Forum: General F-16 forum

From DefenseNews;

BUCHAREST - Romania cannot afford to purchase second-hand F-16 combat aircraft unless granted a long-term financing plan, Romanian president Traian Basescu said on Sept. 18.

"We have no money and we cannot commit ourselves to such a contract without a long-term financing scheme," Basescu said during an interview on private - ProTV.

"There is no pressure from the U.S. to buy aircraft, but on joining NATO we committed ourselves to equipping the armed forces with 48 fighter jets compatible with the Alliance's," he added.

Romania had announced in March 2010 its decision to purchase 24 F-16 aircraft currently used by the U.S. air forces, at a cost of 1.3 billion dollars(1.1 billion euros), in order to replace its ageing, Soviet-made MiG Lancerjets.

The announcement triggered criticism from European groups Eurofighter and Saab, which stressed authorities should have issued a call for tenders. But a few months later, struggling with a deep economic crisis, the government announced it would not be able to finance the buy in 2010.

The American ambassador to Romania, Mark Gitenstein, this week said that a regional plan involving the purchase of new F-16 also by Croatia and Bulgaria was "in the works" in order to reduce costs. Maybe even the Hungarians and the Czechs might be interested, he said.

"Then you have a flow of orders that makes it easier to keep the assembly line open and reduces the cost per airplane," he said.

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I am surprised that Saab has not stepped in with a Gripen C/D plan.

Last edited by marco9 on Sep 21, 2011 - 04:48 AM; edited 1 time in total

Romania does not need any new fighter jet. The MiG-21s are old, but they can do the job of intercepting any strayed cargo or business jet and this is all about air defense of a lower income European Country for the next foreseeable years.

Romania is even missing a decent highways network! Romanian people are leaving the Country since the fall of communism due to ridiculous wages, corruption, unemployment and general social situation.

Apart from the Romanian case, the last things ANY European Country needs at this moment are defense expenditure, the least if these expenditures are bringing European money out of the EU. If the Gripen, Typhoon, Rafale, Mirage or second hand European F-16s could have a minimal sense, imported American F-16s do not at all. Even less if we are speaking about keeping an “assembly line open” and not USAF surplus.

Are you serious? Hungarian, Croatian, Czech, Romanian, Bulgarian lower income workers and taxpayer should pay for the high income American workers’ wages with their hard given taxes? This is the worst Socialism EVER.

I cannot say anything different but I am just glad about the cancellation of this F-16 sale.

They hold out long enough, the US will just give them some F-16s.

Romania (of which I am 25%) made the conscious decision to join NATO knowing that one of the requirements was fielding modern fighters that can be deployed alongside the rest of NATO forces.

SpudmanWP wrote:

Romania (of which I am 25%) made the conscious decision to join NATO knowing that one of the requirements was fielding modern fighters that can be deployed alongside the rest of NATO forces.

Again not today, not in this economic situation. Many Countries that joined NATO in 1999 did just lease 12 Gripen fighters from Sweden and that's all, and this is right.

Many older members are shrinking their fleets.

I am sure those upgraded MIG-21s are qualifying for minimal NATO standards since they had taken part in Baltic Air Policing for NATO.

If Romania has signed something that obliges it to buy something new (I really doubt about it), they should go for a leasing of no more than 12 second hand European F-16s, Mirages or Gripens, not any shiny brand new US built F-16C/D Blk 52MEGAPlus.

I'll just give an example: Greece.

I'm not saying that they have to buy anything new, especially a US jet. They are obligated, however, to field SOMETHING that is NATO complaint.

SpudmanWP wrote:

I'm not saying that they have to buy anything new, especially a US jet. They are obligated, however, to field SOMETHING that is NATO complaint.

Right, and those upgraded MiG-21s are fulfilling minimum NATO standards since they performed the NATO Baltic air policing mission for a while.

http://articles.janes.com/articles/Jane ... mania.html

Then why is Romania saying that they need to be replaced? It might be total aircraft (only 4 were used in the Air Policing mission in your link). The lead post quotes a Romanian official as stating that they need a total of 48.

Four were used because such force is required by NATO for that task.
Check out the other Counties' commitments when it was their turn.

As usual in any Country, some official will try to bring the money to his budget portfolio, underestimating the obvious issues of their Country in other sectors.

48 up to date fighters is the IDEAL force for a Country like Romania, but since the rest of the Country is far from IDEAL, it's pointless trying to bring the air defence to an IDEAL standard.
Infact, luckly some other higher ranking officials and politicians considered this request a bit odd and curtailed it.

