there’s shed loads of runways, HAS, hangars, depots and accommodation blocks at dozens of Iraqi airbases. Some needs renovation of course… but nothing to justify such expenses… the US did renovate many of the larger ones anyway.

The Korean Company HANWHA is however building new HQs for Iraqi Army Divisions. Its a separate deal entirely.

45 million $ for that tiny little 14,000lb single engine trainer wow what a ripoff, by comparison 1 Su34 heavy long range strike fighter bomber cost Russia only about 34 million $ and a Yak130 trainer/light fighter about 15 million $

lets hope rosoboronexport fly in to baghdad with a damned counteroffer! Yak130 can be used to train pilots for F16s too… and the average flight hour cost is more like $2000-$2500…. vs over $11,000 for this.

for iraqis this is a “light fighter” that also acts as LIFT.
As I can see the price is ludicrous. $87.5M over 20 years… add to that the fuel / ordnance etc… then it will be over $110M at least… and will pass the cost of getting a friggin Grippen NG! 😀

Then my gut feeling is they will have the AN/APG-67.

which means it will be canned… the news in Iraq tomorrow “downgraded FA50 sold to Iraq for 50% premium”.

lets hope there’s a proper justification for the price. Even though the service and support contract looks massively excessive IMHO. They are paying a cost of $87.5M over 20 years for each aircraft. at 400 hrs a year (they are rated for 8000 flight hours), the cost is $11,000 per flight hour EXCLUDING the cost of fuel / armaments!

hmmmm. awaiting rosoboronexport team to fly into Baghdad tomorrow with a slideshow.

I think all sources are clear on the “cost”.

$1.1Bn for 24 aircraft
$1Bn for support over 20 years.

That gives a unit flyaway cost of $45.8M

This year Korea and Philippines got their FA50 for a unit flyaway cost of $30M-$31M, and their planes came with the superior Elta El/M2032 radar (which Iraq will not buy).

So if the Iraqis are getting APG67 radar (from the baseline T50 trainer), then their aircraft should be, if anything, slightly CHEAPER than the Korean/Filipino aircraft!

Thus the additional $15M per aircraft would make the parliament defence committee, the MOD audit commission and the Finance ministry baulk at a $360M premium for the aircraft contract alone…. unless they are “getting something” for that premium.

its a bit of both of course.

But ultimately in a place like Iraq with separated powers, a relatively active parliament and a rebelious population and media, such blatant fraud doesn’t get very far nowadays in Iraq. Sadly all it results in is false hope for both the supplying company, Iraqi military and lots of wasted time whilst deals are investigated and ultimately cancelled.

If Iraq did indeed sign up for an FA50 with a radar from the T50 and the same engine… for a price premium of 50% over the price of a FA50. then the eventual cancellation of the deal is as inevitable as day following night.

This all started with “defence solutions” T72 rip off deal… since then the MOD and its hawkish auditors have been combing and cancelling deals like hell (BTR4, Sokol W3, L159BQ, MF2000 etc….). However Small things with scams like the “ADE651” scam for the interior ministry get through.. but even then the ministry recovered about 50% of the scam cost (about $20M) and even that was a massive scandal. Imagine the scandal if they are overpricing by $300M or more on a single deal… and just before national elections to boot (april 2014).

Lets hope that the deal is all above board and the price differential can be explained by higher quality. / specifications….