JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread
- Thread starter johnqh
- Start date
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Yes, but back then, the entire PLAAF's fighter budget was pretty much all going towards buying and maintaining J7s, J8s since they were the only options available. Today, they have quite a few more other options, which don't exactly come cheap either.
In addition to affordability, there is also the issue of necessity.
Does the PLAAF really need to replace J7s on a one-for-one basis with J10s? Quite clearly that is a 'no'. The J10s are far more capable planes, with much greater range, weapons payload and super in any other performance indicator you could care to use. You simply do not need as many J10s as J7s to provide the same level of defense for the same amount of airspace.
China might have more money, but that is hardly reason to go wasting it. America is richer than China per head and in aggregate, but even they cannot afford to not think about costs (as hard as that may be to believe at times).
Also, lets not forget that even if the PLAAF is dead set in maintaining their current numbers and wants to replace J7s on a one-for-one basis, the J10 and JF17 are not the only options. The JL9 and L15 are also fine candidates as J7 replacements for the air policing role in low threat areas. The plus side is that since the PLAAF would need to shell out for a new AJT anyways, it is very appealing to spend a few $m more per plane to make them fully combat capable as well.
This will enhance their training usefulness, and also allow the PLAAF to just use them for peacetime low threat condition air policing and patroling durties and same on needing a J7 type altogther in their order of battle.
A dedicated CAS JF17 sounds interesting, but it would appear that the PLA cares little about CAS, or else there would have been a far more serious effort into developing a Q5 follow-up, which is what the PLA needs if they want a new CAS platform, since such platforms are best designed as such from the ground up. For CAS, a JF17 is little different from a J10, so there is little incentive in coming up with a new J17 variant to do something the J10 (and JF17 itself) should already be able to do just as well (unless you go for a radical re-design, but in that case, you are probably better off starting from scratch with a blank slate anyways).
I think the issue can be that no nation will depend on one type of fighterjet. If the opponent finds out it weak spot you can forget about winning the battle. But as PLAwolf explains perfectly... Why JF17/Fc1...? There are more options. And with the focus on 5th generation and J10 we can be pretty sure that PLAAF is working on a much better level then we are talking about. There is no airforce in the world that can be seen improving the last 5 years and the next 10 years on this scale.
Talking about JF17 (which is the topic of this thread). I am surprised that we do not have seen any picture of JF17 with IFR. We know batch one is almost completed. 1 or 2 airframes left. Still we see only Fc1 in China going through advanced weapons testing. Where and when is Block 2 tested? I can not believe that it is only paper testing so far. So is there alternative location? Or is that the reason that the production will start in july 2012 and the specifications are only finalized now? And what happened to the dual seater? We have been talking about 3-4 years now. Two years ago the former ACM mentioned that it will be part of the program. As far as I know the strings were financial but what happened in two years?
A new JF17 variant maybe interesting but unrealistic. If you see the jump between the generations then the difference will be big. Surely sugarcoating with AESA, better ECM/MAWS, better weapons will make it good proposal for many nations but do know that the PLAAF and PAF are fighting against adversaries that are second to none. I bet we will see a stealthy and smaller J20 kind of aircraft in 5-7 years time. If F15SE is now being offered to South Korea, USA is pushing South Asia to become the major warzone then China will evolve faster. There is no alternative.
---------- Post added at 01:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 AM ----------
I think the issue can be that no nation will depend on one type of fighterjet. If the opponent finds out it weak spot you can forget about winning the battle. But as PLAwolf explains perfectly... Why JF17/Fc1...? There are more options. And with the focus on 5th generation and J10 we can be pretty sure that PLAAF is working on a much better level then we are talking about. There is no airforce in the world that can be seen improving the last 5 years and the next 10 years on this scale.
Talking about JF17 (which is the topic of this thread). I am surprised that we do not have seen any picture of JF17 with IFR. We know batch one is almost completed. 1 or 2 airframes left. Still we see only Fc1 in China going through advanced weapons testing. Where and when is Block 2 tested? I can not believe that it is only paper testing so far. So is there alternative location? Or is that the reason that the production will start in july 2012 and the specifications are only finalized now? And what happened to the dual seater? We have been talking about 3-4 years now. Two years ago the former ACM mentioned that it will be part of the program. As far as I know the strings were financial but what happened in two years?
A new JF17 variant maybe interesting but unrealistic. If you see the jump between the generations then the difference will be big. Surely sugarcoating with AESA, better ECM/MAWS, better weapons will make it good proposal for many nations but do know that the PLAAF and PAF are fighting against adversaries that are second to none. I bet we will see a stealthy and smaller J20 kind of aircraft in 5-7 years time. If F15SE is now being offered to South Korea, USA is pushing South Asia to become the major warzone then China will evolve faster. There is no alternative.
Talking about JF17 (which is the topic of this thread). I am surprised that we do not have seen any picture of JF17 with IFR. We know batch one is almost completed. 1 or 2 airframes left. Still we see only Fc1 in China going through advanced weapons testing. Where and when is Block 2 tested? I can not believe that it is only paper testing so far. So is there alternative location? Or is that the reason that the production will start in july 2012 and the specifications are only finalized now? And what happened to the dual seater? We have been talking about 3-4 years now. Two years ago the former ACM mentioned that it will be part of the program. As far as I know the strings were financial but what happened in two years?
