Interesting thread. Dubya you missed El Salvador’s speculation 🙂 , i would like to hear some as for the Central American region. Where do you guys think that these countries should point when it comes to buying aircraft?
Saludos.
PD. Un gusto en saludarte Inigo.
I don’t think that El Salvador or Guatemala will acquire any new combat aircraft and they will stick to their A-37’s for a considerable time. And I suspect that when the A-37’s are retired they will be replaced with Super Tucanos or possibly nothing at all.
To put it frankly, Latin America’s aviation purchases are hampered because the USA no longer uses cheap, simple to operate aircraft like the A-37, the C-47 or the T-6. These aircraft used to form the bulk of many Latin American airforces because they got them cheap or for free from the US and spares were often available on the open market. And these aircraft were adequate given the political situation at the time (basically insurgencies and rebellions, not much full scale warfare),
But now the USA has switched to what most poorer countries would consider extremely expensive and complicated solutions such as the F-16, upgraded C-130’s and UH-60’s.
European producst are also too expensive, while politics generally prevent the acquisition of Chinese and Russian products. And in the end many of these are unsuitable for poor countries – an FC-1 or MiG-29 is overkill for Guatemala or El Salvador.
So I think more poorer airforces are going to switch to becoming pure transport/helicopter services with a token combat component provided by armed turoprop trainers.
Even many of the European air arms are becoming merely token air arms – look at Slovakia, the Czech Republic or even Belgium. Prohibitve costs and lack of clear threats is killing many air arms around the world.
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