I’m always amused by how whenever there is a discussion about the serbian airforce a bunch of self-proclaimed “experts” chime in about how serbia has no money, they intend to do away with the AF and let someone else police their airspace, they intend to purchase some ancient relic like the F-4, etc. You people obviously have NO idea what you’re talking about, so instead of wasting this forum’s bandwidth maybe you should just listen to those of us in the know.
The fact is that serbia has lots of money, it is privatizing an enormous number of military bases and infrastructure it doesn’t need and the money from these sales will go to fund procurement of new equipment for the next several years. The plan is that a new multirole 5th generation fighter will be entering service sometime in the 2014-2016 timeframe. Likely choices are the Eurofighter (source), the Super Hornet, the Rafale, and the PAK-FA. Other planes that were previously considered (F-16, Mig-35, and Su-30) are no longer in the running as they are just not advanced enough, and the Gripen is no longer an option as Sweden wanted Serbia to make certain political concessions. The choice will be made not just based on the characteristics of the planes themselves but also on what economic incentives the manufacturers may provide. The european consortium has promised to fund development of an advanced G-4 derivative if serbia goes the eurofighter route. Russia has made promises too although the nature of these has not been revealed publicly, because it is a reward for secrets given to Russia from the downed F-117. And China is aggressively marketing its own planes to serbia, and although a chinese plane purchase is unlikely, it will still encourage the Russians, Europeans, and Americans to sweeten their own deals. In addition, there is a plan for a radical upgrade to the J-22, including a glass cockpit, a much more powerful engine giving it a top speed of around mach 1.4 and a much greater payload, and also a multipurpose radar which will make it BVR-capable. This upgrade is logical given that the J-22 airframes are relatively new (the newest one was only built in 1992) and fairly low mileage. Finally, a new UAV recently flew, although it will not be put into production (not good enough), experience gleaned from building it will be used to build another one, and one of serbia’s intentions is to have the largest uav fleet in the region including armed uavs.
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