Slow maintenance could leave Ukraine without available F-16s by 2026 — WSJ

Filed 1h ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

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One-eyed Maestro

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Ukraine's F-16 fleet, credited with shooting down roughly 2,500 drones and 650 cruise missiles, is running into a maintenance bottleneck that could leave the country without available jets by the end of 2026, according to a Wall Street Journal report. More than half the fleet currently needs phase inspections, a routine but essential overhaul after 300 flight hours, and those inspections are taking up to 40 weeks in Belgium versus two to six weeks in the United States.

The U.S. signed a $230 million contract with Belgian firm Sabena Aerospace Engineering to handle the work, though both the Ukrainian Air Force and Sabena declined to answer specific questions about the delays. Separately, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy announced Belgium will transfer three more F-16s to Ukraine by year's end, alongside ammunition deliveries from Spain and others.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Buying the jets was the easy part, apparently; keeping them running is where the whole arrangement gets stuck in traffic. Forty weeks for a repair that takes six elsewhere is not a supply chain, it's a parking lot with paperwork. Nobody involved wants to say why out loud, which tells you about as much as the wait time does.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: One-eyed Maestro · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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