Approval given for fighter sales to Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrai

My mistake, looks like Bahrain is asking for 16.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airshow-britain-usa-mideast-idUSKCN0ZQ0B2

So if all options are exercised. The F-15 deal will bring four billion USD, F-18s would birng in three billion and the F-16s one billion.

Glad to see the Super Hornet deal, will keep the assembly line open for a while longer

>>31497324
No F35s of PAKFAs? lol

>>31497449
or*

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>>31497413
Will also keep the F-16 and F-15 lines open longer too, that said Saudi sales for more F-15s a little while ago ensured it'll keep running this decade no problem.

>>31497449
You won't see F-35s in the Middle East for a long time.

By law the US has to ensure that Israel has a qualitative military edge over any country in the region, why is why these approvals took so long until after the Israelis negotiated a new military deal with the US.

And the Russians can barely afford any expense in the PAKFA's production.

That said, the Russians managed to recently negotiate a 100 plane deal with the Indians for the FGFA and Egypt bought 50 MiG-29Ms not too long ago along with 24 Rafales.

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Is Iran still trying to buy Su-30s?

Their run down F-14s and F-5s don't seem very menacing.

>>31497324

i'm expecting the Qatari Strike Eagles to be configured a lot like the recent Saudi ones: -129 motors, AESA, the nice big displays in the back, fully FBW, etc.

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>>31497926
Presumably, one would think that is now the production standard.

>>31497324
Qatar already bought 24 Rafale F3O and they have an option for 12 more. Before that, their air force was made of a dozen of Mirage 2000-5.
There were big talks about what if the french buy back the Mirage 2000, but this won't happen, the planes may be sold as occasions though.

With 36 Rafale and 36 F-15, they would effectively multiply the strengh of their air force by 30 or so.
No way in hell they will have enough personel to manage this.

Also, buying F-15 would defeat the point in buying rafale in the first place. One or the other, both make no sense at all, except if you fear being blacklisted by either of your original supplier.

>>31498247
They've being after this purchase since 2012. You could say the Rafale purchase is actually a supplement to the main one which are these Eagles.

Who knows how ready their air force is ready to accept this over the coming years. But it seems a thing in the Middle East to buy one American and one European fighter.

>tfw fucking Qatar has more advanced planes than the USA

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>>31497565
>You won't see F-35s in the Middle East for a long time.

Turkey is very involved in the F-35 program and is expected to start receiving them in 2018, assuming Erdogan doesn't go full retard.

>https://www.f35.com/global/participation/turkey-industrial-participation

>https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/lockheed-confirms-turkeys-f-35s-in-early-stages-of-427641/

>>31498330
I should specified Arabic nations.

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>tfw qatar has a better air force than Iran

>>31498328
I wasn't aware that they F-22 and F-35s.

>>31498399
Kinda what happens when no one has sold you shit since the 80s.

>>31498247
They're buying F-15Es, not regular F-15s. They'll be using them as bomb trucks, since they have access to more and more varied munitions than the Rafale.

>>31498399
>>31498762

Good planes don't account for bad pilots. These people are arabs. They could crash a house.

What are Gulf raghead pilots like?

I imagine all of them are like bored lesser royals who had nothing to do flying millions of dollars of equipment that they don't really know how to operate and have an entourage of low skilled technicians and ground crew.

>>31498862

Most of the pilots are trained abroad by the countries that sell them the aircraft, as are the ground crew. Training is part of the arms deal.

There may be some nepotism going on, but generally those going into the fighter pilot roles will be better than those in the other services.

>>31498840
They seem to be doing alright over Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

>>31497324

>All them oil dollars, do note that Qatar and Kuwait have ordered 36 Rafales and 12 Typhoons in recent times respectively.

28 Typhoons, not 12. And it was 24 Rafale, not 36.

>>31497324
US arming Muslims once again.

>>31497324
Qatar is a fucking slave economy that works its poor people to death for just barely enough money to not starve, why the fuck are we selling them anything?

>>31501091
Willing to pay.

Opposed to the theocrats.

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>>31497324
Okay, I have a question guys. If the F-15 Eagle is the best fighter jet ever made, why didnt we just take the tech platform from the F-35 and shove it into the F-15? I know that the F-35 is a lockheed plane and the F-15 is a MD plane, but still it just makes more sense to me that you take something that already works amazing and just improve on it. Idk not trying to bait or anything just a thought.

>>31501912
The F-15 is great, but it's an old design. It's got an RCS like a house.

>>31501912
Not stealthy enough for modern standards.

Its radar cross section is huge.

>>31501927
>>31501936
Ok, thanks guys

>>31498247
F-15E variants are figher bombers, with a focus on bombing. They just also happen to be very agile and good at shooting down aircraft too.

Also the Arab nations have a long, long tradition of buying mixed arms so they are not beholden to any one supplier nation. Often the mix was French, US, or US, British, or French, Russian. To them, they were basically hedging their bets that they could piss off whoever they needed to and it was no biggie.

>>31498862
had a few come through edwards during 2011-2014 in my tenure there. Dealt with them all on a fairly regular basis.

They are able to learn, and as skilled as their western counterparts but have one glaring, huge, flaw. Arrogance, dismissiveness, and showmanship.

A lot of them either openly or privately feel their ancient culture is better than the west, so they are inherently able to improve on anything taught or told to them, or disregard it all together when its convenient for them. Eventually that gets beaten out of them, but then its their job to train the next gen of pilots in their country, and those dudes are total fuck heads due to not having the cultural immersion the old gen pilots got in the west.

tl/dr: if they stick to the mission plan, they are great. If they fly low to do a gun strafe because its cool, or drop the biggest bomb because its cool, or pretty much anything that involves showing off. They are fucking worthless.

See airpower over Yemen for an idea. They use high capability weapons for low priority targets, and are buying from the US war reserves like its a fucking fire sale. US is only too happy to sell off their old weapons instead of buying upgrade kits.

>YFW US money spent in israel is only seed money to get everyone else buying like wildfire. We are the crafty merchants.

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>>31501912
For stealth, we wont. Because it was never shaped for stealth, and its production line is metallics and composites, to retool the line for making F-15s with deep structural/ stealth/ materials modernization we could restart the F-22. New model F-15s are using more composite panels and other shit where its opportunistic.

As for avionics and sensor capability, its already there. F-15Es fly with the Sniper pod which is sorta standard. Offers most of the forward FLIR capability.

Then the reccent F-15SA overhaul offers a "360" sensor coverage. Doesnt do the invisible plane trick with the helmet, but does offer IR coverage and some other BS. go check it out.

should be interesting. Right now the Saudis ordered their modernized F-15s, and the other Arabs want what the saudis have but with their own gizmos and toys.

The US is slated to do a deep modernization of the F-15, probably on the backs of these orders.

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>>31502416
Alright, Thanks man you answered my question completely.