Lisbon has not ruled out a potential future acquisition of the Lockheed Martin F-35A despite recent comments by its defence minister, a senior Portuguese air force official indicates.
“The [Lockheed] F-16 is in that moment when we need to take some decisions regarding the future of the platform,” Major General Joao Nogueira, director of the service’s weapon systems maintenance directorate, says of its current frontline fighter.
“For the F-16, it is state of the art, with the latest software evolution, and ready for operations,” he says. “But the aircraft will have more problems in the future, especially related to ageing structures… and also on the avionics side. That will give additional pressure to the air force to maintain the same level of operational performance.
“Every month or year that we lose will delay the introduction of whatever aircraft will replace the F-16, so we are in this hot moment to have decisions,” he told journalists at the service’s Lisbon headquarters on 26 March.
Aviation analytics company Cirium records Portugal as currently operating 21 F-16A fighters and four B-model trainers, aged between 30 and 41 years.
Four of its fighters will be deployed to Estonia from April, to participate in the NATO Baltic Air Policing mission from Amari air base.
Nogueira points to Portugal’s role in the European Partner Air Force (EPAF) and Multi National Fighter Programme groupings on the F-16. “Those programmes were crucial for us, because with regard to modifications, maintenance and parts there was a lot of commonality and engagement between nations, in order share costs and ideas.
“Our partners are already changing to a new platform,” he notes. All the other EPAF members – Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway – have acquired the F-35A to replace their F-16 fleets.
“The F-35 is fifth-generation, and that is an important step we need to look to,” he says. “That is not to say we are not looking at other options. There are pros and cons that we need to put in our analysis, and put to the politicians all the information they need.”
His comments follow an early-March interview during which Portuguese defence minister Nuno Melo suggested that despite its long-held interest in the F-35 Lisbon could consider looking elsewhere, due to “the recent position of the United States, in the context of NATO and at the international geo-strategic level”.
US President Donald Trump has been highly critical of European nations with low defence expenditure – a grouping which includes Portugal.
According to NATO projections, Lisbon was expected to commit the equivalent of $4.6 billion to defence in 2024. While this would mark an increase from $4.2 billion the previous year and $3.6 billion in 2022, it would only equate to 1.55% of the nation’s gross domestic product: significantly shy of the alliance’s 2% suggested baseline.
During the last NATO Summit, Portugal committed to boost spending and meet the 2% spending target in 2029.
In the unlikely event that Lisbon were to exclude an F-35A order, it would have a trio of potential European options to consider in the Dassault Aviation Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen E, while Lockheed also produces the Block 70/72-standard F-16.
Meanwhile, Nogueira says Portugal expects to take delivery of its first of 12 Embraer A-29N turboprops later this year. The air force intends to use the assets primarily in an advanced training role.
