Top Aces F-16 Controversy

Story by Marcus Pinnock

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Edited by Matthew Dawson

Photographs by Marcus Pinnock unless specified otherwise

In 2021, Top Aces became the first private owners and operators of the F-16, a fourth generation multirole fighter aircraft.  The planes are ex-Israeli F-16A “Netz” aircrafts, they have seen combat in the Middle East and now serve to train and maintain America’s own fighter pilot skills through adversary exerscises. These new additions to Top Aces fleet have been instrumental in furthering the air combat training experience to a higher standard.  While these advanced airframes provide better air combat training opportunities, it comes at a significant cost.  At $27,000 per flight hour, Top Aces has recently been struggling with turning a profit and staying within budget on their various aggressor programs. 

  In the summer of 2025, Top Aces began to upgrade their fleet of F-16s with Scorpion HMCS, giving the F-16 and its pilot the ability to engage in high off-boresight combat, which means the pilot no longer has to point the aircraft directly at the enemy to get a radar or IRST lock.  Among other previous upgrades to the fleet, includes IRST developed by Leonardo, the same company that has built the TH-73 “Thrasher”. Leonardo dubbed the tracking system as the “SkyWard.” Top Aces has also sourced help from Northrop Grumman to fit their F-16s with a modern AESA radar, giving these fourth generation fighters a fifth generation edge in electronic capability. This feature allows pilots on the reciprocating end to experience what modern air combat is like.

Just because you are not in front of the nose no longer means you are safe.  While these advancements improve the quality of training, it has not helped enough for these planes to stay within budget.  A myriad of reasons could be drawn out as to why that may be, but one thing all aircraft have in common with these F-16s is age. 

 It is costly to keep old planes in the air.  Perhaps in the future, Top Aces could acquire F-16Cs from AMARG (the ‘boneyard’), which will be just as, if not more costly to operate and maintain, but will also open up a large and expansive pool of potential spare parts. This might just be a gap in the current setting and in time Top Aces will have a great advantage among their competitors, only time will tell.