What is going to happen to the F-16s?
What is going to happen to the F-16s once the JSFs have been taken into service? The Minister of Defence still needs to decide on the fate of the F-16s. A look at the past reveals some of the options.
The Minister of Defence has yet to inform parliament about the fate of the F-16s once all the JSFs are taken into service. Let’s take a look at what happened in the past to those F-16s that were decommissioned.
The Ministry of Defence keeps a careful record of what has happened to all 213 F-16s bought by the Netherlands in the past. The following table shows the state of play as at the beginning of 2019.
F-16s: the state of play to date (5 February 2019) (source: Ministry of Defence)
145 aircraft disposed of or lost
Peacetime losses
The Ministry of Defence claims that there have been 39 peacetime losses of aircraft, but two of these have been reassigned to a new purpose (such as being put on show). This explains the figure of 37 quoted above.
Scrapped, put on show or used for training purposes
A number of the other F-16s were no longer fit for service. These have been scrapped, put on show or used for training purposes. This results in the aircraft in question losing their registration numbers and hence their status as active military aircraft.
- 18 F-16s have been scrapped, i.e. all usable parts have been stripped off the aircraft, such as wings, engines and components that are either difficult or impossible to obtain on the open market. In other words, the aircraft have been cannibalised.
- 12 F-16s are now on display at the entrances to the air forces bases in Leeuwarden and Volkel, at the Military Museum in Soesterberg and in various other places.
- 18 F-16s are in use for training purposes, either by technical personnel who need to learn how to maintain an F-16 or for the training of firefighters.
- The fate of two aircraft is as yet undecided.
Sold
The Ministry of Defence has sold a total of 58 F-16s. Whenever the government is planning to sell one or more F-16s, the Minister reports this to parliament. The Netherlands has sold F-16s to two countries:
- 2006-2007 : 18 aircraft sold to Chile;
- 2008-2011 : 19 aircraft sold to Chile;
- 2008: 6 aircraft sold to Jordan;
- 2017: 15 aircraft sold to Jordan.
The proceeds from the sale of the aircraft tend to vary from one transaction to another. Historic figures are not much help in estimating the potential future earnings from the sale of the remaining aircraft. For example, the 18 F-16s that were sold to Chile in 2007 fetched an average price of €5 million per aircraft, whereas the six aircraft that were sold to Jordan a year later were priced at only €3.4 million apiece. This was because of the differences between the aircraft in terms of model, configuration and technical generation.
Moreover, the cost of preparing the aircraft for sale and training and/or assisting personnel from the air force buying the aircraft tends to vary depending on the purchaser’s requirements. As a further point, getting the F-16s ready for sale and keeping them in a fit state also cost money. The Dutch air force can only sell aircraft that are ready for operational use. Until they are actually sold, therefore, the air force is forced to incur certain costs for ensuring that they remain airworthy, keeping them in hangars, making any necessary modifications, ordering spare parts and tools, and maintaining them.
68 aircraft still operational, including as part of the logistic reserve
The Minister of Defence had already decided in 2011 to reduce the number of operational F-16s from 87 to 68, and to sell the rest. This resulted in the second sale of aircraft to Jordan in 2013, leading to the actual delivery of the aircraft in 2017. In 2013, the Minister of Defence decided that a further reduction was needed: of the 68 remaining aircraft, only 61 would be formally regarded as operational. The remainder would henceforth be classified as forming what was known as a ‘logistic reserve’. The latter aircraft retained their registrations and could be deployed if necessary. One of the aims of this decision was to reduce the number of flying hours per F-16 and hence to lower the cost of maintaining the ageing aircraft. A total of 68 aircraft would be available for performing the workload of 61 aircraft. In other words, the F-16 would henceforth be operating on a part-time basis.
Eleven of the operational aircraft are stationed in the US, as they are needed to enable new pilots to learn to fly the F-16. This is a process that must continue for the time being. The expectation is that, as more JSFs come into service, fewer F-16s will be required for initial training purposes. The redundant aircraft can then return to the Netherlands or be taken out of service.
In practice, the aircraft included in the logistic reserve are not all capable of taking to the air without notice. Due to a shortage of certain parts, the air force has from time to time removed parts from one or more of these aircraft, on the grounds that they were temporarily grounded anyway. This type of activity, which is referred to as a ‘technical shortage switch’, has resulted in aircraft missing a growing number of parts and hence no longer being available for use. This was the situation affecting two aircraft in the logistic reserve at the beginning of 2019.