Source: Stars and Stripes
Original Title: Iraq to buy 18 more Lockheed F-16 fighters
By Jim Fuquay
Published: May 2, 2013
[attach]90096782[/attach]
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth will keep building F-16s for at least four more years, thanks to an $830 million contract announced late Tuesday to supply 18 of the highly successful jet fighters to Iraq.
It is the second group of F-16s for Iraq, which ordered 18 in December 2011. At that time the Pentagon had said it planned another batch for Iraq but had not said when that might happen.
The orders are part of Iraq's efforts to rebuild its air force a decade after the U.S. invasion of the country to topple Saddam Hussein. The purchase price includes support equipment and electronic warfare systems.
Lockheed spokesman Ken Ross said the latest order should keep the Fort Worth F-16 production line busy through mid-2017. As of March 31, Lockheed had said it had 40 unfilled F-16 orders, which the company said previously was enough to keep the program busy into 2015.
The 2017 estimate doesn't include the potential impact of selling 25 F-16s to the United Arab Emirates, a pending deal that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel discussed with the Persian Gulf state's leaders last week. Foreign military sales are negotiated between the federal government and the foreign buyer before they are placed with the contractor.
Ross said about 200 production workers currently work on the F-16 line. The company no longer provides a total head count that would have included engineers and other technical personnel on the F-16 program, which last year was combined with the company's F-22 program.
Iraq's order is the latest in a continuing string of orders for the feisty aircraft, which saw its 4,500th delivery last year.
The first F-16 rolled off the Fort Worth production line in 1978. About half are flown by U.S. forces, and about half by more than two dozen other nations.
Just days after the 2011 order for Iraq, Oman ordered a dozen F-16s. And in October 2012, Taiwan placed an order worth up to $1.85 billion to upgrade its aging fleet of 145 F-16s.作者: dcdcdc3 時間: 2013-5-3 08:25 AM
提示: 作者被禁止或刪除 內容自動屏蔽作者: JJJUNG 時間: 2013-5-3 09:06 AM
美國當年用一個不存在的理由出兵伊拉克
說穿了
還不是為了利益
這只是其中之一而已作者: li9998 時間: 2013-5-3 09:41 AM
應該的,美帝幫你出兵“解放人民”,讓你有機會當總統,總得表示一下吧,意思意思作者: n803244 時間: 2013-5-3 11:20 AM
人為刀俎,我為魚肉
是這則新聞的最佳註解作者: uftomy 時間: 2013-5-3 11:41 AM
日本一樣是傀儡,美國為了戰略利益把武器的技術都轉了,讓日本人自己做;伊拉克的戰略價值不知道在那但他有石油利益,同時也可以在中東佔有一席之地,但是回教徒很討厭基督徒所以不能像在日本一樣那麼囂張,武器就只能用賣的了,講來講去,美國人真是........作者: Maiersi 時間: 2013-5-3 11:46 AM
Maiersi 發表於 2013-5-3 11:46 AM
“Just days after the 2011 order for Iraq, Oman ordered a dozen F-16s. And in October 2012, Taiwan p ...
"This retrofit program will include the addition of an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, embedded global positioning, as well as upgrades to the electronic warfare and other avionics systems of Taiwan’s F-16s."
1. 這是白宮和洛馬簽署的合約( 二判 )
2. 不含彈藥作者: Maiersi 時間: 2013-5-3 01:34 PM