ORAC

Cynical about they’re being able to keep two airworthy just for air displays.....

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020...-new-trainers/

Lebanon to sell outdated aircraft as Air Force eyes new trainers

chevvron

I believe there are some decidedly non-standard Tucanos for sale somewhere; non standard because they weren't built by Embraer.

ORAC

That happened a lot to Helio Couriers during the 1960/1970s. The CIA et al built lots of unattributable airframes from spare parts.

https://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contr...rkins/9946.htm

.....At about this time General Aircraft decided to take legal action against the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on the grounds that they had brought about the company's financial downfall through a scheme to manufacture copies of the Courier without Helio's permission. It seems probable that a significant number of other aircraft were built from spare parts and through the engineering resources of the CIA-sponsored Air Asia.....

Lancman

The Lebanese Minister of Defence in the early 1980's said that the Hunters were ready to defend the country " They will only require some new tyres and carburettors".

hoodie

ORAC, I think chevron may be referring to the Shorts built ex-RAF Tucs. Nothing underhand about those.

(Not sure what they have to do with Lebanese Hunters, though!)

Revnetwork

Maybe they should get some Super Tucanos
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2019/...o-kainji-base/

NutLoose

Picture this, 1976 AC Nutloose hard at work at St Athan (without an S) attemptimg to become the RAF's newest engineer, in the hangar we have some lovely old Hunters we train on, they been there for ages with bits loose or missing.
Easter beckons and a chance to go see the family for the first time since Swinditz ended. During the short break, Waste of Space arrive, get the Hunters airworthy and ferry them to a Waste of Space hangar to refurbish them to sell on to Lebanon.... small world isn't it.

keesje

The Tucano seems to become the mainstay of the AF. Finances seem the biggest restriction.
Maybe the Chinese will help. In recent months they came to the rescue on Covid-19.

"The Chinese donation clearly reflects the solidity and depth of the relationship between the two peoples and the two armies,” Wang said.
“China is ready to work with the Lebanese people and army to overcome the difficulties and troubles.
After all the difficulties and obstacles have been cleared, new roads and horizons will open up.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1683276/middle-east

They have time, won't rush things.
Paying a lot for the Hunters & financing Tucano's might be welcomed.
Maybe L-15's later on, at the same price of new Tucano.

andrewn

indeed, you never know HHA might pick them up and base them out of St Athan, to complete the circle

Fareastdriver

Time flies. On my initial flying training at Tern hill in 1960 there were two Lebanese Air Force trainees who were going on to fly Hunters. One of the unfortunately flew into the ground during the night flying stage but the other went through.

JW411

I remember that. He was on a night cross-country I think. Ternhill was a bit like United Nations in those days. I remember students from Iraq (we had 3 of them on our course), 10 Ghanaians, Jordanians, Lebanese and even big Joe Munaf from the Indonesian Navy.

JW411

Not to forget the Malaysians.

Martin the Martian

We might also get history to repeat itself. There's a bunch of Jaguars sitting in some hangars at Cosford...

Fareastdriver

It wasn't this course, was it?

Minnie Burner

License-built by Hillman?

ORAC

I just knew the Iranians had to be involved somewhere along the line........

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paykan

NutLoose

Saints at the time was similar, there was a course of Africans doing PTI courses, a lovely bunch of guys they were, really friendly, but when they introduced them to the Javelin, well... old Stanley Baker and Michael Caine would have had nothing to worry about with this lot, they were positively lethal and there were javelins going everywhere but down range. I was bloody scary, one missed a guy on our course by literally feet.

Halton we had Jordanians and that was interesting, only one spoke English so he had to translate the questions etc on the papers to them, strangely they all seemed to get the same answers too lol.

tartare

Were said Hunters spot welded?
Me grandad's bloody dreadful Hillman was.
He had the vinyl roofed Super saloon wood veneer model - special to New Zealand it were.

Cpt_Pugwash

Slightly earlier than that, 72ish I think, MCCTTS at 30MU had a Hunter in bits, cockpit for us leckies/radio techs to play with, and fuselage for the riggers. It was a right state, Plessey connectors chopped off everywhere. Any way, one day a transporter arrived and the Hunter parts were gathered up and whisked away. In its place, a complete Seahawk arrived, all in black and marked as SAH1. It came from Culdrose and was supposed to be taxiable.
The Hunter ended up somewhere in South America, Ecuador I think, not sure what happened to the Seahawk.

Edit: Memory playing tricks again, it must have been Chile or Peru, as Ecuador do not seem to have operated Hunters.

Asturias56

Dominic Cummings probably is saying that all that money spent of Lightnings, Tornadoes and typhoons was clearly wasted............