Speech
by the Portuguese
Minister of Defense,
Mr Julio Castro Caldas
at the Signature of the "Multi National Fighter Program" (MNFP)
Today is a very special day for the members of the "Multi National
Fighter Program", celebrating the anniversary of a successful program
launched 25 years ago to procure the F-16 which, from the initial version
and through continuous enhancements to meet the challenges of modern air
warfare, is one of the greatest success stories of weapon system development.
It is also an important day for Portugal and the Portuguese Air
Force as we become its 6 member.
This program will give us the cooperative venue to continuously improve
and better support our F-16 fleet until the end of its service life. It
will also allow us to actively participate with our fellow members in
future developments and we are certain that our participation will also
bring some value to the common effort.
Lessons learned from recent conflicts, humanitarian and peace support
operations indicate the need for improvements in weapons delivery accuracy
and stand-off capabilities to reduce collateral damage, protect our aircrews
and increase airpower yield.
The experience from our contribution to the allied effort in recent operations,
specially operation ALLIED FORCE showed the need to go ahead with the
modernization of our combat fleet, in this case the F-16, in order to
improve interoperability and foster commonality with our friends and allies
when possible.
More recently the Portuguese Air Force participated for the first time
in EXERCISE RED FLAG and the need for the upgrade of our F-16 fleet came
up again loud and clear.
As a member of the program, we will be in a better position to adress
these issues, as Peace Atlantis II, the modernization of 16 F-16 and 4
F-16 8 is already on track, following program procedures similar to the
European Partners already operating MLU aircraft.
This forum will also allow us to contact with planning processes, methodologies
and decision making analysis on research and development that will help
us to proceed more clearly with our long term planning for the renewal
of our fleet and prepare us to better participate in other programs, even
at industry level whenever required and appropriate.
Finaly, let me congratulate you fir the 25" anniversary of the Multi
National Fighter Program and thank you all for the opportunity that you
gave Portugal to become its 6 six member.
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