SOFIA, Bulgaria, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Bulgaria has approached Western powers over the potential acquisition of fighter jets.
Sofia approached the United States, France, Germany and Sweden over the supply of eight new or used fighter jets, Bulgaria's Defense Ministry said in a statement released Wednesday.
It added that the financial circumstances of a deal had to be decided after information is sent by the four countries, in 2012, at the earliest.
While the statement didn't mention company names, it's clear that the major players -- America's Lockheed Martin and Boeing, European multinational giant European Aeronautic and Space Co., Dassault from France and Sweden's Saab -- are qualified to make the cut.
New planes that could qualify include France's Dassault Rafale, the Saab Gripen from Sweden, the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and the Eurofighter Typhoon, built by a consortium including EADS, Britain's BAE Systems, and Finmeccanica of Italy.
Given the notorious budget issues plaguing Western armed forces, Bulgaria might very well rely on purchasing used jets -- possibly U.S. F-16 or F-18 aircraft, which have a proven track record of performing well on the second-hand market.
Prices for new advanced combat aircraft start at around $40 million per plane, with prices for used models considerably lower.
Washington as early as 2007 tried to convince Bulgaria to buy used jets, a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks suggests.
The best deal for Bulgaria would be to buy used U.S. fighter jets and not pursue the much more expensive option of buying a Gripen or a Eurofighter, the cable, sent Oct. 29, 2007, by John Beyrle, formerly the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria, Britain's Daily Telegraph reports.
"The Bulgarians may be eyeing new combat aircraft, and U.S. manufacturers will, of course, be in this hunt," the cable reads. "But cost factors would exhaust the defense budget, and Bulgaria would be hard pressed to perform essential training and maintenance functions on such a squeezed budget."
The cable also said Sofia should be discouraged from purchasing Russian fighter jets, "which are currently an obstacle to Bulgaria's transformation to a more operationally and tactically flexible organization as expected by NATO."
"A slightly older, perhaps used aircraft of intermediate complexity, would allow Bulgarian pilots to quickly master new systems and immediately become interoperable partners," the cable reads.
