US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Society Military and Strategic Issues
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US starts delivering F-16 aircraft
July 10, 2007

MUSHAF BASE: The United States on Tuesday started the long-awaited delivery of F-16 aircraft to Pakistan when two of the `Fighter Falcons’ were handed over to the Pakistan Air Force.

The handing over ceremony was held at the PAF base near Sargodha where two F-16s landed after being directly flown from the US.

Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood Ahmed, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Peterson and a large number of senior officers of the PAF attended the ceremony.

Commander of Central Air Command of US Air Force Lt-Gen Gary L. North, along with a colleague, flew the aircraft and reached here after a continuous flight of over eight hours across the Atlantic.

The handing over marked the beginning of the programme for the delivery of the fleet of a dozen aircraft to Pakistan. These aircraft were manufactured in 1990s and their delivery to Pakistan was stopped following imposition of the Pressler Amendment.

Later, these were given to the US air force and navy.

Talking to APP, Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood Ahmed said that the remaining 10 aircraft would be given to Pakistan in batches till the middle of next year.

“These are exceptionally used aircraft and are being given to us at very nominal prices,” he said.

He said the delivery of the aircraft to Pakistan was only possible after hectic negotiations with the US Air Force.

In addition to these aircraft, he said, efforts were in hand to get 16 more aircraft which were in the use of US Navy and these were part of the 28 aircraft for which Pakistan had made the payment.

In the meantime, he said, offers had been made by the US Administration to get the similar number of aircraft being used by the US Navy from the US National Guards. —APP

Dawn

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Must ahve been fun flying it over atlantic. LOL
Kinda outdated, I think Pak should look to get better planes than F16 now.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

^ Where do you suppose we get them from even if money wasn't an issue [it is]?
Where is the saudi arabia and all the wahabi countries that our jamati types like cheguvera / cheegum would sacrifice their lives for when it comes to shelling out some money in defending their "brother" Pakistan? I mean if Iran can pump money in Syria then why not the House of Sodomy of Arabia?

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

AFAIK - Europe counterpart are better. Might be an issue of Convincing them though. Better yet, we have our own plane - make the developement faster for that?

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Picture of Americans and Pakistani Air Force personnel with the F-16s in the background.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Don’t you think Pakistan would have done that with “our own plane” if we had that option? Russia recently allowed the engines otherwise the project would’ve been doomed! Pakistan better keep the act with Russia other the chuptay won’t be able to do us any good but again our jamati / sammy sandvich are kidnapping and killing chinese be it in islamabad or NWFP. :confused:

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

More Chinese disapear in Nigeria’s Delta region and yet China floods that nation with more investment. Chinese aren’t that stupid that they’ll roll back billions of dollars of investment in Pakistan just because 2/3 Chinese were killed.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

^^ Keep believing that and see how Chinese investment has been put on hold in strategic projects. The opening of gawadar was slowed down due to such incidents. Plus, Niger Delta has oil so chinese have an interest [though I haven't heard reports of chinese disappearing as the West is investing there] unlike Pakistan. China is investing in Sudan and Zimbabwe more heavily than others because there is no western presence there..

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Well i'll leave you keep listening to People Party's and Muslim League's wild statements that Chinese are not as friendly with Pakistan as they used to be.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

So the facts at gawadar are making of PPP and PML? Don't be so narrow-minded..

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Television report on the arrival of the F-16s in Pakistan.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Its not outdated. America is still upgrading & flying 100s of F-16s.

The plane matches all of our needs - there is no reason for PAF to acquire more costly aircrafts, which exceed our needs, yet, given that PAF has a limited budget & grants.

Russia never disallowed the engines. They only clarified recently that they will provide engines, against the propoganda going around by the Indians that it has been banned.
And to say that the project would’ve been doomed.. I think it would be a good idea if you actually read about the project in detail & the company developing it, rather than making assumptions & a fool out of yourself. There are plenty of engines that can be fitted into the Jf-17 (with little air-frame modifications), and the Chinese are already reverse-engineering the RD-93 anyways.
China has the Russian arms industry by the balls right now, don’t forget.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Ok lahore de cheeetah, tell me which engines can be fit in the plane [the mig21 spinoffs don't count as they are underpowered anyway]. Or do you plan to tell me that flaanker engine jf17 me ghussa diya jaata?

When you don't know about the issue, then DON'T TALK!!! This JF17 'thundaar' was supposed to in operation around 2003 and the russian engine problem was real... You are like those kids on pakdefence forum who masturbate on F-7s as some super islamic fighturr greater than indian jets like this when F-7 is a chaapa of MiG21!!

I wonder why many pakistanis are such morons like you??? It is a national shame for us.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

They should be delivering APCs not F-16s, which will be useless in the coming battle.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Don't crash these please, cha-ching cha-ching.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Shriek mian. You have a point. Pakistani analysts are going too much gaga over JF17. The problem is that China as a nation is at most a technology integrator and not a tech-power house per se.

It is a lie when a developing country (China, India etc) claims to have indigenous fighter plane program. The honest to goodness fighter plane manufacturers are only those countries who have a strong civilian airplane development programs.

China is not even close to a civilian airplane development and marketing stage. So it is too much to expect form little Chinese (not physically but technologically) to start delivering state of the art fighter planes.

The best fighter planes come from US, Europe, and Russia. As all of these entities are manufacturing and exporting civilian aircrafts.

Even Japanese do not have an independent jet-fighter plane program yet. But I'm sure once they do, they will be one heck of reliable planes akin to Honda, Toyota, or better yet Lexus cars.

p.s. A lot of Pakistani analysts are bunch of socialist morons, who would lap it up anything from China. But the same morons hate to follow China in terms of Chinese client-server relation to Walmart.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

The Japanese have a plane [based on US input of course] that I read about.

I think the problem with Japan has more to do with will or the US pressure [the pacifist constitution] than the technology. Japanese are smart and they have developed so that if US is weak then they can rapidly militarize. It is too bad that they are not very rich in resources but they could still hold their own.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

You are correct on some of the reasons why Japan is not making planes.

The point was that you ought to have a very large technical base in order to make civilian planes. And China doesn't have one. That's precisely why we should not "overly" rely on Chinese fighter planes. That's all.

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But right now, we don't have a reliable supplier other than china. You have got to admit that US has cheated Pakistan on arms deals before like in the seventies and eighties and cutting off spares right in the middle of war in 65 and 71. If only we had a good stable economy, we could tell america to "take a hike" and buy from french etc.

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Re: US starts delivering F-16 aircraft

Wrong. The Japanese did develop a completely independent jet fighter in the 1970s, the Mitsubishi F-1.

However, when it came time to replace it at the end of the 1990s, Japan decided that co-development with the USA was better than domestic development.

As a result, the latest Japanese next-generation fighter is the Mitsubishi F-2, a modified and technologically advance version of the F-16.