Bulgaria and Lockheed Martin held a ceremony to hand over the first F-16 Block 70 fighter to the European country’s air force on January 31.
The information was shared by the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense, although the manufacturer had not yet released an official statement.
To date, Lockheed Martin has completed the manufacture of three fighters, a single-seat F-16C and two two-seat F-16Ds. One of them will remain in Greenville for ground personnel training.
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The other two fighters are expected to fly to Bulgaria between the end of March and the beginning of April.
The first Bulgarian F-16 completed its maiden flight in October last year and the country will be the second in Europe to have the advanced variant of the Block 70 – the first was Slovakia.
The Bulgarian Air Force ordered eight supersonic jets in 2019 and three years later secured a contract for another batch of eight fighters.
The F-16s will replace the MiG-29s and Su-25s currently in service, which were supplied by the Soviet Union in the past, when the country was part of the Warsaw Pact.
The F-16 is currently operated by 27 countries, six of which have ordered the F-16 Block 70/72 variants.
