The question is how many airframe hours will be left on those 24 second-hand F-16s. the USAF has been flogging its fleet heavily owing to the Iraqi and Afghan engagements and I wonder where they’ll find 24 airframes with decent number of hours left on them..AMARG may be raided. Air National Guards won’t be happy if they lose any of their F-16s, so my guess is they’ll be drawing them from the boneyard, reconditioning them and then selling them to the RoAF.

But with $800 million being spent on these 24 F-16s and their related infrastructure, training and initial support, I do hope for the Romanians that these last them a decade at the very least. Their maintenance will certainly not be too easy as they’re older and that will mean that the fleet will take a while to stand up and attain a decent availability rate.

Aren’t there any European MLU’ed F-16s on the second-hand market ? Chile snapped up a few from the Dutch at rock-bottom prices.

To those in the know, which would be better ? MLU F-16s from Belgium, Netherlands or USAF F-16s from their boneyard ? Not that it matters now, but some of the EU F-16 users have been shaving off their F-16 fleets quite a bit.

New news from the deal. The planes will be f1 6 block 25 upgraded (no details yet on engines and weapons)
the next step will be the acquisition of 24 new new f16 block 52
and then by 2020 24 j35 which will replace the block 25
this is the plan we ll see how it works out

certainly a better solution monetarily than Eurofighters..I mean what threat level does Romania face to be able to justify a fighter that costs over $100 million apiece ? to say that the Romanian Air Force wanted Typhoons indicates that they weren’t being smart in their choice..either the Gripen NG or the MiG-35 would’ve been cheaper to acquire and possibly even operate. To my mind, there is no big benefit to the extra performance that a Typhoon gives, for a cash-strapped Air force that has no real threats.

BTW, Israel could easily integrate those F-16s with the Python-III. After all they fly them with these missiles themselves. Shouldn’t cost too much either since they’re not radar guided.

Well you have to understand the mentality of a poor country. always backwarded even in comparison to eastern europe. In Warsaw pact time, ROmania was the last to get the mig 29. All migs 21 were older models. Very vew mig 23 and delivered late. Not bvr weapons. No proper sams. and then comes the fall of communism. New opportunities. new money. You are a young pilot. you see your government paying twice as much as western european countries for 1 km of highway. You see the government committed to pay 500 millions euro for a web site and paying 500 millions + for 2 old frigates from the uk with barely any weapon on it. You see all the crooks around in the government. of course you will say, why not an eurofighter ? you dream about it and you try it, you fly it…. so from a logistic point of view the air force was not even able to handdle the mig 29, but dreaming is human. and for the grypen, no way, this another psychology thing. Hungary has it, we should nt have it. It would make sense but no one will be caught pleading for it. The swedes were naive because they omitted the history and cultural rivality of Hungary and ROmania. we are officially friends and allies but… ROmania buying Grypen after Hungary has them is like… almost like the Royal navy buying Rafales after the french navy bought them. They would rather wait 10 years or have their aircraft carriers empty than buy what s on the market but the old foe turned friend has already

Can you tell me is there possible neighboring threat to Romania ?
What neighboring countries you see as friends of possible [future] foes ?

Is there any inside security problems, that would require potent air force interventions ?

no threats from the west.romania is in nato. ukraine may be a problem but no war expected just bad neighbours stuff , maritime territory dispute, and minorities (romania has a claim on part of ukraine for historical reasons and ukraine treats romanian minorities pretty bad) . russia is far and no way some lancers and old f16 are going to stop the pak fa… last time russians planes flew over Romania on their way to Kosovo (in 1999) to drop paratroopers, the Romanian air force got jammed pretty bad by Russian ECM planes. But at that time we ere not in Nato …

main missions of the air force now are a ) air police b) available aircrafts for expeditionnary missions for nato such as afghanistan or baltic states . for these two missions 24 planes are waaaay below the requirements. no interior security problems

One comment here, Lancers have MAGIC2 not MICAs ..as for the Pythons , maby they tested them on Lancers , but i never saw them operational…( wouldnt make sense anyway to have two different missiles with comparable performance)

Sorry about that they have micas. You should check recent reports about weapons bought by Romania in 2009 . It was in the romanian press check here http://www.dailybusiness.ro/stiri-companii/ce-arme-a-vandut-si-ce-arme-a-cumparat-romania-in-ultimii-4-ani-39884

A few more words about it. It was a political decision after all. The air force was upset because they were planning and asking for a new fighter since 2007. Following the november election and re election of the pro american, uncle sam ..ss licker president he promised them what they wanter. more cannon fodder, i.e romanian infantry for aghanistan, new basis for anti missile interceptors (24 standard 3) against iran threat and now the f16 deal. no way this president was going to go for an european solution. so the army swallowed its pride (my sources indicated that they wanted anything but used planes with a preference for eurofighters ) and instead of waiting another 5 years at least for a new president with no flyable planes now they made their reccomendation for this stop gap solution hoping for best after. problem is all the air force weapons are french or israeli (mica and pythons) and may have to be rewired or dropped … and we will have to pay for new us weapons. for the moment no news about the source of the planes israeli or us, i suppose us though

Romania

It s official… Romania will buy 24 used f16 as a stop gap solution… It will be probably f16 from the usaf. No money is involved. Romania will pay only for maintenance and refurbishing of the plaes. The new fighter solution (Rafale, Grypen, or Typhoon) is postponed for better economic times. The decision has been made by the defence council today and will be ratified by the parliament

http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-esential-7062184-romania-achizitiona-24-avioane-f16-second-hand.htm

first of all the source of this news is an obscure newspaper from a provincial town. it is just plain gossip dug by some bored journalist who had nothing to publish in this time of the year. but the issue remains to be solved. in 2010 romania is facing huge economic challenges has a budget just above of 2009 (about 2.5 billion euros) which is barely enough for current programmes. so no new deals in 2010. the priority of the armed forces is to continue to equip and upgrade the forces (mainly infantry ) serving in afghanistan (about 1000 +) which are to be increased thanks to our president ‘s obedience to the great satan and committment undertaken recently. so it means the money will be spent on piranha vehicles, communication, drones and stuff like this. the air force is integrating the c 27 spartan transport plane which are urgently necessary for logistical purposes (specially in afghanistan) since the old hercules are too expensive to maintain. the lancers are getting old but there is no real air threat now, since the ukrainian air force is all but grounded, russia is far away and no one sees an air war coming soon in the region. for patrolling the skies, a few couple of lancers out of 48 operational in fighter squadrons can still do the job. as for new fighters, there are two conflicting trends : the more time passes and the procurement is delayed, f16 chances are decreasing (getting older and older), israeli f16 are viewed with suspicion by the air force (even if elbit has done a good job with the lancers, it was not a good contract on a price/value money compared to other options). no more buying of old equipment says the air force which is mumbling about the costs of refurbishing hercules. they are ready to wait as long as it takes in order to postpone a decision even speak about possible f35 deal. the other conflicting trend is the economic situation which is bad and pleading against the typhoon offer which is . based on technical and operational requirements (large air space) preferred . there is also the president desire to please the americans is also an issue favoring some kind of deal with the us but we all hope it will at least include block 52 if it comes to these. so i believe no deal in 2010, the us will get along with more romanian infantry for afghanistan, the air force will hope for better economic times