Bugarska Narodna skupština odbacila veto predsednika Radeva za kupovinu borbenih aviona F-16

In short a little bit of everything.But before I go into the details let me clarify something first. The initial figure of 1.673 billion $ was comprised of what we initially requested(which amounted to around 1.4 billion $) and a financial buffer of couple of millions of dollars. So we will start from 1.4 billion $ and „lower“ the price to 1.2 billion $(2.1 billion leva). And now is the answer of your question .
They start by removing ALL of components that covered the 24 (Mk 82) bombs to laser guided munitions. Which means NO to 15 GBU-49 Enhanced Paveway II components , NO to 15 GBU-54 Laser JDAM munitions and NO to 28 GBU-39 munitions. Next they lower the number of AN/AAQ-33 Sniper ATP containers from 4 to 2(what an idiots).
Lets move on to the Air -to -Air package. The number of AIM-120C-7 is reduce from 16 to 13( I personally don’t mind that because this are older generation, the AIM-120D in now in production and this is what we need to buy). Next is the AIM-9X from 24 to 12. The rails for air-to-air missiles LAU-129 are reduce from 48 to 26 (these are needed to attached the air-to-air under the wings) and finally the number of Head mounted displays (JHMCS II ) systems are reduce from 20 to 12(this is the bare minimum none left for spare).
Now that we are done with the weapons lets move on to other things.
The number of pilots send for training is reduced from 16 to 12 and the same goes for the mechanics from 75 to 65 ( bare in mind that when Poland buy 48 F-16 they send only 6 pilots for training why so little I don’t know.) The number of spare parts was also reduced how much I don’t know but the engines were reduced from 2 to just 1 that will be keep for spare. The entire FOB – Forward Operating Base
equipment was also removed from the package. The time table for delivery is 2023-2024. To everyone who wants to buy new F-16V (Croatians I know that you are watching) this is how you can lower the price for 8 NEW MULTIPURPOSE F-16V with some weapons from 1.4 to 1.2 billion $ + OFFSET. In Retrospect the multi purpose capabilities of the aircraft where preserved at the cost of the numbers of weapons. Also a lot is being done and is going to be done for the entire system(please look to this as a system not just an aircraft). Starting from creating new training center for PC-9 pilots with simulators and adding to it will be a new training center for F-16 pilots again with simulators and contracts were singed for maintenance for the PC-9 and the L-39 as well. The entire infrastructure of the airbase Graf Ignatievo will be gutted and new rebuild with most of the cost for that will be paid by USA. The whole price of 1.2 billion $ we will be paid tomorrow or by the end of the week.

You certainly didn’t buy a whole combat system. You brought some planes with minimal stock of systems to enable training and maybe some airpolicing (QRF is minimum of 3 planes: 2 + 1 spare ) until aircraft start going out service.

I would say it was a waste of $1.2 billion especially as Bulgaria is not known for follow up investments to keep equipment operational (e.g. the lack of maintenance and supoort contracts for C-27J and AS532).

Also your source is incorrect if they claim that we have completely gave up on spare engines. This is simply not the case.

By the way, what is the status of your Mig-29 fleet? Is overhaul already under way, or is it only bare minimum repairs? Where is work being done? Thanks.

