Egyptian Air Force going through a huge modernization, new russian,french fighter jets for Egypt

[Wasteland]

Egypt is in talks with Dassault for a contract of initial order for 24 Rafale jets, and a contract was signed in april 2014 for acquiring 24 Mig-29-M2 (the most modern Mig-29 development) and currently Egypt is in talks with Russia to acquire 24 Mig-35 fighter jets.

a very good step, the Mig-29 M2 will replace the old Mig-21, and the Rafale will replace some of the Mirage V Egypt has, Egypt has about 80 Mirage V jets, so not all of them will be phased out (The Upgraded one at least, called Mirage V Horus), but at the end all will be replaced With more jets of the modern Rafale and possibly Emirates Mirage 2000-9 jets. so what do you think ?

Egyptian military is a real bad azz in mixing several types of fighter jets, they have American F16, French Mirage 2000 and Mirage V , russian Mig-21 , Chinese J-7 (to be replaced with modern JF-17 under license to be built in Egypt. did you ever see such an awesome military that can run all those types of jets at the same time ?

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Cairo eyes Rafale, MIG-35 [not SU-35], or both


According to our sources, during French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Cairo on September 17, his Egyptian counterpart Sedki Sobhi asked if France would submit an offer for Dassault’s Rafale fighter aircraft. The potential order would be for 24 planes. Egypt’s generals approached France about buying the Rafale in 2011, shortly after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, but Paris considered the situation at the time too unstable.

The French bid is being supported locally by Abdel Halim Assem. Assem, an Egyptian who is a pillar of the French chamber of commerce in Egypt, was the managing director of Thales International Middle East Egypt for many years. He was behind the signature in May this year of a €109 million contract obtained by Thales to upgrade the country’s rail signals system. Assem is separately negotiating the retrofit of Egyptian Air Force Mirage 2000.

Egypt and France have intensified their strategic relationship in recent months, along with the United Arab Emirates, particularly on Libya. The rapprochement led to Cairo ordering for four Gowind corvettes from DCNS in July. Another optional two vessels are still under negotiation.

To preserve Egypt’s traditional strategy of procuring military materiel from two sources, Cairo has also been knocking on Moscow’s door. It is interested in acquiring a fleet of 24 MiG-35. This, too, would be the first export deal for this latest incarnation of the Russian fighter plane.


Wiki points for Egypt contract for modern Mig-29 M/M2 and Mig-35 jets , and Emirates Mirage 2000-9 :

"Also Egypt is interested with the Russian MiG-35 4++ Fighter, and after the Egyptian president Abdelfattah El-Sisi went to Russia on October 2014 reports said that Egypt wants to purchase 24 Mig-35 fighters as part of a US$3 billion arms deal to its Air Force fleet, If the Egyptian Air Force signed a deal with Russia it will be the first country to acquire the Fighter.

On September 29 the Director-General of Russia’s Aircraft Corporation MiG Sergei Korotkov said that Russia was planning to hold talks in Egypt on the country’s purchase of MiG-35 fighter jets. In the beginning of the year the Egyptian defence minister confirmed reports about a deal between Egypt and Russia, the deal consisted of Russian Fighters MiG-29M and Russia would supply it to Egypt soon.

There were negotiations between the UAE and Egypt for the Emirati Mirage 2000-9 fighters to replace the Mirage 5 fighter and to increase the number of Mirage 2000s in service. The UAEAF Mirage 2000s would provide the Egyptian Air Force with a more modernized version of Mirage 2000 than it already has."

Sources of 24 Rafale and 24 Mig-35 deal for Egypt: i can't post link, im new here, so i just copied rom Egyptian Main news paper "Al Ahram English" and Wikipedia, and Intelligenceonline website

i cant post links im new, can someone help me of someway to post the sources

 

[Wasteland]

no one is interested ? guys show your opinions, what do you think of this modernization ?

 

[The SC]

I do not know about the Rafale, but the rest has been in the news for a while now., But I am positive it will be a great addition , and since Egypt had always had some top French fighters in its air force, than the deal is plausible too.

 

[Desertfalcon]

French A/C, Russian A/C, American A/C? I'm happy the Egyptian AF is updating it's inventory but with so many sources, it's going to be a maintenance nightmare! I also think they should more realistically equip for the most likely air war conflict and that is likely to NOT be with Israel, but with an Arab regional neighbour.

 

[The SC]

French A/C, Russian A/C, American A/C? I'm happy the Egyptian AF is updating it's inventory but with so many sources, it's going to be a maintenance nightmare! I also think they should more realistically equip for the most likely air war conflict and that is likely to NOT be with Israel, but with an Arab regional neighbour.

Nothing much new to their existing maintenance platforms, only some modernization is required. They have qualified maintenance teams on all the platforms they are modernizing, be it the Migs, the Rafales( is very close to the Mirage 2000) or the F-16s.

