Morocco
al Quwwat al Jawwiya al Malakiya Marakishiya (AF)
Morocco hopes to acquire an additional twelve, all single seat, F-16V Vipers. This announcement was made with the utmost discretion a few weeks ago. The Royal Moroccan Air Force has already fifteen F-16C block 52 and eight F-16D block 52 fighters in service, which were delivered in 2011 and 2012, and are based at 6 Air Base Ben Guerir with Escadron de Chasse: “Falcon”, “Spark” and “Viper”. One F-16C, the 08-8008, crashed on 10 May 2015 during the campaign in Yemen.
The twelve F-16V would allow Morocco to retire some of their Northrop F-5E Tiger II, which are in service since the late 1970s and never modernized since.
Such an acquisition of combat aircraft is, however, subject to various American diplomatic and political agreements,including those relating to the Congress. The chief of staff of the Moroccan aviation is doing the negotiates with the highest military authorities of the Pentagon in person, to tip the balance in his favor. Morocco is one of the United States most loyal allies in North Africa, with several different types of airplanes and helicopters designed and built in the United States in its arsenal. Lets see if this loyalty will pays off and
allows Morocco to purchase the twelve F-16V Viper.
The F-16V was announced on the Singapore Air Show in 2012. The first flight took place on 16 October 2015. Existing older versions of the F-16 can be retrofitted to the Viper standard, like Taiwan did. They started in 2017 to upgrade their fleet.
