I'm amazed that this is even possible. I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance. The article indeed states: "the purchase does include all of the RAAF's F/A-18 spare parts inventory and test equipment, valued at over a billion dollars alone."
I too am amazed that this is even possible, but for different reasons. Do other first world countries allow non-government companies to hold this much sophisticated military hardware? Maybe so, I just haven't heard of it.
The other day I was reading about some Saudi prince's half a billion (!!!) dollar yacht.
Sometimes I wonder if I live in the same planet as these people. It is hard for me to imagine such wealth and power
> Do other first world countries allow non-government companies to hold this much sophisticated military hardware?
No, they don't. And neither does the US.
The F18 is now nearly 40 years old. Typically the advanced and sophisticated aspects of airframes are not allowed for sale, to private entities, or even non-us government ones.
The advanced avionics, weapons systems, etc, are all tightly controlled.
The article claims that the configuration will not change from what the RAAF had been flying, and that the planes have been more or less fitted with the most modern upgrades available.
So, nothing rivaling next generation hardware but also nothing to sneeze at either.
Also no munitions. Unless you are worried about info leaks to China (who else is sophisticated enough to take advantage of it?) I’m not seeing your concern.
Exactly, the sale of these aircraft has to be approved by the US Govt. The sale of a squadron to Canada was also approved by the US. It is only because of the close AU-US relationship that these are supplied with electronics -- everything about them still being classifed TS.
USAF is also looking to award a large contract for operating tanker aircraft for supporting training exercises of the USAF. Private companies will be operating aircraft to offer mid air refuelling for USAF training activities.
True, but the whole reason this worked is that they were a sovereign international personality separate from Italy, not just a private Italian organization.
> I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance.
Fighter jets are heavily dependent on spares and expertise, but Iranian F-14 Tomcats managed to score something like 50 or 60 kills during the Iran-Iraq war, which happened after the US stopped playing nice with them. They're still flying a few of them today.
If this makes you wonder how they're doing this if everyone is playing by the export rules involving selling arms to Iran, you wouldn't be the first. They have some native production capacity, but...
> I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance.
Turns out the US has this problem as well... my brother is a Harrier pilot, and it seems to me like the US has mostly run out of spare parts for them. They bought a number of RAF Harriers for parts, but even so, it's a question of whether the F-35 will actually be ready in time to replace those squadrons.
Maybe. The text hints that they also maintain their own adversary fleet in addition to hiring contracting firms like the one in the article.
> These Israeli-designed pods are pretty much the world standard in modular self-protection jamming systems and are used on the Pentagon's own aggressor fleet...
