The U.S. State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Turkey of defense articles and services to support upgrading its current fleet of F-16 aircraft and related equipment for an estimated cost of $259 million. The Government of Turkey has requested to buy defense articles and services to support its current fleet of F-16 aircraft, to include software upgrades of the Operational Flight Program (OFP) avionics with the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (AGCAS) capability; hardware modifications to enable integration of the Multifunctional Information Distribution System Block Upgrade II (MIDS BU II), procured separately.
Hardware and software upgrades to include aircraft major modification; both classified and unclassified software and software support; integration and test support; support equipment; training and training equipment; spare and repair parts; publications and technical documentation; U.S. Government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistical support services; and other related elements of logistical and program support. This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve Turkey’s interoperability with NATO and ensure safety of flight for Turkey’s existing F-16 aircraft. The principal contractor will be Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Fort Worth, TX.
Turkey is one of only five countries in the world which locally produce the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The Turkish Air Force has a total of 270 F-16C/D aircraft in its inventory, all of them Block 30/40/50 models. In 1984 Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) was established and Turkey started to produce fighter aircraft locally under license, including a total of 232 F-16 Fighting Falcon (Block 30/40/50) aircraft for the Turkish Air Force. The air force had previously received 8 F-16s that were purchased directly from the U.S., bringing the total number of F-16s received by the air force to 245. In 2007 TAI built 30 F-16 Block 50+ aircraft for the airforce and applied the CCIP modernization program to 117 of its Block 40 and 50 F-16s, bringing them to the Block 50+ configuration.
