A Fleet Growing Again in the Region
On September 30, 2026, Argentina received its second batch of six F-16AM/BM aircraft from Denmark. With that delivery, the Argentine Air Force now has twelve of the twenty-four aircraft acquired, and its own leadership puts it plainly: the future of the institution is the F-16 weapon system. Chile, for its part, has operated the F-16 since the mid-2000s, and Peru signed a contract in April 2026 for twelve F-16 Block 70s, with first deliveries expected in 2029–2030.
South America will therefore have three operators of the same weapon system over the coming decades. Media coverage of these programs almost always focuses on the moment of signature: the price, the number of aircraft, the competitor left behind. It is the most visible part of the business. It is not the largest.
What Sustainment Contracts Reveal
A review of the contracts awarded over the past eighteen months is enough to see where the volume lies. In March 2025, Lockheed Martin received a USD 265.9 million contract for operational flight program updates and logistics tied to the Danish transfer to Argentina, with work in Fort Worth, Denmark and Argentina, running through March 2032. In February 2026, BAE Systems won a USD 98.8 million contract to support F-16 avionics electronic components and automated test equipment in more than twenty countries, Chile among them, through 2037. In April 2026, Northrop Grumman received a contract with a USD 488 million ceiling for technical and engineering support of the global fleet's APG-66/68 radars, Argentine aircraft included, through March 2036.
On October 1, 2026, the most significant one was announced: a USD 2.4 billion contract for maintenance, repair, remanufacturing and parts fabrication for F100 engines, awarded to eighteen companies and administered from the U.S. Air Force sustainment center at Tinker, Oklahoma. It covers twenty-nine countries through September 30, 2036. Argentina and Chile are among the countries covered, for their F100-powered aircraft.
The pattern is clear. None of these contracts is an aircraft purchase. All of them are commitments of ten years or more. And all are managed as multinational pools under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) framework, where South American operators plug into the global F-16 sustainment network rather than building their own.
Why Sustainment Outweighs the Purchase
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly estimated that operating and support costs account for roughly 70% of a weapon system's total life-cycle cost. A combat fleet is bought once, but it is maintained, upgraded, inspected and resupplied with spare parts for thirty years or more.
The Argentine program shows that dynamic in real time. The aircraft operate from the Río Cuarto Materiel Area in Córdoba, undergoing phase inspections per contractual requirements, with logistics and spare-parts management systems designed to maintain fleet traceability. In parallel, an Air Force technical team evaluated in Fort Worth the integration of new capabilities, systems and sensors under a Letter of Offer and Acceptance signed in December 2024. Add to that a contract worth more than USD 105 million for AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. In other words: with only half the fleet delivered, the program has already generated more contractual activity in support, modernization and weapons than in the aircraft transfer itself.
Where Regional Industry Fits
Precision matters here: prime F-16 sustainment contracts are awarded to original manufacturers and large U.S. contractors through the FMS channel. A Latin American company is not going to win an F100 engine contract by competing with them head-on. The opportunity lies at the second tier.
Phase inspections are carried out at bases in the region, not in Oklahoma. Spare-parts logistics, ground support, non-destructive testing, repair of non-critical components, tooling, equipment calibration and technical training all require local presence. Prime contractors need in-country partners to meet schedules and reduce costs, and defense ministries have an obvious incentive to keep part of that thirty-year spend at home.
Access conditions, however, are demanding. AS9110 certification for maintenance or AS9100 for manufacturing is the starting point. But the F-16 ecosystem adds a second requirement that many organizations underestimate: the ability to operate under the U.S. export control regime (ITAR), with procedures for handling controlled technical data, verifiable records and compliance-trained personnel. Without that capability, a supplier cannot receive the technical information needed to work on the system, however technically qualified it may be.
The Right Reading
The contracts being signed today define who will sustain South America's F-16 fleets through the middle of the next decade. The subcontracts that flow from them will be decided over the next two to three years, as the Argentine fleet grows and the arrival of Peru's aircraft draws closer.
For regional industry, the question is not whether the F-16 generates opportunities — it clearly does — but whether the organization will have, in time, the combination of aerospace certification, ITAR compliance and relationships with prime contractors that those opportunities require. Buying a fighter takes a few days. Sustaining it takes thirty years. That is where the business is.