F-16 Fighting Falcon News

June 30, 2021 (by Bjorn Claes) - Draken International will be the next civilian operator of used F-16s after Top Aces. The Dutch MoD has sold 12 of it's F-16s for delivery after their retirement in the course of 2022.
Draken International is an American company providing advanced training facilities for the Combat Air Force/Contracted Air Support (CAF/CAS) program in the U.S. The RNlAF will start to withdraw it's F-16 fighters in the course of 2022 so they have started to look for selling opportunities on the international market.

The Draken International fleet currently consists of a mixed fleet of MB-339s, MiG-21s, A-4K/Ns, L-39s, Mirage F-1Ms and Denel (formerly Atlas) Cheetahs (a South African major upgrade of the Mirage III with technology from the Israeli IAI Kfir). This already impressive line-up will be joined by the venerable F-16 from 2022 onwards.

The F-16s will come out of the F-16 End Life of Type (ELOT) program after the Dutch retire their F-16s starting in 2022. There is also an option to sell an additional 28 F-16s to Draken: these will be retired in batches from now untill 2024 when the final Dutch F-16 will be taken out of their inventory.