A new JF17 variant maybe interesting but unrealistic. If you see the jump between the generations then the difference will be big. Surely sugarcoating with AESA, better ECM/MAWS, better weapons will make it good proposal for many nations but do know that the PLAAF and PAF are fighting against adversaries that are second to none. I bet we will see a stealthy and smaller J20 kind of aircraft in 5-7 years time. If F15SE is now being offered to South Korea, USA is pushing South Asia to become the major warzone then China will evolve faster. There is no alternative.
---------- Post added at 01:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 AM ----------
I think the issue can be that no nation will depend on one type of fighterjet. If the opponent finds out it weak spot you can forget about winning the battle. But as PLAwolf explains perfectly... Why JF17/Fc1...? There are more options. And with the focus on 5th generation and J10 we can be pretty sure that PLAAF is working on a much better level then we are talking about. There is no airforce in the world that can be seen improving the last 5 years and the next 10 years on this scale.
Talking about JF17 (which is the topic of this thread). I am surprised that we do not have seen any picture of JF17 with IFR. We know batch one is almost completed. 1 or 2 airframes left. Still we see only Fc1 in China going through advanced weapons testing. Where and when is Block 2 tested? I can not believe that it is only paper testing so far. So is there alternative location? Or is that the reason that the production will start in july 2012 and the specifications are only finalized now? And what happened to the dual seater? We have been talking about 3-4 years now. Two years ago the former ACM mentioned that it will be part of the program. As far as I know the strings were financial but what happened in two years?
A new JF17 variant maybe interesting but unrealistic. If you see the jump between the generations then the difference will be big. Surely sugarcoating with AESA, better ECM/MAWS, better weapons will make it good proposal for many nations but do know that the PLAAF and PAF are fighting against adversaries that are second to none. I bet we will see a stealthy and smaller J20 kind of aircraft in 5-7 years time. If F15SE is now being offered to South Korea, USA is pushing South Asia to become the major warzone then China will evolve faster. There is no alternative.
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
Munir few things are probably more realistic for block 2 than others, it looks like it will have mid-air refueling, linked to AWACSs, carry anti-ship missiles, dual seat is on the cards but right now the urgency for PAF is to get this fighter into sqaudrons ASAP, the final inventory for this aircraft is going to run beyond 200 units for PAF alone if we delay the likes of AESA, IRST and TVC etc for a few years it makes no difference
block 1 was a good start, now block 2 will ramp up to the next level, and since PAF has been training for AWACS and mid-air refueling it will fit in well, and by the time block 3 comes out we could see structural changes, more composites etc etc but again for 2012 block 2 is more than sufficient
although i would still love to see the J10 in PAF colours the likelyhood of that is diminishing as more and more advanced varients of JF17 roll out, although acquisition of the French Rafale may force PAF to re-consider
block 1 was a good start, now block 2 will ramp up to the next level, and since PAF has been training for AWACS and mid-air refueling it will fit in well, and by the time block 3 comes out we could see structural changes, more composites etc etc but again for 2012 block 2 is more than sufficient
although i would still love to see the J10 in PAF colours the likelyhood of that is diminishing as more and more advanced varients of JF17 roll out, although acquisition of the French Rafale may force PAF to re-consider
plawolf
Lieutenant General
The JF17 simply does not have the growth potential or raw performance to match the J10 because of it's smaller size.
A late block JF17 will still struggle against even a blk 1 J10A, and there is nothing even hinted at in the JF17 development roadmap that will make it comparable to a J10B.
If the PAF was concerned about the Indian Rafale buy, then the J10B is the only logical counter, and given how long the Indian contract has been undernegociation and that the Typhoon and Rafale were the stand-out favourates, it would explain the PAF's strong interest in the JF20 aka J10B. The speed of development of the J20 would explain why the PLAAF would allow the J10B to be exported at all, and potentially at the same time, if not before the PLAAF itself gets them.
A late block JF17 will still struggle against even a blk 1 J10A, and there is nothing even hinted at in the JF17 development roadmap that will make it comparable to a J10B.
If the PAF was concerned about the Indian Rafale buy, then the J10B is the only logical counter, and given how long the Indian contract has been undernegociation and that the Typhoon and Rafale were the stand-out favourates, it would explain the PAF's strong interest in the JF20 aka J10B. The speed of development of the J20 would explain why the PLAAF would allow the J10B to be exported at all, and potentially at the same time, if not before the PLAAF itself gets them.
JF17 less then J10A... Maybe in case of the first 50 in certain environments. I think it is a bit overstretched to say that later blocks are less then J10A. Growth potential does not link it to size but TWR. That is my personal opinion but I think pretty much reality. If you can get up in the air and have lots of thrust... You probably can have more. If you talk about J10 having more... Then you should skip and go directly to J11.
antiterror13
Brigadier
I assume you know what J10 and J11 are, no ? J11 IS NOT more advanced than J-10. Higher number (11 vs 10) has got anything to do with sophistication
Late block FC-1 will not have an edge even over J10-A except possibly in avionics. J-10A is more agile due to better aerodynamics. FC-1 will improve in TWR if it uses more composites, but that will just equal to J-10A. The engines' TWR are in the same neighborhood. I see no real basis on your reasoning.
At very minimum, mid life upgraded J-10A will still out class late block FC-1.
J-11, BTW, is less agile than J-10. J-10 is arguably the premier A2A bird of the PLAAF.