The 31st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Aviano AB, Italy, unveiled the US Air Forces In Europe unit’s first locally painted F-16 during a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new NATO-funded corrosion control facility on 19 October 2012. This facility will allow aircraft structural maintenance corrosion control section personnel to sand, media blast, prime, paint, and stencil an entire F-16. Construction of the new facility began in April 2009. From start to finish, the corrosion control facility shop can have a jet sanded, primed and painted in less than a week. The 31st Fighter Wing expects to save $32,000 per aircraft by painting the F-16s locally as opposed to sending personnel on temporary duty to another base to accomplish the work.
