I see multiple sources on the web saying 80-90 engines
were sold to china for a few sqds.

http://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/clean-investment-campaign/rolls-royce-2002.php

August 2001: China After the initial order was made during the 1970s, 80 to 90 Spey Turbo fan engines were delivered to be used in FBC-1 Flying Leopards. The engines had been left in storage for over 20 years. (Airforce Monthly, 8/01)

http://taiwansecurity.org/News/2002/FEER-012402.htm

Rolls-Royce confirmed to the REVIEW that it recently supplied up to 90 Spey jet engines and spares to China that defence analysts believe the PLA intends to fit on to its JH-7 fighter-bombers-also being modified with modern radar and long-range missiles.

Rolls-Royce spokesman Martin Brodie says that the company first supplied this engine type to China in the 1970s and continues to support that original deal. “The details of our support are, as with most companies, a matter of commercial confidence,” he says.

The PLA needs more of the reliable Spey engines because it failed to copy those it received earlier and hasn’t designed a local replacement. Rolls-Royce argues its Spey engines incorporate 1960s technology, implying they will not significantly boost PLA power. In contrast, Asia-based Western defence officials say the Pentagon objected to the latest deal on the grounds that it would enhance the PLA’s capabilities.

Rolls-Royce indicates more defence-related business in on its mind. On a visit in October, Chief Executive John Rose discussed “current cooperation and opportunities for the future” with officials from China’s Commission on Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, according to a company statement.

****
this page says the WS-9 is the Spey built on license so looks
like they setup a production line after the initial lot

http://www.machtres.com/chinac.htm

the first pic looks like a plastic model placed on the grass with
camera held close to the ground to get the right looking angle.
it doesnt even have the air intake for engine which atleast
second one provides…

the 2nd one looks like printed on a piece of cloth! 😉

you really should consolidate all these fakes and models into
one thread for easy reference.

I wonder what these missiles are ? derby ?

—

Indian firm to make Israeli missiles

UNI

January, 28

In a major outsourcing agreement, Bharat Dynamics Limited would soon start manufacturing Israeli Rafael missiles at its Bangalore facility, a senior Israeli company official said today.

Lova Drori, Rafael Armament Development Authority Limited’s head of the international marketing division, said that a memorandum of understanding was signed with Bharat Dynamic Limited during the visit of an Indian defence delegation towards the end of November, and they are very close to reaching an agreement.

Drori also said that Rafael was close to reaching an agreement with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL) in developing communication systems and anti-missile system for helicopters.

Representatives of leading Indian defence companies, led by Atul Kirloskar from the CII, had presented their expertise in various fields during the visit and had called upon Israeli companies to outsource to Indian companies some of their requirements instead of European and other countries they have been relying so far.

Rafael Armament Development Authority Limited would participate in the forthcoming Defence Expo in Delhi and has combined with Indian companies, Tata and Medec, for presentation of its products.

and this one is even more funny…Israel can rest easy with
these clowns, probably sell their F15s at first sign of trouble and
retire to switzerland.

http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/40-173.asp

The Royal Saudi Air Force – A Paper Tiger, Minus the Tiger 2/9/2003 6:56:16 PM

The Royal Saudi Air Force couldn’t fight (or fly) it’s way out of a wet paper bag. They spent a whole lot of money on 72 new F-15S’s, but have a pilot corps that are “fair-weather” flyers (both figuratively and literally). But even if they had pilots that would fly under all conditions (particularly combat conditions), too bad – they don’t have any maintenance capability.

All of that are done by American ex-pats (for F-15’s) and British (for Tornado’s). A side note here: There may be only 4-500 Americans servicing the F-15s, but nearly 3000 Brits to service half that many Tornado’s. The joke at Dhahran AB is that the static display of a Tornado on a pedestal at the main gate is the only Tornado that they can keep in the air.
:p

You also have to understand how the money flows to get an even better idea of RSAF readiness (or total lack thereof). All Base commanders usually are members of the Royal family (or married into it) – and it is a money cow.