 

[Wasteland]

I do not know about the Rafale, but the rest has been in the news for a while now., But I am positive it will be a great addition , and since Egypt had always had some top French fighters in its air force, than the deal is plausible too.

yep, Egypt has a very strong military ties with France, remember that Egypt was the first Customer to get the Mirage 2000, at the times it was the most advanced fighter jet the french had, not just that, but also Egyptian military was on it's way to start a project to produce Mirage 2000 locally in 1990, but the project failed because of Financial issues, but Now Egypt's economy is in a much better state, not to mention that Egypt's military have a separate economy on it's own ! Egypt's military has hundreds of civilian projects that provide Egyptian military with billions of dollars every year, in addition to the yearly governmental defense budget of about 5-7 billion dollars

between 2000-2005 , France offered Egypt the Rafale, but Egypt refused it because of it's high price, but now after Egypt's economy is in a much better shape, Egypt is re-opening the talks to acquire the French princess (Rafale). And there's no way France would cut the deal, they already contracted with Egypt of 4-6 most modern french Gowind corvettes, Egypt's military ties with France is very strong, also Egypt has some 80 Mirage V that need to replaced, when Egypt replaces an old fighter, they buy a new fighter from the same country that built the older to be replaced fighter, when Egypt wanted to kick out The Mig-21, they headed to Russia For the most modern Mig-29M/M2, and now they are on their way to kick the Mirage V and replace it with a mix of Rafale and possibly and very likely Emirates modern advanced Mirage 2000-9

 

[Desertfalcon]

Nothing much new to their existing maintenance platforms, only some modernization is required. They have qualified maintenance teams on all the platforms they are modernizing, be it the Migs, the Rafales( is very close to the Mirage 2000) or the F-16s.

You are correct that it is nothing new and it's nothing against the Egyptian AF maintenance troops but it is still a bit of a maintenance and logistics nightmare. Just having to carry so many different parts for aircraft that are going to often be assigned the same missions, and to train both operations and maintenance personnel on such a wide variety of equipment. I'm just saying, if I were in charge I would be more inclined to stick to a few dependable types and concentrate funding, training, and logistics, on maintaining and operating just those.

 

[Wasteland]

You are correct that it is nothing new and it's nothing against the Egyptian AF maintenance troops but it is still a bit of a maintenance and logistics nightmare. Just having to carry so many different parts for aircraft that are going to often be assigned the same missions, and to train both operations and maintenance personnel on such a wide variety of equipment. I'm just saying, if I were in charge I would be more inclined to stick to a few dependable types and concentrate funding, training, and logistics, on maintaining and operating just those.

Egypt has been running a mix of fighter jets for more than 40 years and they never had a problem with it, they already now have American, French, Russian, and Chinese jets.

 

[The SC]

You are correct that it is nothing new and it's nothing against the Egyptian AF maintenance troops but it is still a bit of a maintenance and logistics nightmare. Just having to carry so many different parts for aircraft that are going to often be assigned the same missions, and to train both operations and maintenance personnel on such a wide variety of equipment. I'm just saying, if I were in charge I would be more inclined to stick to a few dependable types and concentrate funding, training, and logistics, on maintaining and operating just those.

That is right, but one should look at it from the Egyptian perspective; They are varying their sources for some known reasons, so until they start producing their own jet-fighters, things will remain that way. Just not much choice.

 

[Desertfalcon]

Egypt has been running a mix of fighter jets for more than 40 years and they never had a problem with it, they already now have American, French, Russian, and Chinese jets.

Which is why I said, "it is nothing new". As to them having, "never (having) had a problem with it", no offence but I have spent twenty years in the air force and I am guessing that if I talked to procurement officers, maintenance officers and even trainers, in the Egyptian AF, I would probably find that they have had ample problems with it. Any air force would. It would be no different than trying to train, operate, and maintain and armoured corps that uses five different types of MBT's. It's bound to cause headaches!

 

[Wasteland]

Egypt has a very good maintenance Facilities and, Egypt also makes spare parts for the F-16's. and they have facilities for upgrading and overhaul of the F-16 engines, and Egypt also produce the Mirage 2000 radar locally under license, and lately they produced Drop tanks for the Mirage 2000 (Egyptian did it by themselves, no license) Egyptians military has a very knowledgeable technicians staff, the best in the Arab region

 

[Wasteland]

French A/C, Russian A/C, American A/C? I'm happy the Egyptian AF is updating it's inventory but with so many sources, it's going to be a maintenance nightmare! I also think they should more realistically equip for the most likely air war conflict and that is likely to NOT be with Israel, but with an Arab regional neighbour.

