Tag Archives: Raportăm “Misiune îndeplinită!” și dăm ștafeta mai departe. Cer senin!

Know Your F-16 care and feeding? Looking to travel to Eastern Europe for fun and profit?

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Florida-based Draken International, a top-end commercial training and aggressor company that operates F-16s and Mirage F.1s among other types, is “Looking for former or current F16 technicians for employment in Europe.”

The job openings are for crew chiefs, avionics, and general maintenance techs with experience on F-16A/B aircraft, and a willingness to travel to Romania.

The country– which shares a 300-mile border with Ukraine– retired its last of some 400 MiG-21s earlier this year.

Romania now uses a squadron of 17 second-hand F-16AM/BM Block 15s (!) bought recently from Portugal, and signed a contract with Norway in November 2022 to another 32 additional 40-year-old F-16A/Bs for 388 million euros, to ensure the future transition to the new F-35 fighter jet. All of the RoAF F-16s are set to be upgraded to M6.5.2 operating configuration, with Kongsberg providing support– and apparently, Draken tapped in as a subcontractor.

It is not surprising that the work is being farmed out, as a lot of the extra bandwidth with F-16 techs in NATO is being contributed to the effort to get Ukraine’s pre-owned donated Vipers in the air sometime this year. Reportedly, 11 different countries are coming together on that project.

Besides the Ukraine F-16s, a lot of the guys with that skillset who are willing to travel have been in Iraq for the past couple of years off and on, with their late-model F-16IQ birds being kept in the air and regularly bombing ISIS targets largely via commercial Western support.

Lancer’s last flight

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The Romanian Air Force has been flying MiG-21 models since 1962, the equivalent generationally of an American F-100 or F-105. While the Super Saber and Thunderchief have long ago been put to pasture, the old MiG-21 soldiered on, with Romania flying more than 400 in a half dozen different models over the past 61 years.

Well, that came to an end this week with the service sending off their final MiG-ul 21 LanceRs on Monday.

Modernized in cooperation with Israel between 1993 and 2002, the LancerR is arguably the most advanced MiG-21 ever fielded but its time has come and gone.

The 711th Combat Aviation Squadron at Câmpia Turzii was the final user.

Raportăm “Misiune îndeplinită!” și dăm ștafeta mai departe. Cer senin! (We report “Mission Accomplished!” and we pass the baton on. Clear sky!)

Romania now uses a squadron of 17 second-hand F-16AM/BM Block 15s (!) bought recently from Portugal, and signed a contract with Norway in November 2022 to another 32 additional 40-year-old F-16A/Bs for 388 million euros, to ensure the future transition to the new F-35 fighter jet. All of the RoAF F-16s are set to be upgraded to M6.5.2 operating configuration, with Kongsberg providing support.

The Romanians have proved fast learners to the Viper, with the first RoAF F-16s dispatched to NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission having successfully scrambled to identify and escort two Russian Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers last month.

The Romanian Air Force F-16s deployed under NATO’s Baltic Air Policing, on April 7, 2023, conducted their first Alert Scramble out of Šiauliai Air Base, Lithuania. Photo by Romanian Air Force.