Yesterday’s “show of force” by a pair of Venezuelan F-16s near a U.S. Navy destroyer has put the spotlight back on the intriguing history of the South American nation’s Viper fleet. While you can catch up here with our initial reporting on the incident, which involved the Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Jason Dunham, it’s an opportune time to review why a country now so hostile to the United States flies F-16s.
Today, Argentina and Chile fly the F-16 in South America, but it’s worth recalling that Venezuela was the first nation in the region to be approved to buy the jets. Indeed, it remained the only Viper user on that continent until it was joined by Chile more than two decades later. Argentina, for its part, only unveiled its first (secondhand) F-16 earlier this year.
Back in May 1982, when a Foreign Military Sales agreement for F-16s was signed between Caracas and Washington, Venezuela still enjoyed good relations with the United States.
The Peace Delta program provided Venezuela with 16 single-seat F-16As and eight two-seat F-16Bs — all aircraft were completed to the Block 15 standard.
At one point, it had been expected that Venezuela would receive F-16s powered by the same General Electric J79 engine as used in the F-4 Phantom, among others. The so-called F-16/79 had emerged from the more restrictive arms export policy of the early President Jimmy Carter administration. This version would have ensured that foreign customers received a downgraded F-16 compared to the U.S. Air Force’s and close allies’ examples.
In the event, the export-configured F-16/79 never won any orders and was overtaken by a change in arms export policy, and foreign customers were able to buy the standard F-16A/B instead. Venezuela, therefore, got its F-16s with the Pratt & Whitney F100 powerplant.
Delivered between 1983 and 1985, the F-16s were a matter of pride for Venezuela, being arguably the most capable fighters anywhere in South America at that time.
Venezuela’s F-16s were supplied together with 150 AIM-9L/P-4 Sidewinder infrared-guided air-to-air missiles. Once in service, the new fighters replaced the older French-supplied Mirage III interceptors and Mirage 5 ground-attack aircraft.
Venezuelan F-16s flew missions in anger during the military coup launched against President Carlos Andres Perez in November 1992. The failed coup had been launched by military officers loyal to Hugo Chávez and ended up with his imprisonment. During clashes, F-16s flown by pilots loyal to the government were credited with at least three aerial kills. On one occasion, captured in a video, an F-16 used its M61 cannon to shoot down an OV-10 Bronco close-support aircraft operated by the pro-Chávez faction. You can read more about that incident here.
At one point, Venezuela had been looking at bolstering its F-16 fleet by acquiring a small number of aircraft as attrition replacements. At the same time, Caracas planned to upgrade the 22 surviving aircraft, including introducing F100-PW-220E engines. In late 1997, the United States approved these plans, but there would soon follow a dramatic collapse of U.S.-Venezuelan relations.
The status of the Venezuelan F-16 fleet changed dramatically when Hugo Chávez became president in 1999, and the country quickly established close relationships, including on a military level, with China and Russia.
At one time in his turbulent relationship with the United States, Chavez, who was livid over the arms embargo, threatened to sell the F-16s and their sensitive systems to Iran. There have been rumors that Venezuela supplied Iran with one F-16 for technical exploitation, although this has never been proven.
By the time that Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, became president in 2013, the situation for Venezuela’s F-16s was even more precarious. In the meantime, their operator’s identity had also been changed from the Fuerza Aérea Venezolana (Venezuelan Air Force) to the Aviación Militar Bolivariana Venezolana (AMBV, or Bolivarian Venezuelan Military Aviation).
Venezuela’s politics in the era of Chávez and Maduro have meant that any further weapons sales or support to Caracas has been blocked by the U.S. government.
Despite this obstacle, Venezuela has managed to retain at least a portion of its F-16 fleet in an operational condition, albeit at a decreasing state of readiness.
We do know that Venezuela has kept its F-16s viable in some part via leveraging the black market for critical parts.
In the absence of U.S. support for upgrades, Venezuela’s F-16s (among the oldest and most basic in service anywhere) have received new equipment from Israel.
The Venezuelan F-16s have been modified to use the Israeli-made Python 4 air-to-air missile, supplementing the AIM-9L. The United States didn’t provide any precision-guided air-to-ground ordnance, with offensive weapons options being limited to 500-pound Mk 82 and 2,000-pound Mk 84 unguided bombs, cluster bombs, and rockets. More recently, however, Israel has provided Venezuela with the Litening navigation and targeting pod, and the country may also have received Israeli-made precision-guided air-to-ground weapons.
The surviving Venezuelan F-16s today serve with Grupo Aéreo de Caza 16 “Los Dragones,” based at El Libertador, in Maracay, close to the coast and to Caracas.
According to Flight Global, as of late 2024, the active Venezuelan Viper inventory included just three single-seat F-16As and a single two-seat F-16B. Accurate data on aircraft availability is hard to come by, however.
Meanwhile, it is somewhat surprising that Venezuela hasn’t given up its F-16s altogether.
After all, the backbone of the Venezuelan fighter force is provided by 21 Su-30MK2V Flanker multirole fighters, 24 of which were delivered between 2006 and 2008. These are far more capable aircraft than the F-16s, with beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles as well as a variety of precision-guided air-to-ground ordnance, including Kh-31A (AS-17 Krypton) supersonic anti-ship missiles.
With no signs of tensions between Venezuela and the United States subsiding, fighters of the Bolivarian Venezuelan Military Aviation may well continue to be encountered by the U.S. military in the region. In the meantime, the appearance of F-16s in yesterday’s incident is a reminder of the type’s survival against the odds in the hands of what’s now a very unlikely operator.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com