The greatest number of personnel on an RSAF base is TCN’s (third-country-nationals), thousands and thousands of Bangladesh, Indian, Philippine workers. Contracts are written up that provide millions in kick-backs – some of course goes to the base commander. But that doesn’t even touch the billions of dollars into the purchase of all those aircraft – it’s for the kickbacks, not national defense (what do you think the U.S. Air Force is there for?). Now American defense contractors make a killing, why should they care either? For example. first Boeing and then Raytheon made billions on putting in a highly sophisticated air command and control system called “Peace Shield”, but it was and remains flawed. One example: The system is suppose to identify friendly vs. hostile aircraft so the Royal Saudi Air Defense Command (that’s right a service totally separate from the RSAF)can fire. The RSAF has a control command which is suppose to tell the Air defense people to “hold fire”. But what really happens is that when the RSAF pushes the button to command “hold fire” the Air Defense consoles light-up with the command to “fire”. As if this minor technical flaw wasn’t enough, billions in billing were added to give all these command centers filtered air systems for protection against NBC. Great on paper to make the billing statement, but non-existant in reality. I could go on-and-on about lack of training as well. One example has Saudi maintenence personnel towing a “hot” (just landed) F-15 into a hangar. Plane catches fire, burns up with the hangar. What happened? Well no discipline on the Saudi dumb-asses, but their training records were pulled and numerous ex-pats sent home because they had signed off on training them. Since the training obviously did not stick, it was obviously an ex-pat trainer who was to blame. Not the dumb-asses, not there Saudi NCO or Officer chain-of-command, but ex-pats. The only time a saudi maintenence troop is allowed anywhere near an aircraft with any tool in his hand is when Saudi VIPs are on a tour – it would be funny if these senior RSAF officers knew enough to ask their troops what they maintennce was being done – but they don’t. Don’t even get into the sub-levels of tribal allegiences that totally disrupts any concept of chain-of-command or military discipline. If you are from the right tribe you get the works, guick promotions (get the answers to your SKT and promotion tests),and other perks – even out-of-Kingdom training (like in the U.S.), even if you just burnt down a hangar on top of a $50M F-15 (oh yes folks the Saudi payment for each aircraft is about double for all those kick-backs to Prince Sultan, Minister of Defense and Aviation (he owns/oversees Saudi Arabian Airlines as well). But if you are one of the few motivated, intelligent members of the RSAF and happen to be from the wrong tribe – well if you were ever a first yearman at VMI/Citadel you sorta get my drift.

To wrap this up, the RSAF is the most efficient branch of the Saudi military (with the exception of it’s internal intelligence network) – so you can imagine the horror stories from ex-pats working with the Saudi Land Forces, Naval Forces, or Saudi National Guard.

So that leaves us with the question of who protects all those vast oil fields – that’s right, our good old Uncle Sam. Who protects to Royal House of Saud? Well besides keeping their protection money, I mean insurance premiums, paid in full to Osama Bin Laden (who I have every confidence is hiding in one of his families “farms” – oh that is another story for another day about how the Bin Laden Group had the contract to build all the new barracks at Prince Sultan Air Base after the Khobar bombing, sort of a nice/profitable coincidence huh?). Well the Royal family has our military protect their entire country, but they have a fine cadre of ex-CIA, ex-FBI, ex-Navy Seals getting paid very well to be their own private security arm (not unlike Saddam’s Republican Guard).

—-

Great post ex-expat. Having worked with MODA and SANG, I can only add this:

As ineffective as the Republican Guard has shown in two Gulf wars they have held their own against Iran and would have run rough-shod over the Saudi Arabia military if not for coalition forces coming to their rescue. :p

Since the Republican Guard was considered such a great threat to the House of Saud – is there any doubt regarding the capability of the Saudi military to even be able to fight it’s way out of a wet paper bag?

But hey, the Boeings, Raytheons, Vinnells, BDMs, DynCorps, Northrup-Grumans, and Lockheeds sure made some huge profits selling the House of Saud a “house of cards” in regards to military capability
—–

Another tell-tale sign would be to look at the profits of American defense contractors. BDM, for example, had at one time over 7,000 employees, most of them working on various contracts in the U.S. – with only about 250 employees working on a single “Peace Sun” contract with the RSAF (and the honest broker was none other than the U.S. Air Force). It was that one contract that produced over 51% of the gross revenue for this one company. And it goes on and on – with big names like Carlucci, Weinburger, Baker, and Bush raking in the lions share of profit. That much cash carries a lot of weight with our policy makers in D.C.. If Saddam is a threat, you have to believe that besides Tel Aviv it is Riyadh that is threatened the most. Too bad Kimchee don’t burn like oil. Seoul and Tokyo may yet have to pay for our policy of being overly protective of Saudi oil

