United Arab Emirates Air Force

[elias_b]

I just read the AFM June issue with an article about the UAE AirForce and I was really impressed by the fighter aircraft force of this country.
By 2008, this Air Force will have 80 F-16E/F (Block 60) and around 60 Mirage 2000-9 in its inventory !

With this inventory, the UAE has one of the most advanced Airforces in the Gulf region.

[Webmaster]

Yes, nice article, although I feel they could have tried a bit harder to dug up the missing info before publication. Don't forget the 30 AH-64s, quite advanced for the region as well, although they are not upgraded to AH-64D yet...

[orko_8]

If I remember well, the article says UAE is also planning to procure AWACS and tanker aircraft. They are going to be a really strong (at least on paper) air force.

But I think this great number of modern and sophisticated aircraft brings up an issue: training.. Finding enough personnel would be a problem for a small country like UAE. Perhaps they may hire instructors and/or pilots...

[Webmaster]

They have outsourced their helicopter training. Maybe they will do the same for basic flying (or are they already doing that?). Anyway they got a fair amount of Hawks flying already for some years, and they want to order the KAI T-50...so I think they already have an instructor force in place. If not then they are clearly not forgetting the training. The F-16E/F pilots are trained in the USA already, and that will probably continue. So that's no problem.

[Air Marshal]

UAE F-16's