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Lockheed won't take F-16 to Paris Air Show
April 28, 2003 (by
Lieven Dewitte) -
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics won't boycott the Paris Air Show this July, but at the suggestion of the U.S. government it will leave its venerable F-16 Fighting Falcon at home for the first time since 1975.
The strain in U.S.-French relations over the Iraq war has generated suggestions that U.S. aerospace companies boycott the Paris show, the world's largest. It is held every two years.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics President Dain Hancock said Sunday that his company will again be represented at Paris but with a "greatly reduced" presence.
Lockheed Martin also won't fly the F-16, which has appeared at every Paris Air Show since 1975 and whose presence is one of the highlights of the daily afternoon flyovers of various international commercial and military aircraft at Le Bourget Field, site of the show.
Hancock said a boycott of the show "would be more harmful to U.S. companies than the French," since so much international business is done at the Paris and other big international air shows in England, Singapore and Dubai.
"But the U.S. government advised us that this year we should not take aircraft, and we won't," Hancock said.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics President Dain Hancock said Sunday that his company will again be represented at Paris but with a "greatly reduced" presence.
Lockheed Martin also won't fly the F-16, which has appeared at every Paris Air Show since 1975 and whose presence is one of the highlights of the daily afternoon flyovers of various international commercial and military aircraft at Le Bourget Field, site of the show.
Hancock said a boycott of the show "would be more harmful to U.S. companies than the French," since so much international business is done at the Paris and other big international air shows in England, Singapore and Dubai.
"But the U.S. government advised us that this year we should not take aircraft, and we won't," Hancock said.
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