At least one of the Tornados was lost due to premature detonation of the 1000 pounder on release I remember an outstanding talk given to air cadets by Sqn Ld Bob Ankerson when he was Wing ADO at Essex wing about his time as a POW

Swerve,

As both Norway and Denmark operate the F16, a late mark of the same aircraft makes more sense, especially as they are allies of the USA, more than Sweden.

Tempest,

I do not think a Scandinavian thinks of the Netherlands as a nordic country 🙂

Ah picky -picky ok then how about AIM in Norway and Patria in Finland also highly capable companies which are Nordic and the Dutch are also looking to replace F-16 and could get behind a new SAAB 5G+ project with NLR

Although cool, but the problem here is MONEY..if they had money sitting around to co-fund development of a 5.5 gen, plus buy a fighter for fleet replacement, they would simply buy and operate the F-35.

All of the Nordic states are that this time looking for new fighters if they all go Gripen E/F at a fixed price the money they would save in first buy and operating costs would go a long – long way to development of the new type plus they would have the right to use it there and then they liked which they wont have with F-35 plus a type built in house means job at home always a political winner

Ok lets look at the logistics of buying and operating F-1 MF2000 firstly lets say the IrAF buy 36 F-1’s at a price of 2 billion dollars 30 single seat and 6 two seat to be split into 2 Squadrons of 14 aircraft and a OCU of 8 aircraft from what the French say these aircraft would be of a fully operational capability that to me means that these aircraft would come with ground equipment and basic spares package.

Training most aircrews do two 5 year front line tours and then a third tour on a training or OCU squadron (15 years flying) ground staff are trained to work from the manuals and so can work a number of types add to this there will be a good number of mid 30’s to 40’s age group ex aircrew & ground staff still in Iraq with a lot of time on F-1 which can undertake refresher training. Also by sending trainees to a second country you speed up training.

Logistics basing all 36 aircraft and 3units plus a maintenance unit in the south at Nasiriyah is no more difficult than basing F-16s at the same place you still have to buy all the parts needed to run the base just the same they are just coming from somewhere else and at this time it is cheaper for F-1.

Pro’s and Con’s of 1 type vs. 2 or 3 types of fighter. You buy 1 type from one country all your pilots can fly and fight that type and all ground staff can work on it one place one payment for spares and support however if your relationship goes south with that country its very hard to keep your fighter fleet operational also add to this that your enemies planners only need to think about one type . You buy 3 types from 3 countries you have 3 ways of keeping your air defence going it makes enemy planning 3 times harder on the down side you have sets of training programs on the go and three lots of supply

US policies in the middle east move as fast as the sands if we look at Egypt the US has sold them F-16 and now as Egyptian politics change are looking to pull support for them and this has happen to a number of other middle east countries I am not saying the US is wrong to pull support if needed what I am saying is that these countries need at lest two types from two countries plus a good amount of spare parts

F-1 MF2000 is a multi-role BVR night and day capable fighter jet that is one of the easiest to maintain and operate it is capable of operating from semi prepared dirt airfields can supercurise and has an outstanding weapons package in all roles I feel you could go from nothing to a fully operational base with 36 F-1’s with 4 on QRA 24-7 in a year at a cost of 3 billion dollars and at $5000 per flight hour operating each jet for 600 hours per year will cost you $10,8 million to operate the 36 jets for the year so for 4 billion dollars you can buy 36 F-1 MF2000 and operate them for the 15 years of service and yes the F-16 will still have 15 years of service to go but they will still have the same capability and will be very much a second rate type in 2030 we also know that 36 F-16IQ’s ready to fight and before adding any operating costs will cost Iraq 6.5 Billion dollars

A Turkish F16C in the gun sights of a Greek F-1

I think it could work for Croatia and Bulgaria both countries were looking at second hand western types as for number its first come first served on what airframes there are

The other thing for me is if the French can’t move any F-1’s due to price they will be suck with getting rid of them I feel its much better to sell the airframes dirt cheap say a few million each plus the upgrade (Morocco’s was around $15 mill each) so all in say 17 to 19 million per airframe so $266 million for 14 airframes and make your on spear parts and weapons it not as if the French haven’t had their money out of F-1 also do a good job and some of these countries might look at second Rafale in 15-20 years 🙂

F-1 is also very fast and stable right down on the deck and now with the MF2000 upgrade in radar and weapons it makes the F-1 no push over no matter what you fly outside F-22

Dose anyone know if Morocco will upgrade the rest of their F-1 to MF2000 which should give then around 40 airframes

If Egypt has the money they might think about the UAE M2K’s to go with the ones they already have as a replacement for Mirage 5 and then replace the Mig-21’s with Jf-17