The fighter fleet of the Argentine Air Force (Fuerza Aérea Argentina – FAA) is finally being reconstituted with the acquisition of 24 former Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF) Lockheed Martin F-16s.
The purchase agreement for the aircraft was signed in Copenhagen on 16 April 2024 by Argentine Defence Minister Luis Petri, who was accompanied for the occasion by head of the Argentine Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff Brigadier General Xavier Julián Isaac, FAA chief Brigadier Major Fernando Luis Mengo and Argentine Secretary of International Defence Affairs Juan Battaleme.
A letter of intent (LoI) regarding the sale was signed in Buenos Aires on 26 March 2024 by Petri and Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, with Poulsen noting at the time that the sale has been conducted in co-operation with the United States as the original manufacturer of the aircraft. The US State Department cleared the sale in October 2023.
The aircraft in question are F-16AM single-seaters and F-16BM twin-seaters, although the mix of the two types being sold to Argentina has not been reported.
As well as the aircraft themselves, the sale includes the delivery of four flight simulators, eight spare powerplants, the provision of spare parts for five years and the training of pilots and maintainers.
“Today we are completing the most important military aircraft acquisition since 1983,” said Petri in Copenhagen. “We are talking about 24 F-16 aircraft that have been modernised and equipped with the best technology, and that today are at the level of the best aircraft flying in the skies of the South American region and the world.
“With these new aircraft we are taking a transcendental step in our defence policy, recovering the supersonic capacity of our aviation and achieving the definitive entry of our air force into the technological challenges of the 21st century,” Petri added.
Argentina had for years struggled to find a replacement for the FAA’s dwindling fleet of Douglas A-4AR Fightinghawk attack aircraft that entered service from 1998, of which only a handful are likely to remain airworthy. The FAA does also operate a small fleet of around seven indigenously produced FAdeA IA 63 Pampa III advanced jet trainers adapted for the light attack role, but this fleet was originally intended to be 40 strong.
Previous Argentine attempts to procure a new fast jet type, including the Korean Aerospace Industries FA-50 and the Chinese/Pakistani-produced CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder, failed to materialise. This was down to a lack of funding but also a UK veto on military exports to Argentina, given the historic tensions between London and Buenos Aires since the 1982 Falklands War. This meant that any fighter sold to Argentina would have to be free of UK components.
As the RDAF transitions to the Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, Denmark is donating the remaining 19 aircraft of its 43-strong F-16AM/BM fleet to Ukraine to help recapitalise the Ukrainian Air Force amid the Russian invasion of that country. The RDAF began training Ukrainian pilots and technical specialists on the F-16 in August 2023.
