The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Hasan Abubakar, says the Nigerian Air Force has procured 12 pre-owned A-Jet aircraft from the French Air Force through SOFEMA (Société Française d’Exportation de Matériel Militaire et Aéronautique), which specialises in the acquisition and refurbishment of French military hardware.
France has been replacing the Alpha Jet with the Pilatus PC-21 for training, leaving surplus aircraft available for sale.
All 12 aircraft are ready for shipping. It is anticipated that six will be restored to operable status, with the remaining six used as spares to support the Alpha Jet fleet.
Mr Abubakar made this known at the NAF Training, Operations and Safety Seminar for the year 2024, on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said the NAF had witnessed a remarkable renaissance, evident in the renewal of its aircraft fleet and enhanced operational readiness with the support of President Bola Tinubu.
The Alpha jets series of planes was a combined France-Germany initiative to create an innovative tactical trainer aircraft with close-air support warfare abilities. The Alpha jets are a top European design. It was designed and built by Dassault-Breguet in France and Dornier in Germany, companies are aircraft makers.
Alpha jets are an important part of the Nigerian Air Force Air power, they are capable of carrying a variety of weapons, including bombs, rockets, and missiles. It is also equipped with a gun pod that can be used for close air support missions.
The Nigerian Air Force acquired its fleet of Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jet aircraft in the early 1980s. The first 24 Alpha Jets were delivered in 1982, and they were used for both training and light attack missions. In 2011, four of the Alpha Jets were upgraded with new avionics and weapons systems.
Alpha jets based in Yola and Maiduguri are flying combat missions in their own country against bandits, terrorists, and insurgents.
In 2013, the Nigerian Air Force began to take measures to refurbish 13 of its Alpha jets. Two were sent to Niamey, Niger to support a multi-national peacekeeping force there. But one crashed fatally in an accident that May of that year.
Four additional unarmed Alpha jets were acquired in 2015 by the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration from the United States. In 2020, nine more Alpha Jets were reactivated after being mothballed for several years. As of 2023, the Nigerian Air Force has 11 Alpha Jets in service.
In July 2023, Sofema, which specialises in reconditioned military equipment, began studying a plan to rehabilitate French Alpha Jets for the Nigerian Air Force.
Sofema is already supplying spare parts to five ageing aircraft that are still being used by the Nigerian Air force, and recently visited a French air force base to select four or five more Alpha Jets they could recondition and sell to the NAF. Sofema is thus determined to quickly double the NAF’s fleet of Alpha Jets within six months to one year.
The French company also maintains neighboring Cameroon’s Alpha Jets since 2015. Although all but two of its 27 Alpha Jet MS2 are working, with only 12 now in service.
Since 2021, the Nigerian Air Force have been carrying out Periodic Depot Maintenance (PDM) on the Alpha Jet fleet to further its sustained efforts to boost Air Power employment capability against insurgency and other security challenges.
The in-house PDM, apart from being cost-effective when compared to the overseas option, also affords NAF technicians the opportunity to build better technical capacity.
The Nigerian Air Force has lost a number of the Alpha jets due to crash likely as a result of the stress of rigorous operations over the years. The Alpha jets of the Nigerian Air Force which have been flying for several decades have started showing their age, with several crashing in quick succession.
Although vastly upgraded, the Alpha jets are not designed for tactical close air support, since they have to fly close to the ground and within the firing envelope of ground-based anti-air weapons to deliver unguided bombs. An Alpha jet supporting troops with close air support was shot down by bandits in July 2021. This particular aircraft was subsequently recovered almost a year later.
Although the Alpha Jet had no built-in armament, it could be fitted with a belly cannon pod. Luftwaffe cannon pods accommodated a single Mauser BK-27 27-millimeter cannon, while AA cannon pods accommodated a single DEFA 30-millimeter cannon with 150 rounds. Both French and German Alpha Jets were fitted with a gunsight.
The Alpha Jet could be fitted with twin stores pylons under each wing for a total of four pylons, with a total external load capability of 2,500 kilograms (5,500 pounds), impressive for the small size of the aircraft. Possible external stores included unguided rocket pods; iron bombs and cluster munitions; and two external tanks, with a capacity of 310 liters (82 US gallons) or 450 liters (119 US gallons) each. The Alpha Jet could carry heat-seeking air-to-air missiles (AAM) for self-defense, but it lacked a radar and so could not carry radar-guided AAMs. It could carry laser-guided bombs, though laser targeting had to be provided by ground forces or a spotting aircraft. The French qualified a film-camera pod, and the type could be used as a target tug.
With this new modernization and acquisition process by Sofema, the Nigerian Air Force may be signaling it’s intention to keep the Alpha jet flying into the next decade alongside the newer M-346 Masters aircraft.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian and Egyptian air forces pledged to enhance cooperation and collaboration between their Air Forces, particularly in pilot training and Research and Development (R&D), particularly concerning NAF’s Alpha jets.
The NAF is also acquiring 24 M-346 light attack aircraft from Italian firm Leonardo, but this deal has not yet been finalized. In the meantime, the NAF can rely on its fleet of 12 A-29 Super Tucano aircraft delivered by Washington to retaliate against Boko Haram’s insurrection in the northeast.