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Denmark F-16

The Danish Air Force will carry out the replacement of the F-16 fleet as early as 2025, and not until 2027, as previously scheduled. They will be replaced by F-35 fighter-bombers. This means that the transfer of old cars to Ukraine may accelerate, Danish Radio reported on 26 June 2023, citing the Ministry of Defense of the Kingdom. The Danish Air Force F-16 fleet had 43 vehicles, of which 30 are in use.

Denmark undertook the obligation to train Ukrainian pilots, which is directly related to the planned gratuitous transfer of combat aircraft to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “Having taken a step towards the process of training and advanced training of Ukrainian pilots, we must decide how exactly the donation of Danish F-16s will go and what will be their number,” said Acting Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen. According to him, the training of Ukrainian pilots will take six to eight months. The aircraft will therefore remain in Denmark until 2024. The very decision to transfer them can be made even before that.

Denmark was a member of the four-nation consortium that first brought the Fighting Falcon to Europe. This consortium of European NATO countries considering the recapitalization of their fighter jet fleets in May 1974 consortium considered the Saab AJ 37 Viggen, the Dassault Mirage F1, and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The USAF announced its selection of the F-16 and committed to purchasing 650 in mid-January 1975. A few weeks later, the European consortium assessed the F-16 to be both technologically superior and less expensive than the Viggen or Mirage. The Defence Ministry committee concurred on 5 February. The Danish government confirmed the choice of the F-16 on 28 May and, along with the Netherlands and Norway, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the United States on 30 May. The Danish parliament then authorized the acquisition of 48 F-16s, with an option to acquire 10 more, on 11 June 1975 by a vote of 114 to 48.

The initial Royal Danish Air Force order was for 58 F-16 aircraft. These planes went through final assembly in the Belgian Societe Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques (SABCA) plant. All were built to the initial Block 1 standards. Deliveries to the Royal Danish Air Force began in January 1980. A follow-on order of 12 Block 15 F-16 aircraft was placed in August 1984. Intended as attrition replacements, these latter aircraft were built by Fokker in the Netherlands.

At 2.65 billion Danish Kroner (DKK), this was the largest military acquisition in Danish history. Each F-16 was expected to have a useful service life of 4000 hours — or roughly 20 years. The first F-16 was delivered to Denmark in 1980 and deliveries continued through 1985. It was therefore to be expected that they would require replacement in the 2000–2005 timeframe; however, a refurbishment program in the 1990s enabled the planes to fly an additional 4000 hours, or roughly another 20 years. This meant an outside deadline of 2020–2025 for a replacement aircraft to enter the Royal Danish Air Force’s (RDAF) inventory.

Danish foreign and defense officials gave due weight to the signal that their choice of aircraft would send to their partners in the Atlantic Alliance. This consideration was perhaps overshadowed by the assessed technical superiority of the F-16 and its comparatively lower price, and the choices made by Denmark’s partners — each of whom independently chose the F-16.

Terma has developed the F-16 Tactical Reconnaissance System (TRS) for the Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF). The system has been operational since 2006 at Fighter Wing Skrydstrup. It consists of Terma's F-16 centerline mounted Modular Reconnaissance Pod (MRP) equipped with an advanced RECCE suite as well as associated Ground Station and Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) equipment. Due to an update performed by Terma, the F-16 Modular Reconnaissance Pod (MRP) have been certified for increased operational airspeeds with simultaneous carriage of a targeting pod, so the F-16s can now perform RECCE, Close Air Support (CAS), and precision bombing in one and the same mission - greatly increasing the flexibility during missions.

Danish F-16 fighters carried out a disproportionately large share of the bombing missions in Libya. After the termination of Operation Unified Protector over Libya in late 2011 American President Obama publicly complimented Danish Prime Minister Thorning-Schmidt for the Danish military contribution to the conflict. Obama also noted that the Danish military effort had enabled the country to ‘punch above its weight in international affairs’. Obama’s statement demonstrates the increasing political value of using military contributions as a means of promoting small-state agendas in international politics.