nobody would seriously write off the F-16 as a POC , but there are undoubted advantages in air to air of a faster, longerranged and more agile airframe. the F15 has proven it time and again by decimating anything it came across. A chill ought to go up anyone’s spine seeing the white contrails of 8 x F15/Su27/Su30 loaded for bear and flying high above.

US strategy has always been to surround china with a ring-of-steel. first japan, taiwan, s.korea, thailand given top-notch equipment access. russia is wary of china’s hungry eyes on resources in far east…US has established itself into central asian
republics , so has russia.

now india is the latest entrant into the “fellowship of the ring” 😉

no 2000Ds. six of the ten newly ordered are 2-seaters though.

apparently some unsavoury elements have also got in there with
the good people..depends on what kind of background checks the employers recruiting for iraq do.

in same way, US has also “outsourced” a lot of work including fighting drug cultivation in colombia and hamid karzai’s personal security detail.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/gunhire.html?pg=1

and yes, the Govt isnt responsible for any activities of these
contractors, easy to cut loose if things screw up.

****
DynCorp represents nothing less than the future of national security. While outfits like Raytheon make their money developing weapons systems, DynCorp offers the military an alternative to itself. In 2002, the company took in $2.3 billion doing what you probably thought was Pentagon work. DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions that are the centerpiece of Plan Colombia. Armed DynCorp employees constitute the core of the police force in Bosnia. DynCorp troops protect Afghan president Hamid Karzai. DynCorp manages the border posts between the US and Mexico, many of the Pentagon’s weapons-testing ranges, and the entire Air Force One fleet of presidential planes and helicopters. During the Persian Gulf War, it was DynCorp employees, not soldiers, who serviced and rearmed American combat choppers, and it’s DynCorp’s people, not military personnel, who late last year began “forward deploying” equipment and ammunition to the Middle East in preparation for war with Iraq. DynCorp inventories everything seized by the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture Program, runs the Naval Air Warfare Center at Patuxent River, Maryland, and is producing the smallpox and anthrax vaccines the government may use to inoculate everyone in the United States.

ok lets leave the flames aside and compare the F16-block60 with the MKI.

the comparison could focus on.

— number of AAMs
— payload in A2G mode
— radar capabilities
— ECM
— cockpit avionics
— 1-seater or 2-seater (2-seats a advantage in complex A2G work)
— range on internal fuel for A2G
— endurance on supersonic dash during intercepts
— airframe nimbleness
— ACM capabilities at full load and 50% load
— ???

my 2cent opinion is the Block60 is too much weight on a small
airframe to be excellent as a interceptor. UAE seems focussed on
a good long range A2G while their 2000-9s can do air superiority?
i.e. if you dont want to say that BVR is the only game in town.

stronger engine may consume more fuel. its a interlinked system of variables, touch one and every other changes. finally all params have to meet their targets.

> and to countries flashpoint areas that might use the weapons for aggressions?

and why would a country not needing it spend megabucks ?
do people in marthas vineyard or greenwich,CT need to carry
shotguns to school ?