dear srbin, that’s because you dont know why…
i’ll tell you why, in 1995 sure we had M2k, but with the peace politics of the mid 80’s, to show truth intentions, the armed forces were downsized from the huge and totally irrealistic mamouth it was on the 70’s to a more according to economic reality of the 80’s and 90’s, the order for M2k was downsized from 36 to 12, but not only that, weapons orders were either cancelled or severely downsized, the intention was to cancel the whole M2k program but the french government did put pressure because contracts were signed, and the penalties would have been too hard on the downhill going peruvian economy, so the contract was re-negociated to 12 machines.
now…in 1995 when the potatos started to burn (the surprise cenepa war) inmediatelly the peruvian government asked the french for the weapons needed for the defense of the country, guess what, the french said NO of course, they sell to ecuador as well, they also told them NO, but the diference is, they had a stockpile, we didnt.
so actually the M2k was a good looking useless a/c.
the americans decided to impose an embargo on weapons to both countrys, so not even russia will supply, so, what to do?, you need weapons, get them or die!, bieloruss couldnt care less about embargoes, for as long as you came with cash, wich is what happened, and it worked as the FAE, never came to challenge the Migs (talking about 97/98 before the final peace agreement) and when challenged (it did happened quite often, peruvian Migs orbiting inside ecuatorian airspace) they never came.
Well you made that mistake of not buying the weapons earlier and now you learned not to trust the French.
now srbin, do you still think it was a dumb idea?
last i knew, was that FAP dont want a multirole Mig-29, they want a pure air superiority, so only a radar upgrade was needed and they did, plus a few R-77 and plenty of R-73, R-27 and R-60, the M2k now has its weapons and so the other machines. sure this kind of diversity is hard to maintain, the only solution is “true peace”, but…are you sure you can thrust with your life that kind’a neighbour?
cheers to all:
I know they don’t want a multirole Mig-29 but wouldn’t it be better to upgrade the Mig-29 to be a multirole machine and to retire the Su-22s and use the Mig-29 to do Su-22’s job? That would give you a better machien with better weapons, bigger range, no Su-22s there=no need to keep their infrastructure to support them there which would reduce costs. This would also give Mig-29’s pilots more training hours.
The Russians are not mass producing it because they want an extended range version (R-77M or R-77PU), the Indians seem happy with the R-77 as do the Chinese, who are adding their own motor to improve performance.
True, they are waiting for the extended range ramjet version which will have a really long range.
I would say currently Peru is the best Airforce in Lating America, the Chile’s F-16blk50s with BVR are not there yet to challenge the few Mig-29s with R-77
I still think it’d be better to upgrade the Mig-29 to do Fitter’s job. Also Peru could retire quite a few aircraft types to reduce their maintenance and support costs which are plaguing the Airforce.
But if you still have that stupid President as you did a while ago, don’t expect any changes that will improve FAP.
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