Aircraft that never lived up to their promise

"Kevin Brooks" escreveu na mensagem
om...
All in all, the most
that can be said for Carter's short journey into idealistic export
policy is that the French may owe him a medal for taking the US out of
play for some fighter procurement deals.


Example: Our Air Force, back in the beginning of the '70s, bought Mirage
IIEBR's as the US wouldn't sell us the F-4's our AF had pointed out as the
aircraft of choice. The American offer at the time was the F-5A, which was
far below what was needed. OTOH, Brazil bought F-5E's later on ... Same for
many other Latin American countries.

Now our aging Mirage III's will be replaced (should have been a long time
ago, BTW) and by Feb 10th 2004 our government will probably announce that
its replacement will be the Mirage 2000BR (-5), mostly due to political
reasons and to the strong relationship of our national aircraft industry and
the French, which own 20% of EMBRAER. Unless something really unexpected
happens, our AF's dreams come true and they get the Su-35's they are eager
for. The US offered the F-18 and the F-16. The F-18 was discarded in the
very beginning of the process due to its price. The F-16, though regarded by
all as an excellent aircraft, is considered too short-legged. Also, there
are restrictions to the sale of BVR missiles and AFAIK the missiles would be
kept in storage in the US and sent to Brazil only in case of need.
(!!!??!!!). We would receive only the "training missiles". The Russians have
no kind of restriction in terms of weapons sales and technology transfer.
Same for the French.