From just my few years of observation only, China seems to be pretty disciplined in retiring equipment at the planned time and keeping said equipment up to date until retirement, it’s very impressive that they can stick to the plan right from the start all the way through the entire life of a program, and it of course means China gets full value for money.
J-10 Thread IV
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
PLA is just being cheap.
Not sure where you ot thsi from, but there are still several „original J-11As/Su-27SKs“ in service and NOT all „the Bs are all getting upgraded to BG standards“, in fact we have maybe just 2-3 Batches.
My mistake, It seems there are still around a dozen Su-27SK/J-11As according to scramble but I believe it might be out of date, since apparently the 41st brigade has been switching to J-20s since late 2023 and none of the J-11As last sighted past June 2023, Potentially meaning that by now the 41st probably has switched mostly to J-20s. So there's still the mysterious 16th brigade but I couldn't find anything on them other than they operate J-11Bs as well. Also I'm assuming the upgraded 2-3 batches other than the one batch that was just built as BGs are the oldest airframes? It would make sense if they will also do the same upgrade on the newer airframes when the their are due for their MLU soon?
Where was this?
Don Muang RTAFB, 88th aniversary of RTAF airshow
~Posted something horrendously stupid! Sorry! Nevermind!
well, some airframes might be retired before airframe life is exceeded. If i am not mistaken, some of the Q-5s were fairly new, like 15 years old, and they were still retired. E/F models being produced from late 90s into early 2000s, all suddenly retired in 2017 or so.
At some point, it simply doesn't make sense to retain a logistics line for a type if there are too few airframes in service. Also, some airframes can simply be too useless.
Also, AFAIK all J-8 but the recon types have been withdrawn from use.
At some point, it simply doesn't make sense to retain a logistics line for a type if there are too few airframes in service. Also, some airframes can simply be too useless.
Also, AFAIK all J-8 but the recon types have been withdrawn from use.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I think there is a good chance they won’t bother to upgrade the radar even for planes with descent hours left in the airframe.
The PLAAF is hardly short of BVR shooters these days, so a few more or less AESA radars really isn’t going to make any meaningful difference either way.
It would probably make more sense to MLU those early J10As for better precision strike capability and focus on defensive suits and datalinks.
With modern datalinks, those J10As can still be useful in a near-peer big BVR fight relying on CEC for targeting and just serve as missile trucks.
I would say having more dedicated strikers will make a much better difference than adding the same number of AESAs to the PLAAF’s already massive and rapidly growing fleet of AESA equipped fighters.
Yes, I know that technically the J16 is the strike fighter, but for a significant, if not the majority of strike missions, a more ground attack focused J10 will probably do the job just as well, freeing up the J16 for more high end jobs that it will be much better suited for instead of just your bread and butter drop some LGBs/JDAMs here ground attack missions.