I agree GD, but an air arm does offer flexibility in wartime, even against your own people. You can get to places and attack them quickly, often attack without fear of rebel counter-attack (unless they are well armed rebels). And hit places that are generally inaccessable, or inpenetrable to ground units. I won’t carry on about the benefits of air power, even for the third world, as I am sure you know. And as for cost? Well like I said a lot of these poorer nations spend heaps on their military when they arguably don’t really need to. I don’t think the cost/benefit ratio is something a lot of them consider when fighting these types of wars that often drag on for years, and flare up from time to time.

Air power offers many advantages but air power that is effective is far more expensive than landbased military units of comparable impact.

Also, airpower is tied to bases which are awfully vulnerable, especially in a civil war/guerilla warfare environment with no frontlines. A case in point was the attack on the Sri Lankan air force in 2001 which destroyed or damaged 26 planes.

Pictures of the attack’s aftermath from Janes:

A K-8

A Mig-23

Aaaahhhh 🙂
I love shopping in Nanjing!

You and the Scramble crew should take a picture expedition.

And look, Volkswagen everywhere. You’ll feel at home (sort of) 😀

End to third world air forces?

Considering that China, Vietnam and Pakistan with air forces with strengths in the hundreds and thousands are Third World and will still be 3rd world in per capita income levels for years to come, there will certainly be no end to third world air forces in the forseeable future 😀

Not only that, two of the above Third World countries are out to supply other third world countries with a fighter, the FC-1, that is affordable to them.

And an ARH bvr missile to match too 🙂

The FC-1 could prove to be revolutionary in that you might end up with many 3rd World nations armed with fire-and-forget beyond visual range missiles (either through the FC-1/SD-10 or through the US having to release F-16 and AMRAAMs to third worlders to keep out the FC-1.)

Airframe heating becomes a huge factor at Mach 3, which is why the SR-71 is made entirely out of Titanium and the Foxbat is made entirely out of steel.

Much of the Foxbat was made out of a special steel called nickel steel which is basically a heavy alloy.

condolences to the family