Summary
- USAF holds #1 spot with 897 F-16s, with Navy owning 40 as well.
- Turkey is the only non-U.S. NATO member in the Top 5 with 243 jets.
- Israel proudly represents F-16 with 218-224 aircraft in their fleet.
The F-16 Fighting Falcon (or as her Stateside crews prefer to call her, the “Viper”) is *the* world’s most common fixed-wing aircraft in military service. With 26 users (at last count) around the world, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that she’s the Western equivalent of the old Soviet-designed Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 “Fishbed” (AKA “Balalaika” AKA “Bison”) in terms of sheer ubiquity.

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So then, out of those 26 nation-state customers of the F-16, who are the Top 5 in terms of sheer numbers obtained? Simple Flying now breaks down the numbers. We’ll go in descending order…
Two key resources for this article were a piece published earlier this month in 24/7 Wall St and one published by Yahoo! Finance (re-shared from Insider Monkey) this past March.
1
The United States Air Force (and Navy)
“The firstest with the mostest.”
(That phrase was supposedly uttered by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest during the American Civil War.) Well, this should come as no surprise to anyone. After all, the USAF was the original, and still the biggest, F-16 customer, not to mention the fact that the warbird is proudly “Made In The USA” (originally by General Dynamics, now by Lockheed Martin).
This business relationship dates back to August 1978, when the F-16 officially entered operational service with the USAF (which in turn was 4.5 years after the fighter made her maiden flight; that’s right, hard to believe as it may seem, this sleek high-tech aircraft is already 50 years old).

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According to the authors of both the 24/7 Wall Street and the Insider Monkey pieces, the U.S. Armed Forces have a combined total of 897 airframes in their fleets. Though she’s an Air Force plane first and foremost (heck, “Fighting Falcons” is also the nickname of the U.S. Air Force Academy’s sports teams after all), it’s easy to overlook the fact that (in the spirit of “One Team, One Fight, One Family”), the U.S. Navy also has possession of 40 Fighting Falcons.
Photo: USAF
This is due to the fact that a batch of F-16A/B variants that were originally earmarked to be shipped to Pakistan had the kibosh placed on the shipment by the U.S. Government due to an embargo against that South Asian nation, so America’s Navy decided to put them to good use by acquiring them and using them in the aggressor role for training exercises at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon, Nevada.

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2
The Turkish Air Force
These are no mere defenseless wild game turkeys.
It should come as little surprise that at least one Middle Eastern nation makes this Top 5 List. It should also come as little surprise that that at least one additional NATO member state besides the U.S. makes this list. What *is* a tad more surprising is that Türkiye (or Turkey, if you prefer the old-school Western moniker) is actually the *only* non-U.S. NATO member to make the Top 5. (Turkey’s paradoxical NATO ally yet longtime historical nemesis Greece just misses out on the Top 5 at #6, with 154 jets.)
Photo: Emre Umurbilir I Shutterstock
The Turkish Air Force (Türk Hava Kuvvetleri) has 243 Fighting Falcons, specifically the C/D variant…which means that tangling with this nation’s military will be no mere turkey shoot (bad pun fully and shamelessly intended).
To expand on that last point further, Turkish Air Force Vipers have participated in numerous combat operations, such as Operation Deliberate Force in 1995, Operation Allied Force in 1999, and various strikes against Kurdish rebels.
3
The Israeli Air Force
The Jewish State is proudly represented by the F-16 and F-35 alike.
One Middle Eastern nation in this Top 5 List deserves another, eh? Coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally), Israel joins the U.S. on the Top 5 Lists for both F-16 *and* F-35 customers.

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By another coincidence, just like with the F-35, the Israeli Air Force (IAF; זְרוֹעַ הָאֲוִיר וְהֶחָלָל/Zroa HaAvir VeHahalal) component of the Israel Defense Force (IDF; צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל /Tsva ha-Hagana le-Yisra’el) has the distinction of being the first military force to use the F-16 in combat, achieving the platform’s first air-to-air kills when IAF fighter pilots shot down two aircraft, a Mil Mi-8 helicopter and a MiG-21 fighter plane, both Syrian, in April and July 1981 respectively.
For good measure, as I noted in an article re-published in The National Interest this past New Year’s Day, the IAF was also the first military entity to demonstrate the Viper’s effectiveness in ground attack; this was during Operation Opera AKA Operation Babylon, the 1981 Israeli Air Force (IAF) air strike against Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.
As to how many Fighting Falcons — or as the Israelis themselves prefer to call them, the “Netz” (נץ; “Hawk”) the IAF currently has, our two primary sources have a bit of a discrepancy; Insider Monkey states 218 birds whilst 24/7 Wall Street lists 224 airframes. What’s not in dispute between the two sources is that they’re the C/D/I variants.
4
The Egyptian Air Force
Israel’s first Arab nation-state peace treaty partner is also well-represented.
Okay, then: one Middle Eastern nation in this Top 5 List deserves another,..and one more for good measure, especially when we’re coincidentally (or again, perhaps not so coincidentally) talking about the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel (doing so in September 1978).
As a “peace dividend” stemming directly from those historic Camp David Accords, Egypt became a major export customer of the F-16. Thus it was in March 1982 that the Egyptian Air Force (EAF; القوات الجوية المصرية/El Qūwāt El Gawīyä El Maṣrīya/Ⲛⲉⲛⲡⲉⲧϩⲁⲗⲁⲓⲛⲙⲓϣⲓ ⲛ̀ⲕⲏⲙⲓ) acquired its first dozen Vipers. Their most recent batch was delivered in October 2015; back in July 2013, these shipments had been suspended on account of a coup d’etat wherein Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi overthrew then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
At present, the Egyptian Air Force, according to both of our primary sources, has a total of 218 of the fighters, which are divvied between the A/B/C/D variants. Insider Monkey adds this nugget of information:
“The Fighting Falcon is the country’s primary frontline combat aircraft, of which 168 F-16 A/C are in active use of the Egyptian Air Force, while 50 are used as training aircraft.”
Reportedly the EAF has used its Vipers in combat in Libya, Yemen (against the Houthi rebels), and within its own borders (during the Sinai insurgency that commenced in 2011).
5
The Republic of Korea (South Korean) Air Force
Standing ready to take on “Comrade Kim” and the communist North.
Last but not least…we now shift from Middle Eastern customers to the lone East Asian air force on this list.
The Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF; 대한민국 공군/大韓民國空軍/Daehanminguk Gong-gun) purchased 36 F-16C/D Block 32 aircraft in 1981, thus making South Korea the first operator of the C/D model outside of the United States.
Once again, our two primary sources are in agreement on the total numbers: 167. Insider Monkey adds:
“According to FlightGlobal, 118 of these are in active service of the South Korean Air Force, while the rest are used as training aircraft. Last month, South Korea signed a $355 million deal with Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of RTX Corporation, to upgrade its fleet of F-15s and F-16s.”
Should a Second Korean War (or to be more technically correct, a resumption of the original Korean War, as the mere armistice of 1953 didn’t officially “end” that conflict), the ROKAF’s Viper drivers, alongside their U.S. Air Force counterparts, stand ready to deal death to “Comrade Kim” Jong-un’s North Korean Air Force (officially Korean People’s Army Air Force [KPAF]/조선인민군 공군/朝鮮人民軍 空軍 /Chosŏn-inmin’gun konggun) and their hodgepodge of MiG-29s, MiG-23s, MiG-21s, Sukhoi Su-25s, and so forth.
Which all goes to show that whilst 5th and even 6th Generation fighters are all the rage nowadays, 4th Generation fighters like the F-16 are far from dead and still going strong.

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