I'm not sure why any of them would be cannibalized, to be honest with you. Unless you folks are short of some major spare parts or something. But if the deal is for 36 of them and 23 of them (mostly SDEs) were part of the Horus upgrade in 2010 and have been kept in great condition with their dedicated bases out of Aswan and south of Egypt IIRC, often flying with the Hellenic AF as well as the Jordanian AF. The active jets were a mix of mostly 5SDD, 5E, 5SDE and the recon version in the 5DDR. Point is they were very well taken care of and we rarely saw any pictures of them unless someone else (other airforce personnel) took a picture of them such as this super rare photo of one of the 2-seaters I believe is the 5DD. They were VERY protective of them for some reason. This is during one of the exercises with the Jordanian AF and that 5DD is simply a beauty.
All the Horus upgrades made for some great Mirage 5 squadrons that were quite special in the EAF. I'm actually bummed out to see these retired or go to another AF. I suppose going to the PAF is better than retiring them but not for cannibalization! Ooof that would suck. But I suppose if you buy them and pay for them, you can do whatever you wish with them I just hope you make better use than taking them apart, especially when they're perfectly fine and well-functioning classic fighter jets.
Look at this stunning beauty!
These are the rare glimpses that would come out from army/air force news video clips and people would be forced to take stills from these videos because these birds were rarely allowed to be photographed, especially after the upgrade in 2010. We noticed these 4 SDDs flying in one of those video clips and it was barely a split second, we realized at the time that they had settled on this wildly crazy camo scheme and sure enough, someone took the still out of it and now it's on google images.
Then these 2 SDEs were part of Bright Star (not sure of the year) and they made a high speed fly-by, then turned and went high a couple miles away and fired guns or rockets on simulated ground targets. These were also pics taken by Americans who were present during the exercise.
Someone mentioned that the deal would not include weapons and I would question that. What would be the reason for us to keep any of the weapons? I don't think we would need them for our 2000s since they have their own packages, but I would think most of the basic weapons and MICA A2As would be part of the deal since they wouldn't be much use staying behind. Same with the drop tanks and any additional engines etc.
Either way, at least they're going to a respectable air force that we know will make the best out of them (I hope no cannibalization, though) and may they serve another 10 - 15 years in the PAF as well as bring our two countries more together.
almost 50 pages and hundreds of posts later. Why do I get the feeling all the talk of Block-52/72, J-15/16, J-20, J-10 etc etc will fall the same fate? These threads are a microcosm of the Pakistani psyche...a lot of talk, boasting, egos, and disconnect with reality, but that's why I love you guys
