First Swiss Tiger fighter jet handed over to US forces
The Swiss air force handed over the first of 22 Tiger fighter jets to the US armed forces on Monday. It was picked up at the Emmen military airfield in canton Lucerne. The US Navy will use the acquired Tigers for training purposes.
The Swiss defence procurement body, Armasuisse sold the decommissioned F-5 Tiger fighter jets to the US military in 2020, as announced on Monday. Transport from Emmen was done on board a Lockheed KC-130J from the United States Marine Corps.
+Air Force to decommission Patrouille Suisse jets at the end of 2027
Many of the F-5 Tigers procured in the 1970s and 1980s have already been sold. A few years ago, the US naval forces purchased 44 F-5 Tigers from Switzerland, which had originally been used by the Swiss air force for airspace defence.
The Swiss Armed Forces still have 25 F-5 Tigers in their inventory today, 18 of which are currently in service. According to Armasuisse, they provide relief for the F/A-18 Hornet fleet and are used for target visualisation, training, towing and test flights.
+Air Force flies with sustainable fuel for the first time
Around half of the F-5 Tigers are used by the Patrouille Suisse aerobatic team for flight demonstrations. However, the defence ministry has already announced that it will cease operations of the F-5 by the end of 2027. It is not yet clear what future Patrouille Suisse air shows will consist of.
Adapted from German by DeepL/dkk/amva
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.