Very nice. Another strong fighter in the Egyptian Air Force! That's very good news
Let's hope that none of the "negative" and non-encouraging rumors are not true whatsoever, otherwise my envy (Astaghfurl'Allah) of the Hellenic airforce not only getting the Viper Upgrade, but a new order of Block-70s? AND F-35s ALSO!!!! will put me over the edge and ruin my love and admiration of anything Greek! Of course not lol. Dang bro there's only so much love we can give and envy we can take ha habib alby LOLOLOL!
Eventually, if and when they do get inducted in the EAF (seems like there is a possibility that it will coincide with the opening ceremony of the new Cairo capital which the date is still unknown (according to
@joker87 mentioned that a few pages ago), but possibly sometime in 2023 as mentioned in the article above that production of the 26 aircraft will be fulfilled by then but seems to be that Sukhoi is well ahead of schedule or very close to that) and that the insignia will look something like this cool model below.
Way back in the day, they used to add images like the cobra on the vertical stabilizer in this image, but they haven't done anything of the sort in maybe 7-8+ decades. With the exception of تحيا مصر on the fuselages of recent purchases like the Rafales and the F-16s, they've never put any of the squadron symbols on even a single F-16 or MiG-21s of the past or Mirage Vs or 2Ks or F-7s or K-8's or Alpha Jets or even on the new MiG-29M/M2s. It's really too bad, but that would be a nice thing to see them start doing that like this neat design. Perfect location for the roundel and aircraft serial #. They should also do the same thing like our brothers in the Royal Saudi Air Force where they write the serial number in Arabic on the right side of the aircraft and in English on the opposite side. I thin that is so cool and original that it wouldn't be too bad of an idea to imitate. imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
I think some of that low visibility of insignia and lack of squadron markings etc. is a long-standing lesson from Soviet and current Russian philosophy as well as learning and adapting to US low-visibility insignia that the USAF and USN have adopted on many of their fighters, including obviously their stealth ones in the F-22 & F-35. Low vis insignia is an interesting topic to learn about.
As nice as our Rafales look, even with the gaudy Tahya Misr, the tail is severely lacking as well as the serial numbers missing in this case, being exceptional since they were Egyptian pilots flying them over France on their way to Merignac I believe for buddy-buddy air-to-air refueling training. That might've been the reason why much of those elements were missing on the aircraft.
But even fully active EAF Rafales seem to be missing large and visible serial numbers for some bizarre reason.
Even fully armed in air-to-air mode and if I'm not mistaken, this was a pic of one of the Libyan raids with this Rafale tasked as escort to the F-16s blk-52s which were tasked for the air-to-ground mission at the time. I could be mistaken but either way, they have a habit of clearing out much of the identification markings as we have clearly seen on the Mirage-2000s with even the tail flags painted over.
EAF MiG-29M/M2s with the smallest available tail serial # and not even a forward fuselage roundel.
Which BTW, this might be a thing that has been developed between the HAF and the EAF. I'm saying this because it just dawned on me that the Mirage-2000s were in Greece during one of the recent exercises and were stripped of every single marking on them. Then I just happen to look at the Hellenic F-16 blk-52s (I'm assuming they're 52s because of the Pratt & Whitney engines unlike the turkeys with their General Electric engines are block-50s) the last time they were in Egypt prior to Bright Star 2021 and take a look at this! Not a single number!? Any idea?
EAF blk-52 have tail numbers in this case.
Even Indian Rafales have tail serials, despite being small ones over the tail flag, they still mark them unlike ours and your F-16s.
I think the HAF & EAF are up to some interesting and private shenanigans with all this hiding/eliminating of serial numbers lol!
I'm sure you've seen this?! Volume up all the way!
Oh and one of Dania
