Poland’s Air Force in 2026: Every Aircraft It Flies, and Everything on Order

The Polish Air Force (Siły Powietrzne) is in the middle of a full rebuild. Its backbone is still 47 F-16 fighters, but its first F-35s landed at Łask in May 2026, and its last Soviet-era fighters are gone.

Poland is paying for it. It spent 4.5% of its GDP on the military in 2025, the highest share of any NATO member, according to SIPRI, and its budget plan for 2026 goes higher still.

This list ranks every combat and advanced training jet Poland flies by one measure: how much fighting value it adds as of October 2026, weighing capability against numbers in service. The jets it just retired, the support fleet and the orders still to arrive follow the ranking.

1. F-16C/D Block 52+: The Backbone

Poland bought 48 new F-16 Block 52+ fighters, 36 single-seat C models and 12 two-seat D models, delivered between 2006 and 2008. They are still the core of its combat fleet.

One was lost on August 28, 2025, when an F-16 of the Tiger Demo Team crashed at Radom Air Base, killing its pilot, Maj. Maciej Krakowian. FlightGlobal’s 2026 directory counts 47.

The whole fleet is being rebuilt to the F-16 Viper standard. The US approved the upgrade in October 2024 at up to $7.3 billion, and Poland signed a contract worth about $3.8 billion for all 48 airframes in August 2025.

They are also the jets that fought over Poland. On the night of September 9 to 10, 2025, Polish F-16s and Dutch F-35s were among the aircraft sent up after Russian drones crossed the border, and NATO jets shot down three of them.

2. F-35A Husarz: The Future, Arriving

Poland signed for 32 F-35A stealth fighters on January 31, 2020, at Dęblin, in a deal worth $4.6 billion. It named the jet Husarz, Polish for hussar.

The first jets went to Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Arkansas in December 2024, where Poland became the first international customer to train its F-35 pilots at that base. The first three landed at the 32nd Tactical Air Base at Łask on May 22, 2026, and five more followed on August 28.

It ranks second only because eight is not yet a fleet. Polish officials expect 14 to be delivered by the end of 2026 and all 32 around 2029, when the F-35 should take over from the F-16 as the fleet’s centerpiece.

3. FA-50GF: The Korean Stopgap

On September 16, 2022, Poland signed for 48 KAI FA-50 light combat jets from South Korea, worth about $3 billion in total.

The first 12, the FA-50GF, arrived within a year, and deliveries were completed in January 2024. They fly from Mińsk Mazowiecki.

The other 36, the upgraded FA-50PL, are late. A contract annex signed on January 9, 2026, moved the first delivery to mid-2027 and the last to early 2029, citing supply chain problems and the integration of US weapons such as the AIM-9X missile.

4. M-346 Bielik: The Lead-In Trainer

Poland trains its fast-jet pilots on the Leonardo M-346, which it calls the Bielik, or white-tailed eagle. A 2018 order for four more, worth over €115 million, took the fleet from eight to 12.

The final batch of four arrived in December 2022, bringing deliveries to 16. FlightGlobal’s 2026 directory counts 15 in active service.

Just Retired: The MiG-29 and the Su-22

For decades Poland flew Soviet jets alongside its F-16s. That era ended in 2025 and 2026.

The Su-22 fighter-bomber went first. Poland retired its final Su-22s in September 2025, NATO’s last, after 41 years, with a farewell flypast of three two-seaters on September 10.

The MiG-29 followed. In March 2023 Poland announced it would give 14 of them to the Ukrainian Air Force, and the first arrived the following month.

By December 2025 only 14 Polish MiG-29s were left, at the end of their service life. A plan to send them all to Ukraine was halted in June 2026, and by August the jets had been struck from the Air Force’s books and handed to Poland’s Armament Agency.

The Rest of the Fleet: Radar Planes, Transports and Helicopters

Behind the fighters sits a support fleet of radar planes, transports, helicopters and trainers. FlightGlobal’s late-2025 count adds up to 266 Air Force aircraft, before the last MiG-29s left.

One of the two Saab 340 radar planes flew during the September 2025 drone night. Poland also plans to buy four A330 MRTT tankers in a joint deal with Spain, due by 2030; talks were at the final stage in July 2026.

Poland’s air defense does not rest on its own aircraft alone. The United States has run an Aegis Ashore missile defense site in Poland since 2024, one of two in Europe alongside Romania’s, and each holds 24 SM-3 interceptor missiles.

Why Poland’s Pilots Have a Reputation

Poland’s air force carries one of aviation’s great war stories. No. 303 Squadron, a Polish unit of the Royal Air Force, was operational for only six weeks in the Battle of Britain yet claimed 126 victories, the top score of any RAF unit, according to the RAF Museum.

Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, who led Fighter Command, said he hesitated to say the battle would have ended the same way without the Polish squadrons. For how Poland’s fleet now compares with its neighbors, see our guide to European fighter jets.