If so, Hurry up Palm Beach, Fla.-based Jet Lease has listed a 1980 F-16 A/B Fighting Falcon for sale — and the rare offer made waves online.
The 1980 multirole fighter jet, which has an $8.5 million price tag, is being offered alongside two other F-16 Vipers. This is not your average “used” fighter jet — the plane is a fully functioning combat aircraft and not demilitarized.
The primary Viper being listed was built in 1980, but it has been enhanced along the MLU roadmap and has modern features found on many front-line Vipers today. This includes being setup for Link16 data-link and Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS), a data-bus for modern guided weapons and other stores, a night-vision compatible cockpit, and so on. The Viper still has its AN/APG-66(V)2 pulse doppler radar, which is a very important feature that we will get to in a moment. It has also received Falcon STAR (Structural Augmentation Roadmap) that will allow it fly to at least 8,000 hours. The jet currently has 6,000 hours on its airframe, so there are many, many years of flying life left in it—I would estimate 10-15 years and that could be potentially be extended further.
The aircraft can reach a maximum speed of Mach 2.05 at 40,000 feet, or nearly 1,573 miles per hour. It has a maximum range of 2,400 miles and an initial climb rate of 62,000 feet per minute, according to Jet Lease.
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Jet Lease, a private aircraft leasing and purchasing company with offices around the globe, purchased the used aircraft from Jordan, which acquired dozens of secondhand F-16s from NATO allies Belgium and the Netherlands between 2008 and 2017.
The purchaser of the F-16 will be required to comply with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITARS), which implements the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and is overseen by the State Department.
The U.S. Air Force; NATO partners Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway; and Pakistan are the primary operators of the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Other nations’ air forces have purchased used F-16 jets through Foreign Military Sales (FMS).
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The F-16 is still one of the most sought-after fighter jets, and the U.S. Air Force sometimes sells older versions of its F-16s as it undergoes upgrades to its inventory. These secondhand surplus planes can be sold as Excess Defense Articles (EDAs).
There have been more than 4,600 F-16 fighter jets built to date. Lockheed Martin manufactures the jets, which were originally developed for the U.S. Air Force by General Dynamics, now a part of Lockheed.