For the F-35 it is a tricky question. I will start with the fact that not every country could just go and buy F- 35. There is a list of countries that are approved or could be approved from the USA that are potentially allowed to buy F- 35 should they chose so. Usually this include all countries that operate an American fighter but even then they have to get approved from the congress before they are allowed. For example Greece Poland and Romania where recently added to that list. Turkey which was a partner in the program was also allowed to buy F- 35 on a lower price ( 90 $ per aircraft but this is only for the plane) but after the perches of S-400 they are thrown out of the program and are not allowed to buy F -35.
he ones they received will remain in USA until further notice and all of the pilots and mechanics where told to go back to Turkey. We are not yet approved to buy F -35 but after yesterday with the approval of buying F -16 this is only a matter of time. The price varied but if you are a country which is part of the program then you can get it at a lower price (90 – 100$) per plane. If not they the price is higher. Belgium for example has recently buy 34 F – 35 for 6.5 billion $. This is just for two fighter squadrons. This is 191 176 470 millions $ for ONE aircraft and everything else they need for it(I don’t know what that include but it is not much). And keep in mind that they have F-16 so they don’t need to build infrastructure like us and they don’t need to buy weapons as well like we do. Also when I say infrastructure I mean airbase, ground equipment,training simulators, plan and control system for the flights, training officers for that system, hangars and parking lots plus some more things.
For the time of delivary, well the reason for this is that Lockheed Martin has opened a new F-16V Block 70 production line in Greenville, South Carolina the new home of F-16 production. The factory is new and will soon start operation plus we have Bahrain and Slovakia has orderd before us so that is why. We will buy 8 more aicraft probably around 2021-2022 this is the plan.
Now the diffrance between Slovakia deal and ours is the that we bought a Multirole fighter with offset and Slovakia bought only Air-to-Air fighter with NO offset. I don’t have any details about that deal yet.
As for the payment well when you go to purchase a new equipment(fighter, tanks, helicopters or what ever.) from the USA for the first time they request you to pay upfront becouse you don’t have a credit history. It is a standard procedure for EVERYONE.

@ Dead1

The contract for the Spartan J27 was delayed for 90 days due to negotiations between the two sides and in the mean time the aircraft were still flying .
The deal with the Su-25 will happen don’t worry the money are already paid and a loophole was exploited to bypass the sanctions.

It is a standard procedure that when a country buy a equipment for the USA they open an account for that country which allow they to buy as much weapons as they wont at any time as long they can afforded.
As for the navy and the army don’t you worry we had already started two procedures for buying(building) two multipurpose corvettes for the navy and 150 APC(Piranha 5 most likely) for the army, both will cost around 2.3 billion leva.

And this is only this start. All three deals will be repeated again and also we are looking for tanks new 3D radars and IFV.

@Mulgarian
J-22 is undergoing comprehensive modernization. The deadline mostly depends on the progress made in domestic guided weapons
and avionics development which is underway. H145m weapons integration kinda took the lead role recently, that will be finished soon. When all the subsystems get completed, expect a rapid integration with the J-22 fleet. When all that is done, G-4 will be next.
As far as numbers in service, one squadron of J-22 and under 10 G-4 as of right now.

@Al-41F1 and @Miloš77 thanks for the information.

Zalim Bugare..bacili pare u Crno more…za tu lovu mogli su da uzmu Mig-35 i vise komada i sa vise opreme od tog zastarelog i praistoriskog F16.

Brad, od osamdesetih u brojnoj vazduhoplovnoj literaturi (časopisi, enciklopedije, itd.) kao glavni razlog skupoće avijacije se navodi jedan razlog – inflacija (porast opšteg nivoa cena). Čak i kad je inflacija umerena (jednocifrena godišnja stopa), za avijaciju je i to mnogo…

The cost of each MiG-21 was $2,900,000 when Russia began to produce the war planes in the late 1950s.

po inflation calculatoru to je 31.000.000 današnjih dolara

F-16A/B: US$14.6 million (1998 dollars)[1] 30 mil danasnjih usd
F-16C/D: US$18.8 million (1998 dollars)[1] 40 mil današnjih usd

@Airboss
IAF i 400 R-77 pre par meseci.
Da su zemlje Balkana razmisljale na vreme, tamo pre 10 godina, mogle bi da imaju modernu nadzvucnu komponentu(kao npr. Madjarska). Sto duze cekas, postane sve skuplje

Ma kako god da okreneš, koji god da je razlog, cena svih proizvoda avijacije ide samo u jednom pravcu – naviše. Bez obzira na popuste…