Chinese air to air missiles

Blitzo · 2025-09-14T00:06:40-0400

lcloo said:
PL-15 will still be used by PLAAF/PLAN-Aviation until (1) they've depleted all inventory and (2) they've upgraded all their fighter jets to adopt PL-16.

PL-15 may still be produced in small scale to meet requirement of export orders, especially to Pakistan AF (J10CE and JF-17), and other operators of JF-17. However, if all foreign users of PL-15 have upgraded their fighter jets to use PL-16, that will end PL-15 production.

Third scenario is PLAAF stop using PL-15 and China stop producing PL-15 right away. All existing inventory of PL-15 be kept in reserve to meet requirement of foreign users. Admittedly, this is very unlikely to happen.

TK3600 said:
The "make use of full capability of PL-16" argument also apply for PL-15. We know for a fact some older plane could not make full use of PL-15, but can still use it. At minimum PL-15 is better than PL-12 even without the full capability. Same argument apply to PL-16 vs PL-15.

At this stage I don't see a reason to believe that aircraft that can accommodate PL-15 would need an upgrade to accommodate PL-16.

For the ranges that these missiles are operating in, they should be network centric by design at this stage and all the aircraft that we know can currently operate PL-15s should already be running datalinks that are rather high end and should comfortably accommodate PL-16, I imagine, and at most may just need some lines of software loaded.

But I would be surprised if a hardware avionics or radar upgrade is needed.

Wrought · 2025-09-14T00:19:35-0400

lcloo said:
PL-15 will still be used by PLAAF/PLAN-Aviation until (1) they've depleted all inventory and (2) they've upgraded all their fighter jets to adopt PL-16.

PL-15 may still be produced in small scale to meet requirement of export orders, especially to Pakistan AF (J10CE and JF-17), and other operators of JF-17. However, if all foreign users of PL-15 have upgraded their fighter jets to use PL-16, that will end PL-15 production.

Third scenario is PLAAF stop using PL-15 and China stop producing PL-15 right away. All existing inventory of PL-15 be kept in reserve to meet requirement of foreign users. Admittedly, this is very unlikely to happen.

PL-16 is not available for export, and will stay that way for the foreseeable future.

lcloo · 2025-09-14T00:24:00-0400

Wrought said:
PL-16 is not available for export, and will stay that way for the foreseeable future.

So that mean production of PL-15 will be continue in small scale as long as ther are demands from foreign operators, and if ther are new buyers of JF-17 and J10CE, the demand will be there.

phrozenflame · 2025-09-14T08:50:10-0400

They could keep some buffer BOM stock, on top of existing back up stocks and call it a day on PL-15 production. This could happen around the time when a more advanced variant of PL-16 or its next gen is ready. That means they can just get foreign customers to move up the chain to the export version of base PL-16 in the future.

Its not like PAF will suddenly run through its stock in 1 week and even if such scenario arises, there would be plenty of back up stock sitting in China that theyd be happy to replace locally with PL-16s rather than sitting there gathering dust.

Chinese air to air missiles

Blitzo

General

Wrought

Senior Member

lcloo

Major

phrozenflame

Junior Member