Waiting for years for new fighters in its defense fleet, the Government of Argentina approved a plan to buy new defense aircraft for US$ 664 million.
Of this amount, Argentina will allocate R$ 20 million to have the necessary infrastructure for the operation of the fighter jets. As always, Argentina's preference is for the purchase of JF-17s, manufactured by Pakistan, despite the head of the Cabinet of Ministers, Juan Manzur, did not give more details about the purchase process.
There are currently four aircraft options for Argentina to purchase, such as the CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder, the Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the HAL Tejas.
If the F-16 is chosen by Argentina, the country will have to face a complicated international approval process, since several components of the fighter are manufactured by the United States, making even the purchase of used units difficult.
The Tejas, on the other hand, has components manufactured in the United Kingdom, which to this day limits the export of military equipment to Argentina, due to the Falklands War in the 80s.
At this moment, the Argentines are probably negotiating the last details of the contract for 12 JF-17 Block III fighters, such as payment methods and delivery time for these planes.
The Chinese company CATIC made several technical documents and even a flight simulator available to the Argentine delegation so that the pilots could familiarize themselves with the JF-17 Thunder model.
The JF-17 is a fighter developed by Pakistan tly with China (which designates it FC-1), where the Pakistanis own 58% of the manufacture of parts and China the remaining 42%.
The engine is the Klimov RD-93 of Russian origin, based on the RD-33 used in the MiG-29 Fulcrum and other fighters of the family, capable of propelling the fighter to speeds close to Mach 1.8 (about 2205 km/h).
The aircraft can employ an array of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, guided bombs, pods and sensors and is operational in the Pakistan Air Forces, Niga © ria and Myanmar.
Street: Defense News
