It Just Keeps on Selling, and Selling:
The Lockheed Martin F-16's Upgraded Too

They call it "the world's most sought-after fighter" and it's hard to argue. The F-16 has been flying for more than 25 years now and a late-2001 buy of 52 by Israel brings the total ordered or in service to a staggering 4,347 aircraft, by 23 countries.

The deal, worth $1.3 billion, marked Israel's sixth buy of F-16s. There are now a total of 48 follow-on buys of new F-16s by 14 countries, Lockheed Martin says.

The manufacturer earlier this month also advanced towards a $400 million contract with Chile for 10 F-16C/D aircraft to be delivered in 2005 and 2006.

The F-16 is expected to log its 10 millionth flight hour during this week's show.

Just this past January Lockheed Martin notched a contract worth $142 million for 306 F-16 upgrade kits for the air forces of Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, with Portugal expected to follow. The M3 upgrade includes secure, jam-resistant, high-volume and NATO-standard Link 16 data communications; a Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System; upgraded processors and displays; and new "smart" weapons. M3 kit deliveries will begin in the second quarter of 2002 and will continue through mid-2007.

Lockheed Martin is improving American F-16s too, working with the USAF's Ogden Air Logistics Center in Utah on the Common Configuration Implementation Program. The first CCIP aircraft, a Block 50 F-16C, was ferried to Shaw AFB in South Carolina on January 11.

The F-16 CCIP is a billion-dollar program aimed at enhancing the cockpit and avionics of approximately 650 Block 40/50 F-16s in the USAF inventory. "The modification will provide hardware and software commonality to the USAF Block 40/50 fleet, thus improving logistics support and reducing costs of future upgrades," Lockheed Martin says. It will also improve commonality with F-16s flown by U.S allies in Europe and elsewhere.

Block 60 'Desert Falcon'

F-16s for the United Arab Emirates-80 aircraft-will be among the most capable of all the Falcons, with Block 60 improvements aimed at keeping the venerable warbird on a par with such new fighters as the French Rafale, the multinational Eurofighter Typhoon, and aircraft from Russia's Mikoyan and Sukhoi.

Key Block 60 features include the APG-80 agile beam multimode radar, an integrated FLIR targeting system, advanced internal electronic warfare system, advanced cockpit with improved displays, superior datalink, helmet-mounted cueing system, highly integrated navigation, advanced weapons, conformal wing tanks, and an F110-GE-132 engine with 32,000-pounds-thrust.

The Block 60 F-6 will come in a two-seat version with a missionized aft crew station for a weapon system operator and a dorsal avionics compartment to house the same full complement of mission systems as the single-seat version.