Fly by wire vs Hydraulic controls

[Mohoender]

I had been thinking of this because 15 years ago, as I was on Cambrai's air base, one of the old air mechanic told me that he would regret the old Mirage F-1 that were being replaced by Mirage 2000.

He recognized that the system was superior but stated that in case of a long conflict, the Mirage 2000 would quickly be grounded if one could disrupt the production/supply of replacement parts. On the other hand, he would be able to keep the F-1 flying almost endlessly (I agree he might have been slightly exagerating on that one) constantly repairing them with what he had at hand and remaking new parts from old ones (something he couldn't do with chips).

If I consider this testimony to be valid (What I tend to do) most aircrafts given as flyable ones in RDFSB (One of the few book giving an OOB for aircrafts) shouldn't be airworthy by the time.

IMO Soviets wouldn't fly any Su-27 or Mig-31 being replaced by Mig-21 and may be Mig-25 (The Soviet side is slightly better of but I think that pure luck). France might have some Mirage 2000 (as it still can provide spare parts) but most of its aircrafts would be Mirage III, Mirage F-1 and Sepecat Jaguar. In the case of US, I would expect most F-14/F-18 to be replaced by A-4 Skyhawk, A-7 and F-4 while F-15 would be replaced by F-4. Finally, some F-16 might survive but with a high level of attrition while several would have been replaced by F-5 and may be more A-7 (or even captured aircrafts). Finally, Iranian F-20 would probably be F-5 or F-4.