ROMANIAN MIG-21 RETIREMENT
The Mig-21 which entered service with the Romanian Air Force in the 1960s will be retired in 2024 and replaced with the 32 F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft purchased from the Royal Norwegian Air Force (Luftforsvaret). Besides Croatia, Romania is the last NATO operator of the Mig-21’s and currently, two air bases, at Campia Turzii and at Mihail Kogalniceanu are still equipped with the Ageing Migs.
Major General Viorel Pana, the Chief of Staff of the Romanian Air Force, specified that at the end of 2024 Romania will have three fully equipped F-16 squadrons and that firstly the aircraft "will have to be adapted to Romanian standards". We are talking about the application of the national paint scheme of the Romanian F-16’s ("Carpathian Ghost"), about the secure communication systems and about the Identification, friend or foe (IFF) systems, all these being characteristic of each NATO nation. The first three aircraft in the M6.5.2 configuration will arrive in the country at the end of next year, and the Romanian Air Force will have the second F-16 squadron at the end of 2023, and the third, one year later, the general stated in an interview for TVR.
The aircraft purchased from Norway will be used for at least 10 years, but, depending on needs, the resource can be extended. For the Air Force, the biggest problem will be to prepare in just 2-3 years a lot of pilots, engineers and technicians for the 32 planes. Most of them will be trained in the country, but Romania will certainly call on the help of the allies. "In the United States, we will continue to train at least four pilots a year. And, of course, the training solutions in Portugal, in Norway, so the training part with Portugal remains open, while the solutions for the training of the technical staff are exclusively Romanian and Norwegian ", underlined the Chief of Staff of the Romanian Air Force.
The Mig-21s have been flying with the Romanian Air Force for over 60 years, initially, they were in the hundreds some rumours claim that Romania bought about 400 aircraft from the USSR, but after the Revolution, it was decided to equip only 111 aircraft with new NATO-compatible systems. This is how the LanceR model was born, with aircraft upgraded to this standard gradually becoming part of the Air Force between 1997 and 2002. There were three versions of the upgraded MiG-21’s the LanceR A version optimized for the ground attack being able to deliver precision-guided munitions of eastern and western origin as well as R-60, R-73 and Python III air-to-air missiles. The LanceR B is the two-seat trainer version, and the LanceR C is the air superiority version featuring 2 LCD MFDs, helmet-mounted sight and the Elta EL/M-2032 Air combat radar. Gradually, the LanceR A aircraft were withdrawn from service leaving Romania with only 26 LanceR C aircraft out of which at least nine crashed and 14 two-seat LanceR B models of which two were lost in accidents. Officially, the Romanian Air Force does not say how many Mig-21 LanceR’s are ready for combat at this time, but a small calculation shows that there are about 30 aircraft (according to some sources, only 25 are airworthy) still in active service. in addition to MIG-21 LanceR, Romania operates 17 ex Portuguese Air Force F-16AM/BM Fighting Falcons
