CHILEAN F-5 TIGER III FOR EL SALVADOR? THE SAME MOVE AS IN 2013?
Video from the channel SCREW16 about Northrop F-5, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 12:51. Language: Spanish. Video type: News.
What's being announced
Analysis and opinion piece that raises a hypothetical scenario: El Salvador buying about ten F-5 Tiger III jets that the Chilean Air Force would retire around 2030, to replace its A-37 Dragonfly. It is not an announced operation, but the author's assessment.
Context
The A-37 remains El Salvador's main attack aircraft, simple and combat-proven, but with outdated avionics, sensors and air-to-air capability. Chile received its F-5E and F-5F jets in 1976 and modernized them in the 1990s with Israeli industry: EL/M-2032 radar, a cockpit with a multifunction display, inertial navigation linked to GPS, a new HUD and Python 4 and Derby missiles, along with later structural life-extension work. The author notes that El Salvador already bought second-hand A-37s from Chile in 2013.
What it would mean
According to the analysis, the Tiger III would give El Salvador the most advanced air combat capability in Central America, but only if it arrived with its sensors, countermeasures and missiles. The airframes would be around 55 years old, would require individual overhauls and additional aircraft as a source of spare parts, and a full package could cost, by the author's estimates, between 100 and 250 million dollars. The author concludes it would be excessive capability for the country's real threats, and that turboprops such as the A-29 Super Tucano, together with radars and drones, would be a better fit.