Greece Offers Retired Mirage 2000-5 Fighter Jets to India

Greece has offered to sell India its fleet of retired French-made Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets, potentially bolstering the Indian Air Force's existing Mirage capabilities. This offer comes as Greece modernizes its own air force with newer Rafale and F-35 jets.

The offer was reportedly presented by Greece's Chief of the General Staff of the Defense Forces, General Dimitrios Houpis, during a recent visit to India. Greece acquired 15 Mirage 2000-5s in 2000, including both single-seat and two-seat trainer variants.

These Mirage 2000-5s, being relatively young at less than 25 years old, still have an estimated 10-15 years of operational life remaining. India, which already operates a fleet of 50 Mirage 2000-5 fighters, is particularly interested in acquiring two of the Greek trainer jets to enhance pilot training capabilities.

It remains to be seen if the Indian Air Force will acquire the entire fleet of 15 aircraft offered by Greece. The decision will likely depend on a detailed analysis of costs and benefits in relation to India's current fleet and future plans. The IAF aims to keep its Mirage-2000 fleet operational until 2035, when it plans to replace them with the domestically developed Tejas MkII fighter jets.

Greece's offer of Mirage 2000-5s could provide India with a valuable opportunity to expand its fighter jet capabilities and enhance pilot training. The outcome of this potential deal will be of interest to those following developments in both countries' defense strategies.

 

[Bikramjeet Goswami]

There is no use in fantasy dreams about such garbage toys better that money should be added to additional orders for Mk1A

HAL production rate is very poor. Even if HAL sorts out its production problems (very unlikely) there remains the issue of engines for which India is dependant on GE.

 

[SREEDHAR R]

IAF will always love imported, even if it is junked, but will not support local designs whole heartedly. They took 18 long years from 1st flight in 2001, to validate and provide the FOC for the Tejas. In 2019, Abhinandan faced F16 with an old Mig21. Unfortunately they are themselves responsible for the current situation, where they have to look at used parts from a foreign country. Just imagine, if IAF had provided the FOC by 2010, the whole of the MK1 would have been in squadron service by 2018 and by this year, we would have begun inducting the MK2.
A total 23 years wasted

 

[SREEDHAR R]

Dude stop these fascinations with pok and gb, it aint happening if you have brains. Stop believing politicians words like some godgiven words.We are a developing economy with very poor per capita income.untill we become some 30 trillion economy we wont have enough power to dictate terms to the world and that wont happen in our lifetime. Believe it or not, despite all our media hypes Pakistan is not some subsaharan african country. They are a nuclear power who has a formidable military with full of islamic fundamendalists and jihadists among their population.its not worth it just for a piece of land we give everything up what we have gained . Ministers give those statements to just pump up adrenaline.Lets build our country ,make us economically and technologically superior.

Agreed. Even if we can take Pok, we shouldn't attempt. Because we will then carry the burden of feeding the people there and other expenses will definitely go up

 

[Bharat007]

Price of oversleeping is work overload.

 

[Sandeep]

Agreed. Even if we can take Pok, we shouldn't attempt. Because we will then carry the burden of feeding the people there and other expenses will definitely go up

Not if we evict them. Though most will flee to their safety to avoid shelling and bombs. Also most of POK hate Pakistan anyway.

 

[Amal kanti Roy]

A sensible decision to buy these second hand Mirages at least to fulfill the gap now

 

[Sandeep]

India should buy these Mirage 2000 jets from Greece and UAE if the price is correct and it still has a good number of years of service. This can be immediately inducted with minimal amount of change and it will give us another combat ready squadron with a higher payload capacity and longer range then the Tejas MK1A jets.

 

[Vinod Kaka]

IAF will always love imported, even if it is junked, but will not support local designs whole heartedly. They took 18 long years from 1st flight in 2001, to validate and provide the FOC for the Tejas. In 2019, Abhinandan faced F16 with an old Mig21. Unfortunately they are themselves responsible for the current situation, where they have to look at used parts from a foreign country. Just imagine, if IAF had provided the FOC by 2010, the whole of the MK1 would have been in squadron service by 2018 and by this year, we would have begun inducting the MK2.
A total 23 years wasted

But they haven't learn anything from these delays and procrastination which ultimately costing them and Also nation as in the event of war with China among all 3 indian armed forces IAF will prove to be the biggest weak link among 3 services.. And God forbid if we loose any territory in the war with China like 1962 debacle. Then All of the defence estsblo policy makers will be responsible for this & there by which it will be difficult for us to retain back our lost out territories like PoJK Gilgit baltistan & Aksai chin because despite tall claims n statements issued very often now & then by indian politicians Or our diplomats have no worth in international standings & even our parliamentary resolutions on the very same issues has no relevance in actual ground reality of Geopolitics as it hasn't been able to change the status quo on the ground...

