After the delivery of 18 F-16s to Chile, DMO (Defence Material organisation) has made the choice to create a separate project divestment. Frank Visser spoke with DMO projectleader Lt. Col. Ciska Schoof, who was responsible for the delivery of the first 6 Dutch F-16BMs to Jordan.
Line-up of all 6 Jordanian F-16BMs at Leeuwarden Air Base.
Officially the selling of Dutch F-16s to Jordan is called a Third Party Transfer (1st F-16s to USA, 2nd F-16s to the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) and now the 3rd to the Jordanian Air Force).
First the US as first party owner had to approve the sale of these RNLAF F-16s to Jordan. When approval was given Jordan signed a contract with the RNLAF on 12 April 2007.
All six F-16BMs were flown by Jordanian F-16 pilots.
During the preparations America controlled the entire process and passed the guidelines to the RNLAF. The Americans checked whether all adjustments to the Dutch F-16s had been correctly implemented. Only when this was the case America would agreed to sell six aircraft to Jordan. Three weeks prior to delivery a technical acceptance team arrived from Jordan.Besides these three F-16BMs three containers of goods were also flown to Jordan via commercial transport.
Last check before this Jordanian F-16 pilot heads for Jordan. This particular aircraft wears the serial 131. Callsign during the delivery flight was RJSword 01 - 06.
Six former RNLAF F-16BMs now wearing their new colors. All six aircraft were transferred to
1 Squadron at As Shaheed Muwaffaq al Salti Air Base in Jordan.
The project seemed to look simple at first glance, but that proved to be a disappointment. In the last five weeks prior to Jordan's acceptance, a lot of overtime has been made to get the six aircraft ready for departure. The official transfer (the so-called Transfer of Ownership) took place at 27 July 2009
at 4:00 pm after all Acceptance Check Flights were executed from Leeuwarden Air Base.
Serial 130 enroute to Jordan. The delivery flight took lasted two days. The first day the 6 F-16BMs flew from Leeuwarden to Aviano in Italy and then to Souda Bay, Crete in Greece.
Jordanian F-16BM 132 taking off from Leeuwarden Air Base. On the second day of the delivery flight they flew towards their new homebase As Shaheed Muwaffaq al Salti Air Base in Jordan.
F-16BM 134 seen taking off from Leeuwarden Air Base. This particular aircraft crashed in 2016.
Serials:
F-16BM M2, 130 former RNLAF J-267.
F-16BM M2, 131 former RNLAF J-269.
F-16BM M2, 132 former RNLAF J-270.
F-16BM M2, 133 former RNLAF J-650.
F-16BM M2, 134 former RNLAF J-653 (crashed on 14 January 2016).
F-16BM M2, 135 former J-654.