JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread

[adeptitus]

There have been many countries from Indonesia, Azerbaijan, to even Turkey considering the JFT(as many folks in PAF call it), it seems to me that the main hurdle is Russia's engines. Obviously Russia does not want to help China&Pakistan sell these aircraft to potential Russian customers.

Indonesia is buying 16 x KAI TA-50 combat trainers, and paying 20% R&D cost for KAI KF-X with future order of 50 aircraft. Turkey is buying 116 F-35's, with local assembly under license. Turkey is also working on future TFX fighter aircraft.

The issue with FC-1/JF-17 is that countries that would buy it as their primary fighter aircraft tend to be poorer nations, versus richer ones can afford better. It's possible that the JF-17 missed the trainer & combat trainer market demonstrated by the T-50/TA-50. While richer countries may prefer to buy more expensive and capable aircraft, they may also have been interested in a 2-seat trainer/combat trainer variant of the JF-17, as being more modern design than the K-8.

 

[Qasim57]

Turkey was reported to be having problems with it's F-35, something to do with Americans refusing to allow Turkey to modify anything despite being a top-tier partner. Turkey designed their new ALCM to fit within F-35's internal bay, but with their relations with Israel really souring up, the F-35 deal and the level of modification Turkey is offered, is a major "carrot" for the US to hang in front of Turkey. Here is a post from another sister forum on this exact topic:

Well Turkey was known to be in talks with South Korea for the F/A-50 project(which converts their advanced trainer into a lightweight fighter). It was reported in the Turkish media that the Koreans weren't offering more than 20% of the project's share to the Turks, due to which Turkey started talks with Sweden to develop the JAS-39 Gripen further.

Both these aircraft(JAS-39 and F/A-50) are comparable with the JFT so this could be a real option for Turkey. If we analyze these options from Turkey's perspective, F/A-50 and JAS-39 Gripen are more advanced than the JFT in the current form. Both of these have American avionics, engines, missiles, though Chinese tech is catching up it's still not superior to US tech. However, Turkey has also seen it's F-35 participation being used to coerce Turkey to make up with Israel, and their leadership definitely wants to maintain some independance from the US.

It's also important to keep in mind that US spying hardware was discovered in sealed F-16 components(that Turkey isn't allowed to open/modify without voiding contracts) after an F-16 crashed, and that's another reason to move away from having everything be US-dependant.

I think the critical component in Turkey going for the JFT is, how far this aircraft moves ahead in future Block-2/3/JF-17 NG variants. PAF officials have previously talked about how, even before Izmir, Turkish officials very warmly welcomed them and showed great interest in the aircraft. I remember an interview from Farnborrough where the PAF official talked about the level of interest in Turkey, and how presentations were scheduled to be made on the way back from Farnborrough during their stay at Turkey.

Given Turkey's differences with Israel, spending billions on either of their other options(Korean F/A-50 or JAS-39 Gripen) seems a little risky - who knows what kill-switches they embed in US avionics, if Turkey faces aggression from Israel again.

 

[CottageLV]

Turkey was reported to be having problems with it's F-35, something to do with Americans refusing to allow Turkey to modify anything despite being a top-tier partner. Turkey designed their new ALCM to fit within F-35's internal bay, but with their relations with Israel really souring up, the F-35 deal and the level of modification Turkey is offered, is a major "carrot" for the US to hang in front of Turkey. Here is a post from another sister forum on this exact topic:

Turkey has a high end military industry complex? What can they offer to the JSF program?

 

[challenge]

all US make equipment not just military,but CNC machine tool,telecommunication equipment do carry "trojan horse" solfware.
UAE F-16 block60 carry special solfware design to shut down the entire aircraft power supply,if flew to close to israel.

 

[CottageLV]

Of course, apart from just sit back and hand over money, like the Indians are doing in the T-50 program.

 

[CottageLV]

all US make equipment not just military,but CNC machine tool,telecommunication equipment do carry "trojan horse" solfware.
UAE F-16 block60 carry special solfware design to shut down the entire aircraft power supply,if flew to close to israel.

That's probably true, I'm sure all exported high tech weapons, doesn't matter if its American, Russian or Chinese, must all have some sort of back door mechanism to prevent those weapons being used on themselves. But I don't think it would be used for Israel.

 

[CottageLV]

But wait, what about Tomcats? If those back door mechanism existed, then why did the USN had to shoot down the passenger jet that was mistaken for F14? They could've simply dialed the switch to simply "turn off" the jet.

 

[plawolf]

But wait, what about Tomcats? If those back door mechanism existed, then why did the USN had to shoot down the passenger jet that was mistaken for F14? They could've simply dialed the switch to simply "turn off" the jet.

The Iranian F14s were all delivered before 1979, a decade before the Iran Air Flight 655 incident, meaning that the Iranians had plenty of time to open all the 'black boxes' on the planes and figure out what everything did.

In addition, it is only with the advent of FBW that a full aircraft remote kill switch became feasible (a big a$$ radio antenna on the engines would have looked rather suspicious to most engineers and such devices would have been relatively easy to spot and remove even if installed). Before that, kill switches would have only shut down an aircraft's radar and fire control systems etc. It would not have been combat effective, but you still had to shot it if you wanted to kill it.

 

[Qasim57]

Turkey has a high end military industry complex? What can they offer to the JSF program?

Turkey is a partner on the JSF programme, it means they want to develop certain components like parts of the fuselage and some avionics components. The Israelis get to do indigenous development, even though most of their F-35s are bought and paid for by the US - Israel is a country the size of a large city, without US aid their economy wouldn't be able to afford a decent sewage system let alone billions of dollars worth of F-35s.

The point I was making earlier was, that given Turkey's suceptability to American/Israeli interferance(their midrange F-4s upgraded by Israel, F-16s flying with US avionics that they aren't even allowed to unseal without voiding contracts), Turkey may prefer atleast some of their fighting force to be free from US/Israeli control.

They are investigating the JAS-39 Gripen and Korean F/A-50 fighter, but both these aircraft use engines and avionics that are US-origin. If the F/A-50's radar is US-origin, then the combat missiles on these aircraft would also be US-origin, really crippling in the advent of Israeli aggression. Even the Eurofighter has some US components, which were a problem with the US blocking them if the Saudis bought the Eurofighter(USA wanted Saudis to have an airforce with most of it's fighting force being overwhelmingly US).

 

[plawolf]

I think the mean reason turkey might be interested in the JF17 is in ToT and because of their close relationship with the PAF.

That being said, the JF17 is probably at best only just about on par with the Turkish Air Force's existing F16 fleet. I doubt they would be all that interested in a new built fighter that is only as good as what they have flying already. To get the Turks to commit, the plane needs to be a step up from the F16, and a match against Israel's F16Is and F15s (having fighters that don't shut down at an Israeli broadcast but still get shot down in a fair fight is not much of an improvement for the Turks).

The only fully indigenous Chinese plane that would fit the bill is the J10B. But I can hardly see the PLAAF allowing the Turks (or anyone else for that matter) to buy J10Bs for quite some years never mind full ToT.

That is one of the main constraints with Chinese arms sales these days - the Chinese will never compromise national security to make a quick buck. That presents a problem when the Russians and Euros are willing to offer their very best. This means that even where China has closed the gap and pretty much caught up with the Russians and Europeans, Chinese weapons will still be at a disadvantage on the market because China will be holding it's best toys back, so what they have to offer will be markedly inferior to their competitors.

China will need to surpass the Russians and Europeans by some measure before the weapons systems they offer for sale can match the technology of the competition's offerings. We are still quite some time off from that happening, so don't expect many big deals for Chinese fighters in the coming years.