In January 1979 the Belgian Air Force received their first example of the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and later that year they set up the F-16 Demo Team. Major Deheyn was the team's first display pilot, and since then a total of 19 pilots have been appointed as the Official F-16 Demo Pilot for the Belgian Air Force.

The role of the team is to promote the capabilities of the Belgian Air Force at home and abroad, and the current pilot, the team's 19th, is Senior Captain Stefan Darte, callsign "Vador". Vador has been displaying the Dark Falcon since 2018, and will continue in the role until the end of the 2020 air show season.

Painting
It took 7 weeks to transform the standard operational colours of F-16 FA-101 into the "Dark Falcon" colour scheme, and with the exception of the colours on the tail, the entire aircraft was painted using only the standard paints that are used on regular F-16s. The team was even able to paint the nose radome in black (the nose radome can only use paint that will not interfere with the operation of the radar, and most operational F-16s use grey paint).

The markings on the tail of Dark Falcon are designed to be changed every year, and for the 2019 tail the team used a photo that was taken of an actual falcon at a local zoo as the basis of the design. This year's tail marks the 40th anniversary of the F-16 being introduced into Belgian Air Force service, and it was first presented to the public on April 30th.

Star Wars
With the surname of the pilot being "Darte", and his callsign being "Vador", and the aircraft being known as "Dark Falcon", the references to the Star Wars movies are obvious. The aircraft has a few Star Wars references applied, including the outline of Darth Vader's helmet on the ventral fins, crew names with Stormtrooper helmets on the nose gear door and the Galactic Empire symbol on the main gear hubcap.

The weather on the ground that day was dull, grey and wet, but once we got to altitude the sun transformed the tops of those same grey clouds into bright, spectacular photo backgrounds. Sr. Cpt. Darte, who is an accomplished photographer, turned the tables on the C-130 a few times and the photoship became the subject. The C-130 we were using as a photoship, CH-11 from 20 Squadron, was painted with D-Day invasion stripes, so the photoship itself was a nice target.

D-Day Special Guests
On the subject of D-Day, 2019 marked the 75th anniversary of the famous invasion at Normandy during World War 2, and many air forces painted aircraft with special markings to mark the occasion. The Belgian Air Force was no different, and they painted two F-16 jets, one each from 349 and 350 Squadron, with D-Day stripes on the wings and fuselage, along with special schemes on the tail.

These D-Day jets arrived behind the C-130 first, and after a short while they were joined by Dark Falcon. A few 3-ship formations were flown, after which the D-Day jets broke away and we were left alone with Dark Falcon. The F-16 was expertly flown by Vador; at times the noise of the Dark Falcon's F-100 jet engine could be heard over the 160 knot wind whistling around on the ramp of the Hercules.

A Big Thank You Goes To....
The Belgian Air Force, the Dark Falcon Solo F-16 Team, 349 & 350 Squadrons of the 2nd Tactical Wing, 20 Squadron of the 15th Air Transport Wing and Nicolas Deboeck for the opportunity to join this flight.

Some of the text used in this article was sourced from the book "F-16 Dark Falcon", a special limited edition of the Duke Hawkins series of books, published by HMH Publications - https://www.hmh-publications.com/