 

[amerjit johal]

It is embarrassing that a country which aspires to be an economic and military superpower - that our top brass GoI etc didn't have the foresight to plan ahead.
Buying [even as a stop gap ] 2nd user aircraft from one of the poorest countries in Europe - is disgraceful.

However - I feel that perhaps we should purchase from Greece and maybe UAE to give us a little breathing space.

 

[amerjit johal]

Another shameful event due to HAL but HAL is shameless that it won't matter to them.

Not just HAL - everyone who is involved in defence planning/funding etc

 

[Man-ju]

Depends on the cost at which they are offering, given the excellent record for HAL for timely delivery. It's a economical stop gap measure. Most likely this was a backup plan by IAF which was supposed to get 21 MiG29 from Russia but i think after war with Ukraine and payment crisis that would be no longer feasible.

 

[Ajath]

Not a bad idea especially if the.platform can still fly for another 15 years.

 

[Pink Panther]

When the world is moving towards 5th and 6th gen fighters we are buying second hand mirages great job guys let’s waste more tax money what can go wrong?🫡

Not too bad, only 24 years old, according IAF standards they still have 15-20 years life left in them, IAF never retires any jet unless they themselves fall from the sky and retire. Morocco and Egypt recently bought all of UAE Mirage 2000-9 jets and, they were recently upgraded and still have lot of life left in them, we could have bought them as well

 

[Pink Panther]

Makes no sense if price is high.

They are giving all the jets for few millions, buying one Rafale cost $300Mln+, some will be cannibalized for part and some will be inducted with minimal repairs it seems.

 

[Pink Panther]

I believe they are looking at this more from the perspective of cannibalization for parts to support existing fleet of Mirage 2000s.

These frames are only 24 years old, they could still be inducted with minor repairs adding one new squadron.

 

[Anant]

Oh, ok! But i believe they already grabbed some from another country.

We purchased 24 airframe from France for 1 million Euros each (excluding the costs of getting them here). Of these, 8 are now flying, 5 are being used as ground instructional airframes, and 11 are intended to be scavenger for parts.

Greek Mirage 2000s have a similar life as the French airframes which we purchased. As such, it is possible 1 or 2 of these may be airworthiness, with the rest being sources of spares.

 

[Anant]

Depends on the cost at which they are offering, given the excellent record for HAL for timely delivery. It's a economical stop gap measure. Most likely this was a backup plan by IAF which was supposed to get 21 MiG29 from Russia but i think after war with Ukraine and payment crisis that would be no longer feasible.

I am not too sure of those MiG-29s. For one, they are baseline MiG-29s that were manufactured in the 1980s but never assembled. Considering that these components have been in storage for 40 years now, I would have some very serious doubts about their viability to start with.

 

[kumar]

Not bad.
15 comes close to 1 squadron.

 

[Anant]

Not too bad, only 24 years old, according IAF standards they still have 15-20 years life left in them, IAF never retires any jet unless they themselves fall from the sky and retire. Morocco and Egypt recently bought all of UAE Mirage 2000-9 jets and, they were recently upgraded and still have lot of life left in them, we could have bought them as well

They haven't bought them yet. Negotiations are still underway for the UAE to sell off their 59 Mirage 2000s after their Rafales start entering service. France has only green-lit the sale yesterday.

The 30 Mirage 2000s (including 8 trainers) that Morocco is planning to get are planned to replace their 19 Alpha Jets, and take overall fighter numbers up to 100. Once they start receiving their 25 new F-16Vs, those will replace the F-5s and non-modernised Mirage F1s.

The 29 Mirage 2000s (including 7 trainers) that Egypt is getting is more of an India-style acquisition. They presently have 19 Mirage 2000s in service, and the idea here is to get around 18-19 of these into active service (including all trainers ideally) to allow them to phase out their lone L-39 and reach 500 fighters (25 sqaudrons of 18, which is their target, plus spares).

 

[Anant]

Far better to acquire these aircrafts and cancel the mrfa, instead use surplus funds to fastrack the Tejas mk 2 and amca.

Yeah... not happening. These aircraft will only be a stopgap measure, and a small number of these would actually be retained for flight operations. This sort of acquisition is mostly for spares. MRFA is still just as necessary as it always has been.