I think the intent of the OP is also to focus on airforces that have been around for a while, consist of more than a few obsolete fighters, and that have actually been involved in a real war or wars against other air forces. Real Air forces with a significant history, in other words.
I tend to think that Iraq comes close. Incompentent and easy fodder for the British in 1941, incapable of stopping an Israeli strike on its nuclear reserach facilities, a non-factor in the Iran-Iraq war (unless one wants to count the presumably accidental attack on an American warship as a sucessfuly military action), an embarrasment to modern Soviet technology and training in Desert Storm, and an even worse no-show in the second US war. Is there any airforce that acheived less for the money spent on its development?
I tend to think that Iraq comes close. Incompentent and easy fodder for the British in 1941, incapable of stopping an Israeli strike on its nuclear reserach facilities, a non-factor in the Iran-Iraq war (unless one wants to count the presumably accidental attack on an American warship as a sucessfuly military action), an embarrasment to modern Soviet technology and training in Desert Storm, and an even worse no-show in the second US war. Is there any airforce that acheived less for the money spent on its development?
