Message posted by Chris McDowell on September 30, 2009 at 22:09:04 PST:
The US government did purchase 21 MiG-29s from the nation of Moldova, in 1997 I believe. The official reason for the purchase was to prevent Moldova from selling them to anyone else (meaning, rogue states). However, they were delivered to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio for technical evaluation, and after that, presumably some tactical air-to-air testing was done at Groom. Iran does have some MiG-29s, but they're all believed to be early models, which are a lot less capable than the current Russian front-line models. Some of the Fulcrums (the NATO name for the MiG-29) the US purchased are of the same model as those used by Iran, but the majority were the second-generation variant. So to answer your question, while the manuscript's premise of us supplying Fulcrums to Israel is plausible, I don't think that Israel would get much benefit from such a deal. The Israeli Air Force is infinitely better equipped, and its pilots far better trained, than their Iranian counterparts. The capabilities and performance of the early-model Fulcrums are completely known to the West. In addition to the American-bought Fulcrums, the German Luftwaffe put the MiG-29s of the former East German air force into squadron service after reunification, and many Western air forces took advantage of the opportunity to train against these aircraft. In the event of an Israeli air assault on Iran, the primary threat the Israelis will need to worry about is the increasingly capable air-defense network (surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery) that Iran has been purchasing over the years from Russia. The Iranian air force, on the other hand, will be no problem for the Israelis to deal with. Hope this is helpful to you. Chris M.
In Reply to: Re: Mig 29s to Israel posted by psiuh88 on September 30, 2009 at 18:37:53 PST:
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