Sure you do.. Dynamically, the FC-1 is at least on par, with the economics of the engine being a league ahead.. Add limited airframe life left and general unavailability of French hardware to Iran and you can start dragging your F1EQs to the scrapyard right away.

I am sorry but when we will see a 17 at mach1 hugging ground or a FC1 matching the time to climb to 40kft of the Mirage, I might agree with you.
It’s an old timer, yes, but among the products of the new entrants in the industry (17, 10 or Teja), it still has teeth.

This is why I wrote that it does not make sense to replace it with a jf17/FC1. Obsolescence and remaining lifetime can be treated more economically (in theory).

A squadron of F1 carrying a modernized Exocet would be a serious threat to the world economy for example. I do not see an FC1 having such impact (bold example).

Then if Iran did not have any F1, my answer would have been diametrically different.

Spanish Air Force AS 332 Super Puma search-and-rescue (SAR) helicopter crashed.

Crew safe after Spanish helicopter crash

one of the crewmen has now survived two Super Puma crashes in as many years, having been the sole survivor of a crash off the Canary Islands in March 2014 that killed four.

!

Do we know why the rest of the squadron didn’t land in the same airport? I read they were re-routed in Scotland. Does it means that it was an in-flight failure deemed minor that didn’t seem urgent to be de-routed with his wingman?

For me first thing obtain an extra 20 SU-24’s plus spares for them and currant fleet . second try and put together a deal to build 120 JF-17’s in house to replace Mirage F-1, F-7,F-5 and Saeqeh . Thirdly if the money is there do a deal for 80 SU-30MK to replace F-4 and F-14s other things that will need looking at will be a C-130 replacement new attack helicopters new mid- heavy lift helicopters

You don’t replace a Mirage F1 with a JF17. Dynamically its performances are still the best of the two and with a cheap upgrade its systems will certain outmatch that of the later. Add training, spare etc.. And This would be money lost for nothing

Actually there was a “B71” or more precisely a B12 bomber project. The project might even have been more serious at LM SkWrk than the YF12.
The complexity yielded in such an equation (medium size fast cruise, safety carriage of nukes, long range and targeting systems ) was too much at the time or too less in achievable performances in regards to what was already on the tarmacs (B58). Even in the 90’s (30 years latter) it seems to have been a harsh goal (see the FB22/23) on a cost effective way.

I thought it looked like cluster munitions as the explosions were rather small, scattered and numerous rather than heavy missile strikes which produce a much bigger smoke column.

The Mi-8 shot is interesting. Apparently the missile went straight for the engine. I’d expect the crew have extinguished the fire and switched off the engine because, as tiny as those warheads are, the explosion looked dead on and there was some trailing smoke afterwards (or perhaps it’s the extinguisher vapors?). Lucky crew for sure.

Some newer variants have added armor protection for the engines, but I didn’t see any reports of Syria receiving them. There’s also the possibility that they might have been added recently as a field mod by the Russians given the significant losses to MANPADs?

Seems to me that the missile exploded on impact without any hollow charge gizmo activated (hence the bright orange fireball). Perhaps this was due to either a missile malfunction or the effect of an active counter measure.

I guess that the A10 in Turkey will see some action quite soon.

isn’t acceptable, say who? From where?

Photos of Su-30 parked in a new reinforced concrete bay at Latakia. Settling in for the long haul? Are there any recent satellite images of the airbase to show developments?

https://mobile.twitter.com/MuradoRT/status/656112742705836032

Can’t see any red stars.