ISLAMABAD:
Three F16 aircrafts provided by the US have formally been inducted into Pakistan Air Force (PAF) today in a ceremony at the Shahbaz Airbase.
The three F-16s are part of a batch of 18 aircrafts to be given to the Pakistan Air Force by the end of the year.
The ceremony was attended by Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, US Air Chief General Schwartz, US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson and other senior civil and military officials.
Ambassador Anne Patterson said the US is increasing cooperation with Pakistan in the economic and energy sectors as well.
She added that the induction of F-16s will strengthen Pakistan's fight against militancy.
In the second phase of adding to the PAF fleet, five F-16 Block 52 C fighter jets would be given to Pakistan over a period of a month and a half.
“The jet fighters were flown from the US to Jacobabad by Pakistan Air Force pilots, who had recently completed training on the new aircraft in the US,” Air Commodore Tariq Qamar Yazdanie told The Express Tribune. Air Marshal Muhammad Hasan, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (Operations), Air Marshal Waseemud Din, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (Administration), along with other senior Pakistan Air Force (PAF) officials, received the jets.
Speaking on the occasion, Hasan said Pakistan had signed a contract with the US government in 2005-2006 for the acquisition of 18 F-16s C/D Block 52.
As per the contract, the PAF would receive these aircraft in several batches. The delivery of all 18 fighters would be completed by the end of this year, he added, while the next five would be received in three weeks. The F-16s C/D Block 52 is a high tech fighter aircraft equipped with sophisticated state-of-the-art avionics suite and latest weapons with night precision attack capability, he said. “The aircraft are much superior to the F-16s A/Bs already in the PAF’s inventory.”
The sale of F-16s to Pakistan renews aircraft which existed between the US and Pakistan in the 1980s, but were halted in the 1990s. Meanwhile, sources told The Express Tribune that the US Air Force will continue to train Pakistani pilots and more than 10 pilots will complete their training with the Arizona National Guard in Tucson by the end of the year.
The US Department of Defence is also training Pakistani personnel in night-attack training and four Pakistanis have completed the training, the sources added.
A senior official of the PAF also said that Pakistan is paying $1.4 billion for the 18 new aircraft, in addition to $1.3 billion in upgrades for its existing F-16 fleet, which would be being delivered in 2012. He added that the security of the Jacobabad airbase has been enhanced and no one other than PAF officials would be allowed to have access to the renovated Shahbaz Airbase.
“Approximately Rs25 billion was allocated to upgrade the airbase, [including Rs7 billion provided by the] Economic Coordination Committee to convert it to a main-operating base,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 27th, 2010.
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