yeaa. I mean it was just a “quick list”… I guess you can add some other potentials to the list like:
Azerbaijan? (they have shown interest)
Thailand?
Ethiopia? (good possibility for a low end fighter)
Egypt? (though JF17 seems more likely)
Argentina? (though I reckon they’ll probably end up buying a load of Kfirs)
Peru – they are already buying trainers from korea…

and many other potential buyers in developing countries… who knows, they may even get a sale in Eastern Europe if they offer a decent enough “package”… would have been interesting to see Romania or Bulgaria opting for it…

if this happens… it could be the first of a flood of orders.

All the “little countries” needing simple air patrol duties will be dumping their F5/MiG21 and other assorted cold-war era planes and getting these as replacement. Since USA, Russia, EU no longer offer a true low cost fighter anymore… even the last J7 is off the production line now, so expect the JF17 / T50 to really take off in the next few years.

Mexico – looking to retire F5 and T33
Philipines – almost certain
Iraq – almost certain now that the L159 deal is cancelled
Singapore – possibility for replacing remaining F5s
Libya – maybe to rebuild their air force from scratch
Vietnam – to replace their MiG21s… why not? MiG35 would be too heavy, and they certainly won’t buy JF17 😀
Iran – If sanctions get lifted, they’d want a hundred of these at least…
Morocco – low cost to augment their F16 / MF2000
DRC – their budget is going up now and they need some decent patrol fighters to cover east and west of the country.
Saudi Arabia – possibility?
Kuwait – Due to their parliament restricting defence spending, they could be a future customer?

and many others…

that’s a lot of lolly for planes built in 1964! Honestly, couldn’t they just fit all the equipment in a new built A330 or B777 for maybe a 10% price premium for system integration but having longevity and reliability?

without sanctions I’d expect the Iranians try and join the PAK-FA/FGFA with Russia/India.

If they went “western” maybe they’d try and get a local production agreement for Typhoon + METEOR or join the F35 programme.

Presumably they’d still rely on domestic ballistic missiles for their long-range reach.

[QUOTE=Steve49;2083689]

The problem is that the RAF didn’t hide their losses, I was growing up during the war and remember in the early days of the air war the RAF reporting their losses on a daily basis and the British papers getting excited about their ‘unsafe aircraft’. So if they’re not hiding the loss, then what merit do they have for hiding the cause? Don’t forget this a ground attack aircraft we’re talking about, it would hardly effect ‘sales’ to report that it could be shot down by a air defence fighter, infact the reverse is almost true, and the fact that the RAF’s premier low level strike aircraft was very vulnerable to ground defences would probably do more to hamper sales, but this information was out there from the start… But if we follow your theory, on the second day of the war the RAF, who at this time probably would not even have known the true cause, decide to commence a plan to hide the cause of loss, by changing the identities of lost aircraft and even changing the dates of death of serving air crew just so that in the future the Iraqi Air Force couldn’t confirm an air to air claim. What would be the point?

So you have one hand an air force which reported its losses at the time (and over the next 20 years the number of losses has remained constant), and on the other we have people trying to support a claim, by initially claiming one aircraft and then shifting it to a second one (lost three days later), when the ‘facts’ didn’t support the first claim. I know which one sounds more credible and I know which one I believe in this case…

nobody is claiming coverups or “conspiracy theories”… its just that we’re trying to match the Iraqi picture with the allied picture and slowly clearing away the “fog”… especially from the completely unreported Iraqi perspective. Some items will be ERRONEOUS or INACCURATE in BOTH sides accounts… anyway, lets focus in this thread ONLY on the Mirage F1s performance, as per thread title.

[QUOTE=Steve49;2083646]

Interesting website, always valuable to get information from a different point of view. Would I be right in reading via the power of ‘google translate’, that the two pilots were Capt Shahid Ali Hussein Fadel and Capt Mohammed Salim Ahmed from No89 Sqn? Brave men considering the odds against them and must have known that they were unlikely to return.

Sheytan can you confirm if my translation is correct regarding the names of the two pilots?

Regards,

Steve

Ali Hussain Fadhel
Mohammed Salim Ahmad.

according to the people. the dates are correct and the coallition gave an incorrect date for the aircraft loss for whatever reason.

They attached the original log books.
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thank you very much to your notification about the air base name “by mistake I have written Qadisiyah” However about the time and date completely correct depending on available evidence and official documents by Iraqi air force plus pilot diary book, and award document from President Saddam Hussein in that time, we can’t rely on the dates of the coalition forces because they changed the date of the RAF Panavia Tornado ZA467 from January 19 to 22 January on a mission to Ar Rutbah beside Captain Sayhood shot it down and got shot down in January 19. and just the same story with U.S F-15 January 30 and the F/A-18C Hornet s/n 163096 february 5. however there is many thing will come up in near future.

and the official award from saddam.
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according to this letter he took off from Saad airbase (H2). He was guided by the GCI from Saad airbase in the second air defence sector towards 2 targets and shot one down. on the second day, 18th January the air defence command verified the shot down and awarded the kill to the pilot, as well as to the ground controllers. The pilot also flew interception sorties on the 18th and 20th January but did not manage to shoot down any aircraft on those days.

Hello all.

on the “Old Iraqi Air Force” facebook group, there’s a group of veterans putting up articles about the old air force.

A recent post has the following:

Colonel pilot Nafie Najim Al-Jubouri.
From The former Iraqi Air Force
Born 1964 – KIA 2003
He graduated from the Greek Air Academy in 1986, he was one of the best pilot student at that time, he achieved golden sword award for high skilled performance, he had more than 1300 Flight hours until 2003.
Colonel pilot Nafie Al-Jubouri was just first lieutenant pilot in the Gulf War “Desert storm” who managed to attain one of the aerial victories by the Iraqi Air Force in his Mirage F-1 No 4021 from 79th squadron of IrAF, after midnight of January 17-1991 exactly at 0306 AM, Colonel Nafie scrambled and took off from Al-Qadisiyah air base better to know H 2 west of Iraq, flying his Mirage F-1 on the first night of the war in order to root out and shoot-down Coalition aircraft bombing Iraq, when he received target info about U.S EF-111A northwest H 2, the sky of Iraq was totally covered by white lines of fired missiles due to the air combat, And coalition F-15s formations just in every five miles around, but the Eagles was exhausted in that moment because the Iraqi FoxBat was chasing them, however Colonel pilot Nafie across the darkness of that night with flashing explosions on the ground as well as in the sky and headed directly to intercept the target, and just a few minutes later the U.S EF-111A appeared on his radar screen, after identified the target he confirmed to the Ground Control it’s enemy aircraft and request permission to open fire, seconds later he got the permission and simultaneously locked the target and fired single missile type Matra 530 directly toward to the U.S EF-111A, s/n 66-0023, the F-111 tried to Jamming and avoid the missile, but the Matra 530 hit the F-111 in the cockpit sent it to the ground.

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Interesting claim. However the US state that the EF111 with that number was lost in February not January, and on 17th Jan 3x F111s were damaged. Here’s the US list http://www.rjlee.org/air/ds-aaloss/