Venezuela's ambition to join the small club of nations capable of producing their own combat aircraft appears to have stalled, two years after the Venezuelan Air Force first declared its intention to build its own aircraft manufacturing plant.
In December 2006 the air force announced that it had begun planning to build an aircraft production facility where trainer aircraft and possibly other types of combat-capable jets could be manufactured. However, General Norman Seip, the senior official responsible for US Air Force activity in Central and South America, said those plans appear to have come to a standstill. "I see no indigenous capability coming out of them," he told Jane's at a 12 January Pentagon press briefing.
Venezuela continues to suffer from a lack of quick and assured access to spare parts and timely maintenance: problems that might have been reduced by the establishment of an indigenous production facility.
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