—-

Did I mention that no military service in Saudi Arabia has a viable NCO corps? And their “Imams” (we have chaplains) almost reminds one of the political officers in the old Soviet military. RSAF Intelligence is more concerned about keeping tabs on RSAF personnel than any effective application of intelligence processes to produce any threat assessments to be applied to any actual war planning (remember, the House of Saud has the U.S. umbrella). For example, once an RSAF member gets a training slot – say to the U.S. – he has to attend a briefing on the evils of western culture, and on his return a de-briefing to se if he has not been too contaminated with western thoughts. That brings up another interesting point: Any RSAF (and I assume other Saudi military as well) member who find that they may be going to the U.S. for extended training (6 months or longer) have one priority – get their wife/wives pregnant. Besides better medical care, guess what? Little Abu or Fatima are born as American citizens. There are literally thousands of young (some I dare say are Osama fans) who carry American passports today. But ask any Saudi [with such a son] will he register for the draft on his 18th birthday and you get a very shocked reaction. I for one have asked the State Department this very same question. But they are too busy, well maybe the new Homeland Defense Dept (but I wouldn’t hold my breath). Seems to me that it would be a simple fix, so that the registration data base for Selective Service could be crossed referenced with passport holders. As the debate in Congress to re-institute the draft (being pushed by Rep. Rangle and Sen. Hollings) begin, this could become interesting.

Back to RSAF readiness: The RSAF does actually use their C-130 fleet regularly, here are some examples:

– Whenever a prince wants to have a party in the remote part of the country tents, portable kitchens, etc are flown in..
– Movement of royal baggage including automobiles from one part of the country to another (i.e. Dhahran – Jeddah)
– Anyone who has a relative in the RSAF can petition to hitch a ride, these favors are dispensed like candy. On occasion there have been up to 150 people boarded on a single flight (wonder what the capacity load is?).
– International flights entail much more planning – like where they are allowed to land (a number of airports refuse landing privileges because fuel bills go unpaid by the Saudi Government).

Finally, let’s not forget the fact that no viable military operation can happen without Expats. Even the RSAF HQ in Riyadh has Expat advisors in every functional area. While this may not be the way to run a national military, it does pay well for companies such as BDM (an old Carlysle Group* acquisition – than BDM bought Vinnell** – both were bought by TRW – contract now resides with DynCorp), Raytheon (remember Peace Shield), Boeing (besides the ancient AWACS/Refuelers, Boeing also services all those F-15’s), Booz-Allen-Hamilton. Heavy hitters all.

*Carlysle Group (can’t get anymore powerful than this in D.C.)
** Still very profitable business in Turkey and Egypt – believe that still provide security guards for Eskan Village in Riyadh (where U.S. Military personnel live and work).
—-

Apparently in the one air to air kill of an IRaqi jet int he Gulf, the Iraqi plane was also surrounded by a load of USAF pilots all of whom could have taken a shot, the conversation went something like this…”up a bit, left a bit..down a bit..”
But a damn good bit of PR

—-

and finally

Paks have a good reason to kiss KSA butt here. apart from
payments to Pak CEO types to spread wahabbi education,
KSA has given Pak $1 billion/annum of free oil since 1998, right
after the nuclear tests! yes, Pak cant even buy its own oil on
the market

Dont ask for any more humiliation , this should be enough for
today. I depart with a smug grin on my face.

whew its more involved than I thought. what do smaller VLS missiles like ESSM and Barak use ?

but 1800 of the 2000 F7s would be swatted out on day1 hour1
by wolfpacks of my rafales firing PGMs and runway denial munitions.

those that take to the air the next day would all be tagged and bagged by the M2CA + F22 combo from a range at which the
modest BVR on F7 cannot see , hear or touch the attacker. any
stray lockon and F22 leaves ya for dead at mach2.

quality is always better if push comes to shove.

not that I know of…its a perennial desire in BR for VLS-Shtil.

the terrain following modes of the F15s radar were deleted.
some EW systems and the JTIDS datalink may be deleted as
well ?

RSAFs achilles heel is dependence on a vast army of EU/US
technicians to keep it flying. Doesnt BAE have around 4000 contractors onsite in KSA ?