"It would be very strange and unfortunate if the F-16s could not fly over the square on May 6 - the Day of the Bulgarian Army. It cannot be said at all that the fighters are on the drawings, they are here, and some people have managed to see them flying. It is strange why we do not see more serious flight training and taking over part of the air policing duties". This was stated in an interview with News.bg by former Minister of Defense Prof. Todor Tagarev.
He explained that there is no information whether there will be a military parade on the Day of the Bulgarian Army - May 6 and whether, if there is, it will include the passage of military equipment, including F-16s.
Prof. Tagarev indicated that there was a technical failure of one of the aircraft, which was removed. It cannot be said that there are technical problems with the F-16, the former Minister of Defense specified.
According to him, what is worrying is the postponement of the second eight F-16 fighters without a public delivery schedule.
"They crucified me on a cross why the planes were late, why the preparation of the airbase was delayed, but it turned out that two years later more money was poured into the F-16 infrastructure, but there are still gaps. We will not have a ready squadron of 16 aircraft soon, because of the delay, but for me, by this time we should have been performing the air policing function with the new aircraft", emphasized Prof. Todor Tagarev.
According to him, it will not be necessary to order other fighter jets that are newer until all the F-16s arrive.
"The logic should be that we will rely on the aircraft for a long time. The F-16 is a modern fighter jet, with modern electronics, with a radar system - much more modern than previous versions of the F-16. The aircraft is so large that we should have no problem relying on it for 40 years," believes the former Minister of Defense.
Prof. Todor Tagarev added that what he read in the annual report of the armed forces is that there is still a problem in preparing the infrastructure for the F-16 fighters, in accelerating design activities, coordinating construction and repair activities, etc. This should have been done by 2021, the projects should be clear, well coordinated, and new ideas, new requests and problems in coordinating their implementation are constantly emerging, he pointed out.
Prof. Todor Tagarev also stated that the flying MiG-29 aircraft that are on combat duty are not in good condition.
The former Minister of Defense assured that there is no reason for Bulgaria to remain without the capacity to carry out combat duty, unless there are some problems in the management of this process. "No matter how few fighters there are, we have been on such duty with the MiG-29 so far, and in addition we have eight more aircraft. There are trained pilots, engineers and technicians and there is no reason to worry that we will be left without combat duty", reassured Prof. Todor Tagarev.