Romanian defense minister Mihai Fifor said the Romanian government was accelerating procedures to buy additional five F-16 Falcon fighters from Portugal.
“It’s just the beginning, the next steps will be to negotiate the purchase of 36 F-16 Falcon fighters. We are negotiating with a number of countries using F-16s to ensure they will do it. Available when we buy. These countries include the USA, Israel and Greece. “
Romania wants to equip the F-16 Falcon as the fourth generation fighters to replace the old and outdated MIG-21 Lancer fighters.
Mr Fifor also said Secretary Mircea Dusa traveled to Portugal a few days ago to meet his peers.
“Both parties have to negotiate with each other and they will be presented to the congress to reach permission. It is too early to talk about the cost of the aircraft at the moment”
Earlier, Romania bought 12 F-16 Falcon fighters Portugal and 3 airplane ships finally delivered in October 2017 to the MIG-21 and to merge the achievement of standards NATO standard
Twelve F-16 fighters had an average flight time of 4000 hours. Lockheed Martin after upgraded and refurbished, is capable of flying at least 4000 hours of flying again. Whole contract 12 aircraft have paid 732 million dollars to Romania to mention the cost of refurbishment
The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) for the United States Air Force (USAF) and it is a fourth generation aircraft and also one of the most popular aircraft in the world. So far, they have served in 28 countries and it is still one of the most capable fighters
The F-16 Falcon fighter has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and 11 locations for mounting weapons and other mission equipment including air to air missiles AIM-7 Sparrow, AIM-9 Sidewinder, air to surface missiles AGM-65 Maverick
