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F-16 Fighting Falcon News

First flight of Chilean F-16

June 23, 2005 (by Lieven Dewitte) - Lockheed Martin flew the first F-16 (#851) produced for the Chilean Air Force on its initial production acceptance flight. Two flights were successfully accomplished on June 23, with no discrepancies reported on either flight.

FACh F-16C block 50 #851 is spotted here during a check flight. Note the special camouflage of the Chilean vipers. [LMTAS photo ]

This milestone follows the April 14 inauguration ceremony for Chile's Peace Puma program held in Fort Worth attended by the Chilean Minister of Defense, Jaime Ravinet, the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force, Gen. Osvaldo Sarabia, and Chile's Ambassador to the United States, Andres Bianchi.

The next milestone planned for July involves the acceptance of the first three Chilean aircraft by the U.S. government. One of these aircraft will be used for flight testing. The other two will be used for hands-on maintenance training of Chilean Air Force technicians. This training will be done in Fort Worth.

The next two aircraft off the production line will be the first sent to Chile early next year. All 10 aircraft are planned for delivery in 2006.

The Chilean F-16 Peace Puma program is a U.S. government Foreign Military Sales program and includes 10 Advanced block 50 F-16s: six single-seat F-16Cs and four two-seat F-16Ds.