The United States has now confirmed it will begin the training of Ukrainian pilots and support crews for the operation of F-16 fighter jets in September. Pentagon spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, told reporters Thursday: “We want to do everything we can to help move this effort along as quickly as possible in support of Ukraine". This latest development follows the news on Sunday that Denmark and the Netherlands will send F-16s to Ukraine, and Norway adding its pledge of an as yet unspecified share of its now retired F-16 inventory.
The planes in question were developed in the 1970s and are currently used by 25 countries. As the producing country the U.S. has the largest inventory (936 active aircraft). As the data in our chart shows, after the Americans, it is Turkey that has the most F-16s (243 aircraft). Following them are Israel (224), Egypt (218), South Korea (167), Greece (153) and Taiwan (136 and 66 on order). Together with the United States, these countries own three-quarters of the world's F-16 fleet. Other European countries also have several dozen active F-16s, such as Belgium (52), Poland (48) and the aforementioned Denmark (43) and the Netherlands (29).
