WARSAW, Poland — In a bid to modernize the country’s combat aircraft fleet, the Polish Ministry of National Defense has signed a deal with the United States to upgrade its 48 F-16 C/D Block 52+ fighter jets to the F-16V standard.
The contract, which is to be performed by Lockheed Martin as the prime contractor in cooperation with Poland’s defense industry, has a net value of around $3.8 billion.
The aircraft’s midlife upgrade is to be predominantly implemented at Military Aviation Works No. 2, a plant operated by Poland’s state-run defense group PGZ. Under the plan, the overhauled fighter jets are to return to service in the years 2030 to 2038, the ministry said in a statement.
“More than 20 years ago, our predecessor selected an aircraft to replace the post-Soviet gear that we had in the Polish Air Force. We chose the F-16,” Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s deputy prime minister and national defense minister, said at the official signing ceremony on Aug. 13.
“For the next 20 years, F-16s protected Poland’s skies, participated in foreign missions, including in air policing over the Baltic States, and were deployed wherever our allies needed them.”
At the same time, the current capabilities of the Polish F-16 fleet are “insufficient to address the threats” that the country is facing, Kosiniak-Kamysz said in reference to the ongoing Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
“We need to enhance [the aircraft’s] reconnaissance capabilities, communications, integration with the F-35s, Abrams and Apaches, as well as their ability to operate in any domain,” according to the minister.
Since Russia’s February 2022 attack against Ukraine, Poland has placed a number of major military gear orders with U.S. companies, including last August’s purchase of 96 Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopters under a deal worth around $10 billion, and the April 2022 contract to acquire 250 M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 tanks for some $4.75 billion, among others.
With the country’s defense spending expected to reach an estimated 4.7 percent of its gross domestic product this year, Warsaw has allocated a record-high budget of PLN 186.6 billion (USD $51.3 billion) to the military in 2025.
Tomasz Smura, the program director and management board member at the Warsaw-based Casimir Pulaski Foundation, told Defense News that, for more than three decades, maintaining close relations with the United States was a permanent trait of Poland’s foreign policy under all governments.
At the same time, alongside the development of the Polish defense industry’s capacities, local officials are increasingly interested in transfers of technology and know-how to the country’s plants, he said.
Based in Bydgoszcz, in Poland’s western region, Military Aviation Works No. 2 services various aircraft operated by the Polish Air Force. These include the F-16s, Hercules C-130s and also some of the nation’s remaining Soviet-designed military aircraft and helicopters.
The company will also accommodate a servicing center for the FA-50 light attack aircraft Poland purchased from South Korea’s Korea Aerospace Industries.
As part of the program to modernize Poland’s F-16 fleet, each fighter jet will be fitted with a new AN/APG-83 active electronically scanned array (AESA) scalable agile beam radars (SABR), an advanced mission computer and an AN/APX-126/127 advanced identification friend or foe (AIFF) system, among others, according to the Armament Agency, the ministry’s procurement arm.
Poland is to also secure AGM-158 joint air-to-surface standoff missile (JASSM) flight test vehicles and other equipment supporting the aircraft’s enhanced combat capacities, as per the October 2024 announcement of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA).
The latest development comes as the Polish ministry is mulling plans to further expand the Air Force’s modern combat aircraft capacities, which are currently ensured by F-16s and FA-50s, and will be bolstered by the 32 F-35A Lightning II fighters the country ordered in 2020.
The first F-35s are expected to be delivered to Poland in 2026, making the country the fighter’s first user in Eastern Europe, with the Czech Republic and Romania slated to follow suit.
Meanwhile, Warsaw is currently analyzing whether to order an additional two squadrons of fighter jets for the nation’s armed forces.
The available options include buying 32 more F-35s, or alternatively opting for one of the two air superiority aircraft: the Eurofighter Typhoon, a jet manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo, and Boeing’s F-15EX fighter, as indicated by Polish military officials.
Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.