On the evening of July 22, 2024, an official ceremony took place at the Malacky-Kuchyna Slovak airbase near Bratislava. It marked the induction of the first two American-made F-16 Block 70 fighter jets into the Slovak Air Force under the 2018 agreement for the delivery of 14 aircraft. After independently flying from the United States, these jets arrived at the airbase earlier that day. The ceremony was attended by Slovak President Peter Pellegrini, Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Robert Kalinak, and members of the government and senior military officials.
The two single-seat F-16C Block 70 fighters are Lockheed Martin’s second and third single-seat fighters manufactured for Slovakia.
In December 2018, the Slovak Ministry of Defense signed agreements and contract documents with the American side to acquire 14 Lockheed Martin F-16V Viper Block 70 fighters (12 single-seat F-16C and two dual-seat F-16D) under the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. The purchase, including equipment, armament, technical support, and training, cost over 1.6 billion euros, making it the largest defense contract in the history of independent Slovakia at the time. Slovakia became the second customer for newly-built F-16V fighters after Bahrain.
According to the agreement, Slovakia was to receive the first of the 14 ordered F-16Vs in the fourth quarter of 2022, with delivery completion by the end of 2023. However, Lockheed Martin encountered significant production challenges at its Greenville, South Carolina, facility, which moved F-16 production from Fort Worth, Texas. The serial production of new F-16Vs at the Greenville plant for the two initial customers, Bahrain and Slovakia, was planned to start in 2022 but was delayed by two years.
The first aircraft built in Greenville, a dual-seat F-16D Block 70 for Bahrain, flew on January 24, 2023, and was officially handed over to the Bahrain Air Force on March 10, 2023. The next aircraft, the first single-seat Bahraini F-16C Block 70, flew on June 29. On September 29, the first single-seat Slovak F-16C Block 70 flew. Finally, on December 15, the first dual-seat Slovak F-16D Block 70 flew. Since the last serial F-16 was produced at the Fort Worth plant in 2017 for the Iraqi Air Force, the serial production and delivery of new F-16s resumed after more than a six-year hiatus.
On January 10, 2024, Lockheed Martin officially handed over the first two F-16 Block 70 fighters to Slovakia at its Greenville plant – the first single-seat F-16C Block 70 and the first dual-seat F-16D Block 70. Both remain in the US for Slovak personnel training (with the already built second dual-seat Slovak F-16D) and will not arrive in Slovakia until late 2024. Therefore, the first Slovak F-16C Block 70 aircraft arrived in Slovakia on July 22, 2024.
According to the revised schedule, the delivery of all 14 F-16 Block 70 aircraft to Slovakia is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. In the Slovak Air Force, the F-16 Block 70 will replace the 12 already retired MiG-29 fighters (including two MiG-29UB) in the Tactical Wing named after Major General Otto Smik at Sliac Air Base (Tri Duby Airport). It will become the only combat component of the Air Force. Slovakia had already withdrawn all 12 MiG-29 fighters from service at the end of August 2022 and transferred them to Ukraine in March-April 2023. The delay in the F-16V Block 70 deliveries left Slovakia without its own combat aviation for over two years.
