Word: 16s
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...Pentagon to lobby for lifting the restraints was easy. Then Defense Secretary William Perry had met with Latin American generals, and was convinced their days of overthrowing governments was over. If the Pentagon was lucky, it might even be able to unload some of its older model F-16s south of the border and use the proceeds to restock its air wings with newer versions of the Falcon. Industry executives and Perry aides began publicly plugging the idea of lifting the restrictions: the countries of Latin America save for Cuba were now democratic, their economies were rebounding, and the jets...
...aerospace industry faced another problem. "Nobody in Latin America showed any interest in buying these jets," says Alexander Watson, Clinton's Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American affairs until last spring. Brazilian defense officials viewed expensive new F-16s and F/A-18s as a low priority. Argentina, which has been demilitarizing, was worried at the thought of the jets' being sold to its neighbor Chile. Buenos Aires would have to buy the same planes to keep up. Even Venezuela, the only country given a waiver of the Carter prohibition and allowed to buy 26 F-16s in 1982, parked many...
...arms lobby first had to stir up demand among the Latin Americans. The Pentagon quietly arranged for Puerto Rican Air National Guard pilots to fly Brazilian generals in F-16s. In March 1996 an armada of U.S. warplanes flew to Chile for an air show. As scores of Latin American officers and hundreds of civilians squinted into the sunny sky, an F-16 Falcon soared high up, then roared down in a kamikaze dive. A B-2 Stealth bomber flew over the Santiago fairground. A giant C-17 air cargo plane rumbled along the taxiway with a Chilean flag fluttering...
...Wednesday afternoon, about 70 miles east of Atlantic City, a pair of F-16s buzzed a Nations Air 727 at 28,000 ft. as it flew from Puerto Rico to New York City's J.F.K. airport. Although the airliner's pilot did not see either F-16 (he learned of their stealthy approach via the blaring alarm of his onboard collision-avoidance system), one of the jets (flown by a male pilot) apparently hugged the airliner's tail for two minutes, while his female partner loitered farther away. Among the 84 people onboard, two flight attendants and a passenger were...
...Friday, about 15 miles off the Maryland coast, an American Eagle turboprop pilot flying at 19,000 ft. was surprised to find himself sandwiched by four F-16s--three above him and one below--after he was told all four would be passing above him. With one F-16 running low on fuel, the four jets screamed by within 1,500 ft. of the turboprop, which was bound for J.F.K. from Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina