Iraqi Air Force’s first F-16 Block 52 made its maiden flight from Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, assembly plant in a weird camouflaged color scheme.

On May 2, the first of 36 ordered Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 52 jets destined to the Iraqi Air Force made its first flight from Fort Worth, Texas.

Noteworthy, the aircraft sports a quite weird two-tone grey camo, much different from the desert color scheme used by the Iraqi planes prior to the 2003 invasion which destroyed what remained of the Al Quwwa al Jawwiya al Iraqiya, and the light grey paint that was used on the Hellfire-equipped Cessna 208Bs or the Mil Mi-25 gunships.

Iraq is building their Armed Forces again. Along with F-16s and T-50s trainers, Baghdad is also receiving Mi-28 Night Hawk helicopters while the procurement of 24 AH-64E Apache attack choppers in being evaluated.

More from The Aviationist

Military Aviation

U.S. Air Force F-22A Raptors Return From Rapid Deployment to the Middle East

Aviation Safety

USMC CH-53E Burns at Camp Pendleton After Conducting Emergency Landing

Military Aviation

Spain Signs Memorandum of Understanding with Turkey to Procure Hurjet

Military Aviation

U.S. Air Force Releases Photos Of WC-135 ‘Nuke Sniffer’ Deployment to Middle East

F-35

Lockheed Martin Has Delivered The 100th F-35C

Image credit: Lockheed Martin

Related articles

• Photo: Morocco’s final three F-16 Block 52 fighter jets in exotic desert color scheme departing from Ft. Worth
• F-16 reaches 4,500 milestone. With a cool desert camo Block 52 model for Morocco.
• Ukrainian Mig-29 Fulcrum (in display team livery) performs low pass over pro-Russia separatists
• Third Prototype of China’s Stealth Jet Makes Maiden Flight and Shows Improvements
• First images of the new Iraqi Mi-28 Night Hunter attack helicopters
• Why the F-5 Tiger was the perfect plane to simulate Soviet “Bandits” in adversary missions
• Another insane Russian helicopter low altitude flyby