Lockheed Will Keep F-16 Flying With $8 Billion Sale to Taiwan

Motley Fool
Date: September 1, 2019
By: Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

For the umpteenth year in a row, Lockheed Martin's (NYSE: LMT) F-16 remains the world's most popular fighter jet.

The manufacturer of everything from F-35 stealth fighters to Blackhawk helicopters to the venerable F-16, Lockheed Martin is the world's biggest pure-play defense contractor. And according to the data specialists preparing Flightglobal's 2019 World Air Forces report, 45 years after the F-16 Fighting Falcon first took flight, some 2,280 of Lockheed's F-16s are still flying around the globe — 15% of all fighter planes in existence today.  

And as we just found out, that number is about to get a little bit bigger.

$8 billion for defense, but not one cent for tribute

You can thank Taiwan for that — and the Communist government of China, which has lined the Taiwan Strait with missiles, bombers, and warships in an effort to remind the Taiwanese not to stray too far from the "One China" party line.    [FULL  STORY]