Romania was officially welcomed into the F-16 operator family at a reception preceding the Black Sea Defense Aerospace tradeshow in Bucharest on 13 May 2014. Romania signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance with the US Government in December 2013 which provides programmatic support to a US-approved third party transfer of F-16 aircraft from Portugal to Romania. That agreement calls for the delivery of twelve F-16 Block 15 midlife upgrade aircraft to Romania beginning in 2016. Lockheed Martin will design, integrate, and support the installation of updated F-16 software. The Romanian Air Force will be the twenty-eighth F-16 operator worldwide. More than 4,540 F-16 aircraft have been delivered to date, and production is expected to continue through 2017.
