Lots of shady missile deals went down in West Asia/North Africa in the 60/70s. Somewhat related: Israel was collaborating with Iran on missile projects but allegedly planned to deceive them by providing outdated missiles while using Iranian funds to develop superior versions for themselves [0].
The wonderful book "Rise and Kill First" is a history of Israeli assassinations, with their policy of going after the "head of the snake". There are some interesting sections on how Israel used assassination to inhibit missile programs in the Middle East, including Egypt. Its a pretty easy read despite being long.
Summary: Egypt was going to develop an indigenous fighter in the 1960's based off of a mostly finished Spanish design by a post WWII otherwise unemployed Willy Messerschmitt.
I First heard of the project via a pretty good youtube documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqIpJuqvsWQ Messerschmitt's Remarkably Good Supersonic Fighter (Not A Pound For Air To Ground)
somat
If you want an interesting related story that's so incredible people wouldn't believe if it was a film plot, look up Otrag. Not the Wikipedia page, that only tells a fraction of the full story. There's a documentary floating around somewhere about their work in Zaire under Mobutu before they started building ballistic missiles for Gaddafi.
pseudohadamard
It's easy to throw stones, but who among us hasn't lost a key missile scientist at some point or another?
firefax
A concerning number of stateside scientists working on hypersonics have died or vanished under questionable circumstances in a rather short timeframe recently.
comments (10)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Flower
doughnutstracks
ecshafer
Summary: Egypt was going to develop an indigenous fighter in the 1960's based off of a mostly finished Spanish design by a post WWII otherwise unemployed Willy Messerschmitt.
I First heard of the project via a pretty good youtube documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqIpJuqvsWQ Messerschmitt's Remarkably Good Supersonic Fighter (Not A Pound For Air To Ground)
somat
pseudohadamard
firefax
It's probably nothing, I wouldn't look into it
monster_truck
bookofjoe
https://www.intelligence.org.il/?module=articles&item_id=16&...
tzury
expedition32
r721