Peace Llama
Chile bought its Tigers under a program called Peace Llama: 15 single-seat F-5Es and three two-seat F-5Fs.[1] The first four landed at Cerro Moreno, outside Antofagasta in the Atacama Desert, on 25 July 1976, the start of fifty years of F-5 flying in Chile.[1] They went to Grupo de Aviación 7, which had flown Vampires, F-80s and Hunters before them.[1][3]
Ready for war twice
The Tigers arrived during tense years with Argentina. One of them, F-5E 813, flew with Grupo 7 for 34 years and was on alert through the crises with Argentina in 1978 and 1982.[6]
Tigre III
For its first twenty years the Chilean F-5 had no glass cockpit at all. Pilots flew it off round analog dials, and a whole generation of Chilean fighter pilots learned the job that way.[4]
By the 1990s the F-5 looked finished, but Chile chose to rebuild it instead.[4] From 1993 the jets became Tigre IIIs in an Israeli-Chilean upgrade, worked on at ENAER by Chilean and Israel Aerospace Industries technicians.[1][6] They got an Elta EL/M-2032 radar, beyond-visual-range Derby missiles, a modern head-up display and hands-on-throttle-and-stick controls.[4] In 1997 they gained air-to-air refuelling, and in 1998 Grupo 7 took its Tigers to the United States for Red Flag.[6] Morocco later gave its own upgraded jets the same Tiger III name.
To the end of the world
When Grupo 7 switched to ex-Dutch F-16s in March 2010, the Tigers moved about as far south as an F-5 has ever been based: Grupo 12, the "Tigres Australes", at Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan.[1][3][5] From there they watch over the Magallanes region and Chile's Antarctic territory.[5]
Chile's F-5s today
About 11 or 12 Tigre IIIs are still flying. On 15 September 2026 the Chilean Air Force said they will retire between 2030 and 2035, with more F-16s or the F-35 among the options and no replacement chosen yet.[2] That could give Chile's F-5s close to sixty years of service.
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