lack of export orders, since
2007 the number of manufactured planes was
decreasing below 30 units each year. The F-16
fighters were delivered to the air forces of 27
countries in total.
In May 2017, Lockheed Martin announced
moving the production line from Fort Worth
Iraq purchased 36 F-16C/D fighters. That was a last export order for Fort Worth plant. Photo: Lockheed Martin
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