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Show I il iiiili lis3 $mm M 1 Mm HILL AFB Following the acceptance by the Israeli Air Force of its 7? F-lf) multi-role lighter aircraft at the General Dynamics plant in Ft. Worth. Tex. Thursday, the firs! Israeli Air Force F-16 has arrived at this base. ISRAKLI AIR Force Brig. Gen. Amos Lapidot and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Jerry Singleton Sing-leton Hew the two-sealed version ver-sion of the versatile fighter to Utah. The first seven Israeli F-I6s will be assigned to the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing here for initial Air Force pilot and maintenance training. The remaining 68 planes will be ferried directly to Israel by United States pilots. Thirty-five Thirty-five F- 16s are scheduled for delivery to the Israeli Air Force during 1980 with the final fin-al aircraft of the 75 ordered to be delivered in late 1981. A CF.RKMONY was held at the General Dynamics plant to note the Israelis' acceptance of the planes. Their Air Force became be-came the third Air Force within with-in a week to begin Hying the fighters, which can fly at more than twice the speed of sound (more than 1200 miles per hour); In earlier ceremonies, held Jan. 25 in Europe, the Royal Norwegian Air Force accepted the first of its 72 F-16s, F-16s, and the Royal Danish Air Force accepted the first of its 58 multi-role fighters Jan. 28. UPON HIS arrival here. Lawrence W. Goodwin. F-16 program manager for General Dynamics, presented Brig. Gen. Lapidot with an F-16 "First Flight" certificate. The general also met briefly with some of the 169 Irsaeli students stu-dents who will be training at Hill. Twelve pilots w ill also be trained. The 388th Tactical Fighter Wing is responsible for training train-ing the first cadre of pilots for the six nations now flying the F-16 the United States. Belgium. Bel-gium. Denmark. The Netherlands, Nether-lands, Norway and Israel. These countries plan to modernize mod-ernize their air forces with more than 1.800 F-16 flehter planes. The 388th Tactical Fighter Wing will eventually have 102 F- 16s assigned here, and has already received 65 of them. CAPTAIN MIKE Perini. public affairs officer for the wing, said this is the first time in aviation history that countries coun-tries have produced an airplane air-plane together. Some of the parts of the F-16 are assembled in Europe and some in the United Un-ited States. Belgium. Denmark. De-nmark. The Netherlands and Norway are co-producing the plane with the United States, the captain said. "We are the first flying unit in the world to receive this fighter." he said. "We have 2.400 people in the wing, and we are bringing a lot of people into Utah as a result of our assignment. The F-4 aircrafts are being phased out. Our unit is not combat ready yet. but we hope to be sometime this year." w wl |