You do know that USA didn't agree to sell AMRAAM BVR missile to Egypt, right ? Egyptians are relying on the Aim-7P sparrow for BVR with a range of 70km , not a bad range and not a huge difference, but this is one of the reason Egypt is turning it's face to Russia and France to acquire 100+ kilometer fire and forget Air to Air missiles, and the other reason is to keep the military balance in the region, since Israel is getting the F-35 soon, and Egypt know very well USA will never give Egypt the F-35 , that's why they turned their face to Russian to acquire Mig-35 equipped with modern AESA radar .

Really, the USA behavior towards Egypt in giving them arms pisses me off, American officials are like Israeli puppets, if Israel said don't give AIM-120 to Egypt, then no AIM-120 to Egypt, If Israel says don't give Egypt F-15 (Egypt ordered it before) but Israel; interfered to screw up the deal, and USA refused the sale to Egypt. we all know Egypt has no interest in fighting Israel, not now, and not in the next 50 years ! and Israel knows this, but they interfere in Egypt's arms sales because Israel wants to keep it's military edge in the region, what a bunch of selfish bastard , now show me what they can do with Russia to stop the Mig-35 deal ! haha! Or even try to make France stop the Rafale deal ! it will never happen.

They already tried to make Germany don't sell modern Type-209 submarines to Egypt, But Germany gave Israel a slap on the face and told them the decisions we take are non of your business, and no country has the right to interfere in decision taken by the German government .. the Israelis thought that Euro countries are like USA and will obey their demands , but they got a slap lol

 

[The SC]

Which is why I said, "it is nothing new". As to them having, "never (having) had a problem with it", no offence but I have spent twenty years in the air force and I am guessing that if I talked to procurement officers, maintenance officers and even trainers, in the Egyptian AF, I would probably find that they have had ample problems with it. Any air force would. It would be no different than trying to train, operate, and maintain and armoured corps that uses five different types of MBT's. It's bound to cause headaches!

I agree with you somehow, but since they are experienced in maintaining all those platforms, and with not much choice, what else can they do, but continue till they start their own productions, and then they can keep just 2 or 3 types. The US to has to maintain the F-16s, the F-15s, the F-18s and at least another 2 or 3 platforms of its air force, not talking about the so many variants of them, the navy ones , the B ones and so on.

 

[Desertfalcon]

You do know that USA didn't agree to sell AMRAAM BVR missile to Egypt, right ? Egyptians are relying on the Aim-7P sparrow for BVR with a range of 70km , not a bad range and not a huge difference, but this is one of the reason Egypt is turning it's face to Russia and France to acquire 100+ kilometer fire and forget Air to Air missiles, and the other reason is to keep the military balance in the region, since Israel is getting the F-35 soon, and Egypt know very well USA will never give Egypt the F-35 , that's why they turned their face to Russian to acquire Mig-35 equipped with modern AESA radar .

Really, the USA behavior towards Egypt in giving them arms pisses me off, American officials are like Israeli puppets, if Israel said don't give AIM-120 to Egypt, then no AIM-120 to Egypt, If Israel says don't give Egypt F-15 (Egypt ordered it before) but Israel; interfered to screw up the deal, and USA refused the sale to Egypt. we all know Egypt has no interest in fighting Israel, not now, and not in the next 50 years ! and Israel knows this, but they interfere in Egypt's arms sales because Israel wants to keep it's military edge in the region, what bunch of selfish bastard , now show me what they can do with Russia to stop the Mig35 deal ! haha! Or even try to make France stop the Rafale deal ! it will never happen, they already tried to make Germany don't sell modern Type-209 submarines to Egypt, But Germany gave Israel a slap on the face and told them the decision we take are non of your business, and no country has the right to interfere in decision taken by the German government .. the Israelis thought that Euro countries are like USA and will obey their demands , but they got a slap lol

Are you sure you quoted the right person in the right thread? Who is saying anything about American procurement sources? I haven’t said a thing about it. Indeed, if I were the Egyptian AF commander, I would probably look toward a combination of Su-35's, Mig-35's, and Su-25's for attack.

Btw, I am totally in favour of selling AIM-120's to Egypt.

I agree with you somehow, but since they are experienced in maintaining all those platforms, and with not much choice, what else can they do, but continue till they start their own productions, and then they can keep just 2 or 3 types. The US to has to maintain the F-16s, the F-15s, the F-18s and at least another 2 or 3 platforms of its air force, not talking about the so many variants of them, the navy ones , the B ones and so on.

The USAF is transitioning to a new generation of tactical A/C right now, but it will still be kept simple. We are going from a basic mix of three types, F-15's, F-16's, and A-10's, to a mix of just F-22's & F/A-35's, but with the first three types kept in service for many more years. That is due to the rising cost of the new gen. A/C.

 

[Wasteland]

I think USA should sell these A-10 thunderbolts to Iraq, for a low cost, instead of throwing them away, at least it will be good to know that this amazing aircraft is alive in some other country, and Iraq now needs ground attack warplanes the most.