Peru is spending $140 million on upgrading the Mirage 2000 fleet and $126 million on the upgrade of the Mig 29 fleet which should see the Mirage’s though to 2020-25 and the Mig’s to 2025-30 given the age of each fleet but what then given the 1995 Cenepa War with Ecuador and on going coastal disputes with Chile. Peru needs a fighter to at lest mach those around them. Round the time 2025 Chile – Ecuador and Peru will need to start replacing there fighter fleets who will blink first what will they go for and how much will it cost them

The Typhoon will not be operated by anyone of consequence in South America.

They wouldn’t order it for political reasons, IMHO.

that is what I just said 🙂

Thats interesting. I heard from a Venezuelan guy at another board that their Flankers are mostly grounded due to the high operating costs and difficulties getting service support from Sukhoi?

That is also interesting so its all open again as the US won,t support F-16 and the Russian’s won’t support SU-30

Second hand Mirage 2000 and F-16 are well proven platforms and highly capable but I only see them as stop gaps some counties like Argentina may go for Mirage 2000 if its cheap and the terms are right and Brazil may also get more Mirage 2000 as they already operate the type and it could be away of pushing back any decision on F-X2 until 2020 allowing time to see how Russian and Chinese 5th gen types come on and putting pressure on the US over F-35

This said SAAB could offer to lease 20-30 old Gripen C/D to Brazil as a stop gap and away of future sales of Gripen E/F and the same could be said of Boeing with F-18C/D and E/F of course if they went F-18 they could ditch the A4 upgrade and operate F-18 from there carrier

As for the Chinese pushing J10 in this region they need to sort out the engine issues before they can export to anyone other an Pakistan. JF-17 is a safer bet as it is designed to incorporate western weapons for PAF

For the role they will be filling, which is LIFT/Advanced Training and Light CAS as fulfilled by the F-5’s later in their life and the T-2D’s, the Yak-130/L15 are more than adecuate.

Range and payload wise, it would be a step back compared to the F-16’s. For the Venezuelan Air Force, the JF-17 doesn’t offer any sort of substantial improvement in capability over what they already operate, and might even be a downgrade in some other aspects.

Plus, the RD-93 isn’t that cheap to maintain.

On the other hand, the JF-17 is a great replacement for those countries still using Mirages III/V, MiG-21’s and F-5’s as front line fighters.

JF-17 is no F-16 but in a few year there is no more F-16 and that leaves Gripen and JF-17. JF 17 needs and should get a better engine and in a few year may get a better avionics

The F-16’s will likely be replaced with Su-35’s. The F-5 were retired a while ago and their replacement will be either some Yak-130’s or some L-15’s.

The JF-17 would be a pointless purchase.

I don’t see JF-17 as a pointless purchase if you are looking to replace F-16 A/B -Mirage 1/3/5/2000 or F-5 and don’t have a lot of money JF-17 dose have BVR is multi role and is comparable in the horizontal plan to early F-16. A multi role type will always have value.