The Romanian Mig-21's are at the end of their lifespan, regardless of what upgrades have been done. This is why Romania need new fighters, in addition they have an obligation to NATO. Neither of these can be looked away, but if you have no money - you have no money.

BTW - many countries have poor road standards, but that alone is not enough to kill an upgrade of the military, whether land, sea or air.

Boman wrote:

The Romanian Mig-21's are at the end of their lifespan, regardless of what upgrades have been done. This is why Romania need new fighters, in addition they have an obligation to NATO. Neither of these can be looked away, but if you have no money - you have no money.

BTW - many countries have poor road standards, but that alone is not enough to kill an upgrade of the military, whether land, sea or air.

Airframe lifetime is B*S*.
B-52s are still Flying just to point out an example. It’s all about maintenance and mid life upgrades.

Moreover, Romania upgraded something like 110 MiG-21s, but after a few years most of them were put in storage since it was an exaggerated number. If I remember properly today 36 are flying.
This means that if 36 reached their airframe lifetime, there are many others that could still fly.
Upgrading the military while the Country is still developing is just foolish and it’s not what a modern democracy should do, if it’s not urgently needed (high tensions around the Country’s borders).

Moreover if you are in the middle of a huge economic downturn that is heavily affecting your Country.

Again, if Romania really needs to get a new fighter aircraft due to some unknown reasons, they have just to lease 12 Mirage-2000s, Gripens or European sourced F-16AMs

I'd have to sympathesize with marco on much of his passion and reasoning being expressed here, with the possible slight exception reason why so many Romanians/former warsaw pact nationals have left home to work abroad since the fall of Soviet Union. This is because they *can* leave today which is natural under the various listed circumstances and they can do so without being shot. No question, Romania is still a very economically disadvantaged euro country relative to the zone and their pounding is only being compounded by the ongoing fiscal and shrinking growth crisis that is leaving no stone unturned.

With respects to the honorable US Ambassador's statements, I too was a bit confused with his comments (implying benefits of economies of scale procurements, via joint regional buys) as they would contradict w/ the previously contemplated acquisition of *used* USAF F-16 jets?

And of course as USAF knows first hand, "requirements" change not always by choice, but by default given the realities at hand. Simply arguing that past requirements would demand such and such a number of tactical aircrafts, is not relevant to 'what is what' in relation to any future jet acquisition scheme. Furthermore, the future fiscal reality beyond the economic issues of last couple years has been radically changed.

I would therefore definitely support some form of 'long-term financing', or 'Lease' deal by whomever it was potentially supplying Romania's replacement tactical air component regardless of its size.

Personally, I feel the cheapest 'modern' capable jet for reasonable air sovereignty might be Korea's new combat version T-50 (F-50). Perhaps Korea would be willing to Lease in order to get the ball rolling on the export front. That in conjunction with some form of possible 'offset' package or joint venture deal of some sort, energy or otherwise (maybe a Hyundai plant in Romania, etc, or some such investment). If DoD could top that, hey all the more to Romania. God speed-

SpudmanWP wrote:

I am surprised that Saab has not stepped in with a Gripen C/D plan.

They already have, and they even made a better offer when Romania said they wanted the F-16:

"Romania's Supreme Council announced in March its decision to buy 24 second-hand F-16 jets for $1.3 billion dollars, a purchase which is to be submitted to parliament for approval.

Jerry Lindbergh, a Swedish government official in charge of defence exports, gave details of the offer at a news conference in Bucharest. He said Sweden could provide 24 new "fully NATO interoperable Gripen C/D fighters, including training, support, logistics and 100 percent offset for the amount of EUR 1 billion."

The money could be paid over 15 years with low interest rates."

http://www.defencetalk.com/sweden-offer ... nia-25773/

marco9 wrote:

Airframe lifetime is B*S*.
B-52s are still Flying just to point out an example. It’s all about maintenance and mid life upgrades.

Can't really compare a B-52 with a fighter - the airfram stresses are different - atleast to some degree, not beeing expert on this.
MLU's are only cost-effective to a certain point. Somewhere down the line the manufacture of new parts for an MLU are more costly than buying new fighters. Happened before, will happen again.

I fully respect your point of view on infrastructure vs. military spending, but we can't solve that for you here on this board. That's politics at its best or worst depending on how you view it.

As for the Swede's statement on cost and benefit, they haven't been able to sell/lease much so far. Add to that certain corruption scandals that doesn't help either.
Atleast your goverment stops further action on this before they get too involved rather than being smart after they are knee-deep in trouble Smile

Forum: General F-16 forum

Romania Cannot Afford F-16 Jets