Does anyone have pictures of A-29 with a FLIR pod and/or weapons.

English sites argue that this is simply due to french arrogance. I have no reason to doubt english assessments of the French ( ),

😀 You’re right. In the 80’s, after a meeting about the european fighter program, a Dassault chairman’s councillor said: “the brits invited us as they do to invite a turkey for a Christmas dinner”.

More seriously, the needs between countries were different.

first movie: over Chad
second one: over Cazaux testing range (west coast of France)

On the ECM I would be more confident in equipment that has been tested in various conflicts all around the world and has a proper ELINT base. Things you can’t really say about European equipment.

France, which doesn’t have been member of NATO during decades, was under obligation to develop its own COMINT/ELINT database. Another point is that US armed forces have developed EW jamming aircrafts (Raven and Prowler have proved their efficiency during the last conflicts) to accompany strike fighters (with less ECM capability). Last point: you can be sure that ECM on french/european fighters have been tested during various conflicts (from Chad to Ex-Yugoslavia or persian Gulf) or NATO EW exercises.

Jon: Mate the Jd’A retired from service last year,

The JdA is still in service. She serves as a training vessel for midshipmen coming from naval academy and she makes a trip around the world every year (called “naval application campaign”). This year she has been sent in Indonesia to help victims of the Tsunami disaster (operation Beryx).

I think that additional P-3s would be more useful than fighters. NZ has an important EEZ to survey and a fleet of orions armed with harpoon, maverick, SLAM-ER is a credible dissuasion force.

One Question :- Are the New 10 Mirage-2000 are capable of firing the French MICA AAM. I think the newer aircraft has a different radar than the RDM.

They are’nt. With RDM radar they only can fire semi active Super 530 missiles. To launch MICA, they need RDY radars and aircraft-to-missile datalink. These 10 M2000H are exactly same aircrafts that those have been built in the 80’s (IAF request).