Amazing pictures, great airplane.
Reminds me the 70’s when the thunderbirds flew a demonstration in Rio. To my surprise, on the book Warfighter – the story of the 57th wing, there is a picture of the thunderbirds flying over the “Sugar Loaf” mountain( Pão de Açucar).

Regards,:cool:

m.ileduets

You are telling that the fleet of F/A-18s are suffering shortage of spare parts? It is a surprise for me.
I think it is valid and affordable to upgrade the fleet of Swiss F5s to back up the Hornets for so long. I read that the F5s are in good shape, with a lot of hours left in the airframes.

For us, the upgrade of the F5 was an incredibly opportunity. Brazilian AF is operating the type for about 30 years, we have gained a lot of experience on this jet. The price involved on the upgrade is very affordable, US$ 280 million for 46 jets. It will be a completely new jet. But the good part (I mentioned this before) is the similarity, in avionics, between the entire combat fleet.
I don’t think that the E/F model are underpowered. The tigershark was offered to Brazil in the 80’s, but, was not accepted.

Regards,

Camaro, that’s ok.
🙂

m.ileduets,

In the F-5Es one of the cannons were removed to install the new radar (Grifo) capable of look-down, shoot-down, BVR.
IFR, new IFF, new chaffs and flares, HOTAS, glass cockpit, Helmet Mounted Visor, new HUD.

The Brazilian government is looking on another source as it failed to purchase the Swiss F-5s (shame). As there are not too many available, we are looking on Saudi F-5s, South Korean and Jordanian F-5s. The Saudi and South Koreans are well used, I don’t think it is a good idea. The Jordanians..depends if they will buy more F-16s from to US to put the F-5s on sale.

Regards,:)

No one have mentioned but Ecuador has a powerful AF at least on the paper as the country is facing a lot of economical problems, but, as a small country, it has a capable AF (Peru has experienced in the Past). They fly Mirages F-1 (the only in South America), Kfirs upgraded to C-7 and Jaguars (also the only operator in South America). Backing up this fighters, there is a few number of A-37 Dragonflies.

I agree with Arthur, the situation of the Peruvian AF is not so good, several airplanes are facing serious problems in serviceability like the Mig-29, Mi-24, SU-22 etc.. The Mirage 2000P is their pride, the SU-25 they use in combat against the drug lords.
They also use the Tucano of the Grupo 51 on COIN role.
Peru is conducting a very aggressive move against drug traffic, shooting down several planes with its Tucanos and SU-25s.

Chile, right now operates two types of Mirages, one is the Mirage 50 upgraded and renamed Pantera. The other one were the Mirages V purchased from Belgium, upgraded and renamed Elkan.
The F-16s will replace the A-37 dragonflies and no doubt that Chile will be a small but very powerful AF. It is important to mention that the Phalcon AWACS rarely flies, is too expensive, a white elaphant.

Brazil is upgrading the entire combat fleet. We are introducing the A-29/AT-29 Super Tucano is the training, attack, COIN role, upgrading the entire AMX fleet and probably looking for an acquisition of a fourth batch of the aircraft comprising 20 to 24 aircraft bringing the total to 79 AMXs fully upgraded.
The fleet of F-5s is currently on upgrade to brought to a level similar to a Mirage 2000, an F-16 block 40/50 something like that. The total aircraft involved on the upgrade is 46 aircraft comprising 42 F-5Es and 4 F-5Fs. The Brazilian government is looking for at least more 15 F-5s most of them two-seater models (F-5Fs).
The fleet of Mirages III, around 16 airplanes will be phased out in 2005. A decision will take place a the end of this week. The front runners are the SU-35, JAS-39 Grippen and the Mirage 2000. There is a lot of especulation but the winner will be between the SU-35 and JAS-39 Gripen. Initially will be a batch of 12 aircraft to equip the 1o. GDA ( First Air Defence Group) at Anápolis AB, but, the expectations is to increase the number to 108.

Regards to all:)

Charlie Echo,

Thank you, you are correct.

Regards,

Chile uses Python 4 for its fleet of Mirages and upgraded F-5. Also they are looking for Israeli BVR missiles for its F-5 fleet as well for the incoming F-16s.

In Brazil, we use Python 4 for our Mirages, F-5 and AMXs. The Mirages are to be replaced by the new FX which will be defined in at least 30 days. The probable winner will be between three fighters (SU-35, Mirage 2000-5 and JAS-39 Gripen) out of five (The others are the F-16C/D and the Mig-29).

In case of the SU-35 wins, we will integrate the R-77, but, if the Mirage 2000-5 wins, we will have the latest version of the MICA.

In case of the Gripen, we need to look at an Israeli missile because I doubt that the US will authorize the sale of the AIM-120.

Our fleet of F-5s are currently on upgraded and one of the upgrades is the advent of BVR capability. For this role, we are looking for an Israeli missile.

Also we are developingour locally built MAA-1 Piranha, a short range air-to-air missile with a performance, in general, similar with the latest versions of the Sidewinder.

This missile will be operational in our fleet of fighters including the new version of the Tucano, the Super Tucano which is, if i’m not wrong, the only turboprop aircraft cleared to fire an air-to-air missile. Not bad for a “third World” country