October 23, 2007 (by Asif Shamim) -
Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) delivered the first modified aircraft to the Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF) during a hand over ceremony at it facilites on October 17th.
The handover ceremony was attended by HE Vecdi Gönül, the Minister of National Defence and HRH Prince Faisal bin Al Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan.
Under the contract signed in July 2005 the work consists of the Falcon-up, Falcon Star and Mid Life Upgrade (
MLU) modifications of a total of 17
block 15 F-16s have started to be performed by TAI. This upgrade brings the F-16s upto the
block 40 standard.
The program was initiated with the arrival of the first two
RJAF F-16s at TAI's facilities on 27 April 2006. The first twelve jets will be updated on site at TAI's facilities in Ankara and the remaining five will be done in Jordan under supervision from engineers from TAI. The modernization program will be completed in 41 months.
