THE OPS DESK
BRINGING YOU THE LATEST TALK FROM AROUND THE SQUADRONS
ON JUNE 25, 2018, Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract worth more than $1 billion to produce 16 Block 70 F-16s for the Royal Bahraini Air Force. The contract represented the initial sale of brand new examples of this variant of the ‘Viper’ after a slew of upgrade contracts, and it will be the first F-16 production program to be performed at Lockheed Martin’s Greenville, South Carolina, facility.
The transaction has been a muchneeded shot in the arm for the F-16, proven time and again as the world’s most successful fourth-generation multi-role fighter. More than 4,600 F-16s have been built, and approximately 3,000 are still operational, providing the backbone of over 30 front-line air forces — including the US Air Force.
New potential
Lockheed Martin has long aspired to move F-16 production out of Fort Worth, Texas. In early 2017 it announced that any new examples would be manufactured in Greenville, freeing up production floor space for the F-35 Lightning II at the Texas plant. The last F-16 built in Fort Worth departed on November 14, 2017, slated for service with the Iraqi Air Force and ending a 40- year run of ‘Cowtown’ F-16s.
Produ…
