Romanian Air Force MiG-21 Retired

The Romanian Air Force formally withdrew the MiG-21 LanceR from service after final flights from Campia Turzii and Borcea to Bacau, where the type was retired in a ceremony. Romania's Defence Ministry said the withdrawal implemented a national-security decision taken the previous year. The LanceR was an Israeli-assisted upgrade of the Soviet-era MiG-21, giving the fighter modern avionics, a new radar and Western weapons, and it had carried Romania's air-policing duty for three decades. F-16s acquired second-hand, backed by allied detachments, assumed the mission, ending sixty-one years of MiG-21 operations in Romanian service.