The Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) has marked an end to 45 years of operating the Lockheed Martin F-16, with its last examples conducting a special retirement flight on 27 September.
Involving six aircraft flown from Volkel air base, the final sortie involved a series of flypasts conducted on a route around the Netherlands, passing sites including the air force’s Leeuwarden, Woensdrecht, Gilze-Rijen and Eindhoven sites.
The final formation included a specially-liveried example, J-197, sporting 45th anniversary, “Farewell Falcon” markings.
A last operational flight involving the type had been performed on 24 September.
The RNLAF brought the F-16 into operational service in 1979, with the fighter replacing its Lockheed F-104 Starfighters and Northrop NF-5s. The service received a total of 213 examples, the last of which was received in February 1992.
Its F-16s were brought up to an enhanced AM/BM standard via a major mid-life update activity launched in 1998, and deployed use included over Bosnia, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.
With the fighter’s departure from use, the Netherlands’ air combat capability is now exclusively delivered by its fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35As. The RNLAF’s first examples of the fifth-generation stealth fighter arrived in the European nation in 2019, and Cirium fleets data shows that it currently has 40 of an eventual 58 in active use.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands has begun transferring surplus F-16s to support the instruction of Ukrainian air force pilots at Fetesti air base in Romania. It also is gifting Kyiv 24 of its retired aircraft for frontline use, as part of an equipment programme also involving transfers of the US-built type by Belgium, Denmark and Norway.
