Iraq Seeks to Rebuild Air Force

[SABRE]

Its been quite an interesting week on DT's news section. Here is another interesting news.

Iraq Seeks to Rebuild Air Force​

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Iraq's new air force is being rebuilt from the ground at a desert base stretching outside Nasiriya.

Now the site, 375 km southeast of Baghdad and once Saddam Hussein's centre of air operations against Iran during the 1980-1988 war - is home to Air Force Squadron 23 and its three C-130 Hercules transport planes.

The US-donated planes are the backbone of Iraq's new air force, which also includes a dozen light reconaissance planes and another dozen helicopters spread across the country. Officials are vague on numbers for security reasons.

Currently, 109 Iraqi students - all air force veterans with years of experience - are learning how to maintain and fly the Hercules fleet. The youngest trainee is 30. Others appear twice that age.

Fleet destroyed​

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Gone are the days of Saddam's air fleet of 500 warplanes, which included Russian Mig 21 and Mig 25 fighters, Sukhoi fighter-bombers and French Mirage interceptors.

Most of Saddam's planes were flown to Iran during the 1991 Gulf War to prevent them from being destroyed in US bombing raids.

Those aircraft were not returned by the time Iraq's next conflict began, and any valuable surviving planes were buried in the desert.

Just days after the US-led invasion began in March 2003, "we removed the engines and the wings of six Mig 25s and buried them in the desert," said an Iraqi air force veteran, now a captain in the new force.

"It was crazy, but nobody dared contradict Saddam. He thought the war would last just a few months."

Training​

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Facing death threats and attacks on their families by anti-government fighters, the Iraqi officers and airmen agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.

With no aircraft left, the main asset available was the expertise of these veterans.

In January 2005, the three Hercules arrived and US and British officials began offering training and advice to help rebuild the new air force.

The first class of Hercules operators took lessons in Jordan in late 2004 before starting courses at Ali base in January. They are expected to complete their training in January 2006.

A second group also went to Jordan and are expected to finish in May or June 2006.

"Everyone here loves his country and would be happy to see his country stand proudly again," said one Iraqi warrant officer, a gray-haired veteran with 18 years' experience.

Maintenance​

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The C-130 has a crew of five - a pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator and a loadmaster.

The three planes need at least 53 ground personnel to make sure they are properly maintained - everything from engine upkeep to checking for cracks in the fuselage to making sure the straps that hold the cargo are not frayed.

The ground crew being trained got their experience maintaining Russian-made transport planes from Saddam's air force.

One Iraqi warrant officer with 23 years' experience gazed wistfully at a private Ilyushin Il-76 plane taxying down the Ali base's runway, as he took a break from checking hydraulics on the Hercules.

"It's my love," he sighed, then launched into a description of the Russian plane, which carries three times the amount of cargo of a Hercules. "And it has only one type of hydraulic fluid, not three," he said.

New blood needed​

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The officer said he was aboard one of the 20 Il-76s that Saddam ordered flown to neighbouring Iran in 1991.

The Iranians held him and the other flight crews for a month, then sent them back, refusing to return the planes, he said.

The US instructors want the trainees to eventually teach what they learned to a new crop of Iraqi airmen and pilots.

"We're trying to get them to train people," said US Air Force Major Jed McCray, head of the maintenance training programme. "Come next summer we plan to be gone and have them sustain themselves."

But in order to be ultimately successful, "they're going to have to get some young people in," McCray said.

Source: DefeceTalk News
Link: http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/article_003076.php

Certainly Iraq will no longer buy Russian AirCrafts. Time for US & European Air Crafts.

I guess if they are to be equiped than they'll have to do with 2nd hand USAF F-16s at this moment till their economy recovers & theyare able to buy arms properly.

 

[adsH]

I guess if they are to be equiped than they'll have to do with 2nd hand USAF F-16s at this moment till their economy recovers & theyare able to buy arms properly.


[/size]

I doubt it! they can purchase new equipment against there future Oil Revenues, One reason why no one wants to give up the Debt Iraq owes them. They need an infrastructure before Equipment, i say another 10 years and another 2 decades before they would be able to operate on there own unteathered.

 

[SABRE]

Well they are still going to build air power. I see no other better choice than 2nd hand F-16s.

 

[P.A.F]

so long the US occupation is ther i don't see the point of any fighters. the New iraqi air force already has a few transport planes and for the time being thats all they need. what iraqis and the coalition need to concentrate on is building a deadlocked country back up gain. the airforce would be needed when the coalition start moving out and once iraq is back to normal just like all the other arab states.

 

[radiosilence]

Iraq air force wants Iran to give back its planes

BAGHDAD, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Iraq's air force commander said on Sunday he hoped Iran would return some of the scores of Iraqi fighter plans that flew there ahead of the Gulf War in 1991, but conceded many of them were probably beyond repair.

Lieutenant-General Kamal al-Barzanji is eyeing the aircraft, which were flown to Iran to escape destruction, as he slowly rebuilds Iraq's shattered air force with American help.

"Until now we have not brought back any aircraft. This case belongs to the politicians," he told a news briefing in Baghdad.

