Colombia likely to acquire 18 Mirage 2000-5F multirole fighter aircraft from French Air Force

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World Defense & Security News - Colombia and France
 
 
Colombia likely to acquire 18 Mirage 2000-5F multirole fighter aircraft from French Air Force
 
The Colombian government has received an offer to acquire French Dassault Aviation Mirage 2000-5F multirole aircraft, which would come from the French Air Force's inventory. The offer, revealed by industrial sources, includes a total of eighteen units for approximately $500 million. Of this, $350 million are for the cost of eighteen aircraft, and the remaining $150 million for logistics package.
     
The Colombian government has received an offer to acquire French Dassault Aviation Mirage 2000-5F multirole aircraft, which would come from the French Air Force's inventory. The offer, revealed by industrial sources, includes a total of eighteen units for approximately $500 million. Of this, $350 million are for the cost of eighteen aircraft, and the remaining $150 million for logistics package. French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) Mirage 2000-5F multirole fighter aircraft
     
These aircraft are in perfect operating conditions, according to the source, and they would be delivered with the (electronic warfare (EW) in particular) systems requested by Colombia. This offer comes just a month after test pilots of the Colombian Air Force (FAC) performed flight tests aboard the Mirage 2000-5F in France, revealed Infodefensa.

During those trials, the Colombian crews brought the aircraft to reach speeds exceeding Mach 2 and conducted identification and target designation exercises, thanks to the synthetic aperture radar of the Mirage 2000-5F, which allowed them to engage nearly three times the number of targets than those achieved in similar tests carried out by the same Colombian pilots on Lockheed Martin F16 C / D Fighting Falcon fighter jets.

This offer highlights the good relations between the two nations and, after the visit in France of the Colombia's President, Juan Manuel Santos, which,could ensure full compliance of the acquisition process according to NATO standards.

The Colombian Air Force's pilots currently fly on, among other, variants of the IAI Kfir multirole aircraft and on Embraer AT-29B Super Tucano light attack aircraft.