PMC’s As Air Police Contractors

From my wandering mind…

PMC’s As Air Police Contractors

The NATO Intercepts and various piracy threads started me thinking about whether a PMC (Private Military Contractor/Company) could, if they had sufficient up front capital, carve out a niche for themselves by offering Air Policing services. There are a lot of countries that lack a fast jet capability due to budget or other issues and thus don’t have a way to effectively police their airspace.

It might not be economical to do it for just one country, but if you offered it to a region, say Central America from the Mexican/Guatemalan border to the Panama/Colombia border (or even including Mexico), as a complete package it might be workable. And if it worked for Central America, it could be expanded to the non-aligned Lesser Antilles and perhaps Guyana and Surinam on the South American continent.

Another potential benefit is that contracting out fast jet services would reduce or remove any sort of “arms race” that the other nations might perceive. In a way, it would be like having a regional airline that serviced all the capitals equally and offering each nation a bit of prestige without breaking the bank or starting an “arms race”.

A quick look at what’s in the region nets A-37s in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and F-5’s in Honduras and Mexico. The serviceability of these aircraft is unknown, though according to Jane’s Sentinel Security 2005, Mexico only had two serviceable F-5s and most of the other nations aircraft showed to be serviceable. (I’m pulling this info from open sources and don’t make a claim one way or the other; it’s for informational purposes only) Given the political situations in some of the countries that would be serviced, the PMC on the Air Policing contract would take no action against any anti-government forces except in self defense; their role would be purely air policing and thus freeing the air assets of the respective governments to focus on internal issues.

The big hurdle would be acquiring suitable aircraft. Something not too old that maintenance would cripple your budget and something where a source of spares would be readily available. For the Central American Scenario I would think 24 aircraft could easily handle the duties, with four or five deployed locations with four aircraft each and the remainder used for training or undergoing long term maintenance. Ideally, the aircraft chose would have some form of IRST or camera system to aid in target identification and moderate to good radar as they’d likely be making the interceptions on their own.

There are two options the PMC could go; used or new airframes. Used is certainly going to be cheaper up front, but in the long run there may be more costs involved due to age and lack of IRST or long range camera system. For discussion sake, I’m not going to include US aircraft although for the location, an F-16 would make a good choice. I don’t see the current or upcoming administrations selling combat aircraft to a corporate enterprise. That leaves Europe and Asia.

If looking for used, my first two choices would be either Gripen or Mirage 2000, though each of them would need some supplemental form of IR/Camera system installed. Going new, the options are much wider and, IMO, better in the long run if you plan on 15 to 30 year contracts. In no particular order they would be Rafale, Su-30MK, MIG-35 (or a late model MIG-29), or the JF-17/FC-1. Weapons could be limited to short range WVR IR AAMs. Radar guided would be nice, but aren’t necessary. Guns would also be required, and all models offer such features. As I think about this more, I’m leaning to requiring the aircraft to be a two seater, with a non-missionized rear cockpit that essentially is a passenger compartment for an official government “observer”.

(My prices in this paragraph are pulled from Wiki…I can’t claim that they’re accurate, but they will serve as a yardstick) The JF-17 is by far the least expensive at about $20 million a copy with the most expensive being Rafale at ~$65 million per example. The Su-30 and MIG fall somewhere in between those two. Missiles would be minimal, 2 per aircraft should be sufficient plus spares and any that might be used for training. Assuming a 24 aircraft order, that would be 48-100 missiles.

I’m not sure what sort of ground crews you’d need, but I would think that a total personnel roster would be no more than perhaps 250, give or take a few, plus a small administrative team.

How feasible is something like this and is my thinking way out of line?
I realize this is really nothing more than a flight of fancy and mental exercise, but it’s Black Friday here in the states and I’ve had my fill of fighting the crazed bargain hunters and my mind started to wander.

Thanks!

Kurt (who maybe played a little too much Strike Commander when I was in college… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Commander )