F-16 Modernization Increasingly Important For Turkey As Greece Gradually Gains Unprecedented Airpower Advantage

Turkey is gradually coming to terms with the reality that the Greece’s air force could soon field a more technologically advanced fighter fleet in just a few years.

“If our project to modernize the F-16 aircraft fails and Greece realizes its own projects, the Greek side will gain the upper hand in terms of combat aircraft in 2025,” said retired Turkish Air Force commander General Abidin Unal. “Therefore, our program to procure 40 F-16 Viper aircraft and modernize up to 80 F-16s is vital.”

Turkey hopes the U.S. will approve a $20 billion deal it requested in October 2021 for 40 new F-16 Block 70 Viper jets and 79 modernization kits for upgrading the older F-16s in Turkey’s existing fleet. However, Congress has yet to approve it, and a key senator, New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez, remains adamant that he will block the sale indefinitely unless Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan implements sweeping policy changes.

Furthermore, even if the sale was unanimously approved tomorrow, analysts have pointed out that Turkey will still have a while to wait before receiving its new Viper jets due to the production backlog caused by massive demand among other F-16 operators.

Menendez supports selling fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters to Greece. Athens wants at least 20 of these fifth-generation aircraft.

Unal’s prediction that Greece could attain the upper hand by as early as 2025 is interesting. Athens expects to take delivery of the last of the 24 4.5-generation Dassault Rafales F3R fighters it has purchased from France by January 2025.

On Sept. 12, Greece received the first of the 83 Hellenic Air Force (HAF) F-16s that Lockheed Martin is upgrading to the latest Block 72 standard. It expects to have all those jets fully upgraded by June 30, 2027. By then, the HAF will have Europe’s most advanced F-16 fleet.

Greece probably won’t take delivery of any F-35s until at least the second half of this decade. On the other hand, if Athens opts for some secondhand jets, it could begin receiving these fifth-generation aircraft in a shorter timeframe. It may well do so. After all, 12 of the Rafales it has purchased are ex-French Air Force.

All of these jets are more advanced than the 270 Block 30/40/50 variant F-16s that make up the backbone of Turkey’s fighter fleet. And while Turkey will undoubtedly retain a quantitative advantage, Greece is rapidly attaining a qualitative one.

In the 2023 Global Firepower index, Greece and Turkey are listed as one of the major flashpoints in the world today, which is unsurprising given the ongoing tensions between them. Turkey was ranked more powerful than Greece in every category, including airpower. While that will unlikely change anytime soon, Athens could garner a clear qualitative advantage with these fighter procurements.

Alluding to the F-35’s stealthiness, Unal pointed out that “the craft already sees me until I see it.”

While he noted that this undoubtedly “gives it an advantage in the air campaign environment,” he added that he doesn’t think it would “be correct to say that there will be a high advantage other than this feature.”

He also said that Turkey’s independent ability to modernize its F-16s should not be underestimated and suggested that Ankara “should also rely on its own domestic capabilities.”

Turkey’s Ozgur Project modernization project aims to do just that. The project includes new avionics, structural improvements, and a locally-produced active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar that will be retrofitted onto its Block 30 F-16s, the only variant Turkey has the source code for and the oldest models in its arsenal. Turkey plans to install its AESA radars on 36 of these aircraft.

While Turkey’s capability to substantially upgrade many of its F-16s independently is significant, its larger fighter fleet ultimately looks destined to become technologically inferior to its Greek rival in the near future.