Romania will receive the first 3 of the 34 F-16 fighter jets it procured from Norway within this week.
Romania will receive the first F-16 aircraft procured from Norway this week. Within the scope of this delivery, it is planned to first deliver 3 F-16 fighter jets to Romania. The planes arriving in the country will be deployed to the 86th Feteşti Air Base.
It is planned that 3 F-16 fighter jet fleets supplied from Norway will be deployed at 3 different bases in Romania. Among these, the 86th Feteşti Air Base, Câmpia Turzii and Mihail Kogălniceanu stand out. To fly the supplied aircraft, Romanian pilots are trained at Sheppard Base in Texas, USA.
Last June, Norwegian Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram announced that US authorities had approved the supply of 32 F-16 fighter jets to Romania. Romania signed an agreement worth approximately $418 million for 32 second-hand F-16 fighter jets from Norway in November 2022.
Romania also procured 17 second-hand F-16 A/B fighter jets from Portugal between 2016 and 2021. The F-16s supplied are in the variant upgraded to MLU standard in the M5.2R configuration. This procurement from Portugal is part of the process of modernizing the MiG-29 fighter jets in the Romanian Air Force inventory with NATO aircraft. With the F-16s to be procured from Norway, Romania will have procured a total of 49 F-16s.
Romania is procuring 49 F-16 fighter jets as well as F-35 fighter jets from the USA. The Supreme Council of National Defense, which convened under the chairmanship of Romanian President Klaus Lohannis in April, made a decision to procure F-35 fighter jets from the US manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Romania is supplying a total of 3 fleets, that is, 48 F-35 fighter jets.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis announced his request to purchase the first F-35 fighter jet in February 2023. Romania, which was formerly a member of the Warsaw Pact, began to replace the ammunition and systems in its inventory with NATO-compatible systems after becoming a NATO member.