"But we hope we could bring back some of these aircraft to Iraq," he said, adding that only a few would be salvageable.

Security information Web site GlobalSecurity.org estimates that half of the air force fled to Iran in 1991, just three years after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, rather than confront Coalition planes.

Much of the rest of the air force was destroyed during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Iraq's air force is slowly rising from the ashes of decades of war and sanctions that wiped out its fleet of combat aircraft, once reputed to be the world's sixth-biggest.

At one stage the air force boasted 750 mainly Soviet- and French-built fighters, bombers and armed trainer aircraft, according to GlobalSecurity.org.

But Barzanji said there were now just 45 aircraft -- for transport and reconnaissance -- and helicopters. The air force first created in 1931 has been rebuilt from scratch since 2004.

Pilots from Saddam's time form the backbone of efforts to create a new air fleet, although U.S. Brigadier-General Bob Allardice, commander of the air force transition team, said a programme to train new aviators had begun.

"It is a complex process to train the air force while also fighting a counter-insurgency," he told reporters.

As yet the new air force has no offensive capability, relying on U.S. attack helicopters and fighters to support ground troops.

U.S. commanders recognise, however, that needs to be addressed if they are to proceed with handing over security to Iraqi security forces to allow U.S troops to leave.

Asked when the air force would be in a position to conduct air combat operations, Kamal said: "That stage is close."

At present the air force consists of C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, a variety of small fixed-wing aircraft for reconnaissance, and a number of Vietnam-era Huey and MI-17 Russian-made helicopters.

Reuters

Assuming that Iran return some of these aircrafts as a good-will gesture, the Iraqis can use whatever is salvageable to add some offensive capability to their airforce.


edit:
These are the aircraft that are believed to have been flown to Iran, among them were 24 Mirage F1s, 4 Su-20 Fitters, 40 Su-22 Fitters, 24 Su-24 Fencers, 7 Su-25 Frogfoots, 9 MiG-23 Floggers, and 4 MiG-29 Fulcrums.

 

[kato]

I doubt it! they can purchase new equipment against there future Oil Revenues, One reason why no one wants to give up the Debt Iraq owes them. They need an infrastructure before Equipment, i say another 10 years and another 2 decades before they would be able to operate on there own unteathered.

Err, the US has pressured most creditors into giving up the debt Iraq gives them (for state creditors), or into getting paid out with rebatable-in-the-distant-future checks covering only a part of what is really owed (for commercial creditors). Iraq's debt is only about 20% nowadays of what they owed people in 2004, and the US is trying to get that even lower.

And none of the European or Asian oil producing companies (BP, Shell etc) will really touch Iraq with a stick as long as the occupation - and with it the military-civilian cooperation with certain US companies in the oil market in Iraq - continues. No one gives money for non-developable resources, especially when the government has already granted "future payouts" on a large level.

 

[F-15 Eagle]

From what I read the Iraqi Air Force only has a few C-130, UH-1, and Mi-17 helicopters and maybe a few other reccon aircraft. I bet there barley operational and haven't received any spar parts in 10 years.

 

[nero]

attack choppers

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the ideal way to rebuild the iraqi air-force is to get some decent attack helicopters & advanced transport vehicles

i think if the iraqis manage to get some EH-101s, it will help them greatly in launching counter attacks against insurgents

i would also push for some AH-1W COBRAS to tackle the insurgency & provide air-cover for the troops.


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[shimmy]

Were the Iraqis to gain fighter/interceptors , how long would it be before the planes become part of the Iranian Air Force ?Giving them anything beyond used Hmvees is useless-the material would be sold on the blackmarket,probably to Iran-because the army is not AN army-it is made of groups of people with hidden agendae.

 

[shimmy]

I think that the idea of an Iraqi military fighting the insurgents is ridiculous. Most of the army is made of the insurgents. The small percentage of Iraqis who really hate the insurgents get my sympathy but arming the Iraqis seems useless.

 

[F-15 Eagle]

I think that the idea of an Iraqi military fighting the insurgents is ridiculous. Most of the army is made of the insurgents. The small percentage of Iraqis who really hate the insurgents get my sympathy but arming the Iraqis seems useless.

Your right, they may even use those weapons against us someday, there is history to prove it.

 

[Satorian]

Makes me really wonder whether this AF ramp-up should be high on Iraq's list of priorities. It's not as if they didn't have other problems to take care of and spend money on.

 

[contedicavour]

This subject has already been vastly discussed in another thread, but Iraq needs armed helos and COIN planes to support its army's anti guerrilla operations.
Soldiers patrolling on the ground without some helo support would be even more vulnerable and more likely to defect. The US is trying to transfer a lot of patrolling to the most decent Iraqi army brigades (which are a lot less sectarian than the unreliable police). Let's help them a bit... it wouldn't cost much to hand over a hundred good old Hueys with machine guns on both sides. Even if a few defect to Iran, so what, no big loss.
After the next US presidential elections I guess there will be an acceleration in reequipping the Iraqi army in order to speed up the retreat of US forces. Helos and coin planes (like the SF260W or armed Pilatus PC7) are indispensable.

cheers