Argentina buys Mirage F1s
 

Argentina buys 16 Mirage F 1 from Spain; half have air-refuelling capacity ? MercoPress

The Argentine Air Force anticipates the incorporation of the Mirage F-1, which will replace the Mirage III in process of decommissioning” reads page 115 of the budget bill. The revelation is not new, Defence minister Agustin Rossi had announced in August that “we are working with the government of Spain” on the possible purchase of aircraft but did not provide further details.
After 22 years in service, the Mirages were decommissioned by the Spanish Air Force at the airbase of Los Llanos in Albacete during a ceremony last June. They had been refurbished in the nineties with improved avionics and firing capacity.
Apparently the Mirage F-1 has a last generation laser inertial system which ensures autonomous navigation of great precision with a GPS and a computer that optimizes besides navigation, the targeting system.
They have a maximum speed of 1.320 kilometres and flight autonomy of 500 miles and of the 16 eight have air fuelling capacity from a Hercules C130, according to the Spanish Air Force.
The Spanish air force is replacing its ageing Mirage with Euro-fighter Typhoons.
The Argentine air force currently has an estimated 25 Mirage 5 and Mirage III with over thirty years in service, some of them fought in the South Atlantic conflict with Britain in 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. However according to Argentine sources the aircraft are virtually out of use because of lack of spares and an adequate maintenance.
The F1 is described as a fighter bomber of third generation, designed and constructed by Dassault Aviation and became operational in France at the beginning of the seventies. It was exported to over a dozen countries and including Morocco and Jordan, and over 700 of them have been built.
So far besides the budget confirmation there is no further news, or even when the F-1 will be arriving in Argentina, most probably for the Tandil air base Likewise pilots and technical teams will have to be trained for the incorporations.

While not wishing to be a stick in the mud, won't they run into the spares problem soon enough with the F-1? :confused:

Flip side is: not everyone needs a Gen V or Gen IV for their fighter fleet. Fit your requirements and dreams to your budget.

*Hello, dear friends in Washington, are you listening?*

"won't they run into the spares problem soon enough with the F-1?"

Oh, I do hope so.

If they'd been a little quicker they could have bought some part-worn Harriers.

According to some sources, the F1s will come with loads of spares, the sim and weapons.

Besides that, is junk with wings. I don´t know why the AAF does not go with the Kfir C.10 (also offered) or ask for some F-16s at AMARC.

Also in the budget the modernization of the C-130 fleet, the ending of a TR-1700 sub, MBT upgrades and another things.

Regards!

I remember seeing a couple of F1 pilots having a half-bottle of wine with their lunch whilst on a Typhoon Uniform at Reims/Champagne.

"Aren't we doing DACT with you this afternoon?"

"Oui,...but we're going to lose anyway...." Gallic smile & shrug.


and if you can beat it with the Tornado F3, you can beat it with anything!

Just more targets for the Typhoons based at MPA!

Only a half-bottle? Last time I took off from France to the UK we had a bottle each in the in-flight rations.

@Marcantilan
 

And how are they going to source this "budget"?

For a moment lets pretend they are being brought by a country who didn't take a leaf out of Nigeria's book on how to support aircraft fleets. Given the amount they are buying what is likely to be the maximum amount Argentina could generate for operations in one go?

Glad rag,

probably in the same way that every other nation state does - they'll print the money they need, or borrow it.

everyone is quite happy to say that Argentina is skint, bankrupt etc.. yet somehow they manage to keep bread in the shops, police on the street, and the lights on.

them buying fighters and all the support kit suggests that the cupboard isn't quite as bare as we'd been lead to believe...

THS - i was under the impression that its 16 flying airframes and four cannibal airframes, a full spares package and conversion training. the unconfirmed information i've seen suggests the training happens to be taking place at a Spanish base that also flies Typhoon.

they appear to be replacing the already OOS Mirage III/V's, this buy will see them with 11 Super Etendards, 34 A-4AR's, and 16 (?) Mirage FI's.

Cokecan - I understand what their fleet size is but obviously owning a 16 aircraft fleet isn't the same as being able to get those 16 a/c airborne at the same time, let alone fit for operations.

Wasn't one of the arguments in relation to binning the Harrier fleet that the overall fleet size had dropped to a point where the size of the actual 'operational' fleet was too small to be sustainable. How does that work with 16 a/c?

It would depend if it was offensive or defensive.

Defensive implies an unplanned transition to war from a peacetime stance. Offensive implies time to generate all assets before H-hour. In the latter the figure could be near 94%. In the former maybe 75%.

Too small to sustain operations in Afghanistan and provide aircraft for use elsewhere (e.g an Ellamy type operation) was the reason given if I recall correctly - when choosing between the Tornado and Harrier to bin, the former's larger numbers won the day.

Argentina originallly operated only 17 Mirage IIEAs, so small numbers in an operational fleet are nothing new for them

I think the ballpark figure for sustainable combat aircraft fleet management in a 'proper' air force is about 40% of airframes being in use at any particular time, with about 30-40% in storage and the rest in various depths of maintenance. Of course that's for aircraft with a number of years remaining... as the end approaches then all of the aircraft can be flown.

Equally, if life is cheap and you're not particularly bothered about niceties like airworthiness or accountability, and most of your flying takes place over the sea, you could just keep flying the things until the donk quits or the wings fall off. Might be an attractive option for a cash-strapped nation in need of some new toys!

Why Argentina Is Such An Economic Mess - Business Insider

BBC News - Argentina looting spreads to Buenos Aires province

BBC News - Argentine police protest over pay cuts

http://rt.com/files/news/argentina-l...fire-tried.jpg

Good ol time honoured Argie solution...


"whatever"

Well, the defense budget is less than 1 % of the GNP and US$ 2 billions is not a lot of money for a country over a year (Argentina GNP is more or less between US$ 450 / 500 billions) The F1 deal is affordable (but I hope it could stall at any point).

I really don´t like the current government and I think they have no clue about the economy, international policy, internal security, so on, so on (on the happy side, they will lost the next elections, so they are on the way out). But, on their defense, life is quite normal here, you could be at night fairly safe, you could travel, buy Ipads and do the things average Joe do. This is the third world (yes, remember that), but we are...fairly well. We could be better, for sure.

About the comment about the AAF being cannon fodder for the MPA based Typhoons, I think the "joke" is out of place.

Regards,

Not so much the AAF being "cannon fodder", the comment is about the contrast in technology between Typhoon and Mirage F1.

Marcantilan,

Are the F1s being bought as interceptors?