Low-cost, muti-role aircraft for small militaries

Miragedriver

Brigadier
Re: New life to older aircraft

The Swiss have performed two major upgrades of their F-5E fleet, along with South Korea and Taiwan. Of course these national also already owned the aircraft in their inventory, which made the upgrades easier. Even Brasil acquired F-5E from Jordan and upgraded with Israeli avionics
 

Pointblank

Senior Member
Re: New life to older aircraft

There is only so much you can do to upgrade and refurbish older aircraft until the costs of refurbishment outweigh a newer, similar aircraft due to replacement of fatigue items and corrosion. Furthermore, there may be issues with parts obsolesce; certain parts may be so obsolete, that there is no real replacement out there except to custom fabricate the component, which is costly.
 

Kurt

Junior Member
Re: New interceptors for the Argentine Air Force?

It seems like the Tejas will never really “get its act together” additionally the GE404/414 engine could be a problem with possible sanctions.
If we are talking small combat aircraft then the JF-17 could counter the F-16 to a certain extent.
Based upon an early post we discussed the Mig-29 K/M version but the Su27/33 would be a better bet. This is what I suggested in the upgraded Mig-29. I mentioned this one because of the rough field capability over the Su-27/33. Some type of superiority fighter is required to counter the F-16. As a novice to aviation strategy and force mix (I do not have your level of knowledge or information) I am having difficulty understanding your concept. I comprehend that you made a recommendation for high-end raptors, but I do not understand the LCA you are proposing that is an existing commodity in present day. Not a probable aircraft that could be developed and utilized with outside help. But an existing aircraft that could be co produced under license, or assembled from parts and modified to meet the local requirements of low density combat in high ECM electronic environment

The low-density force could be an indigenous cooperation with Brasil on the MFT-LF. The strike element can be a mix of IA-58 and the Tucano.

Sorry its late and my English is deteriorating.


As for the JF-17 some characteristics are exaggerated in wiki (if that is your source). It's in the same action range as the Tejas and Gripen due to the construction inherent characteristics, but on the lower end in power per weight due to a weak engine. Even in price range it does reflect the Tejas and is about half a Gripen.
I do lack data for exact evaluation, that must be done by fighter pilots, but I can boil it down to a suitable light fighter as the necessary limited bombload is bought cheaper by other means. There are no technical reasons against a JF-17, only fear of political repercussions and I'm in no position to know enough in order to correctly judge on that.

The Su-27 was an earlier conclusion when I had not fully delved into the logistic problems of a limited and remote war from Argentine defensive requirements of their core. I still had my mind tuned to European and Asian conditions where we sit core to core and fight from and for these. With better supply lines the range and capability of the Su-27 makes sense, especially if you have oilfields and crude processing capability like Venezuela. From this earlier posts I carried on with the electronic warfare, fighter-capability, action range, naval aircraft- and STOL requirements, but finding out the logistic problems convinced me that I had to modify my opinion concerning the weight class and only the light types were viable options in a mix with heavy COIN-aircraft bombers (range, load and weather), not something as heavyweight as a Flanker.

The Raptor is haunting me. Look at a map, the distances are vast and the forces are tiny that does create low force density with only a few soldiers spotted all over the landscape in surviveable equipped groups. That's characteristic for all of Latin America and the reason why COIN-aircrafts are their choice. What I tried to suggest is a mix of Pucara-level bombers (the very cheap JSF replacement) as a low part to a high part that works as interoperational protective fighter the "so-called-mini-Raptor" for Argentina. The core requirement for the fighters and the bombers to be able to mix is interoperational cruising speed. Additionally, the force should be networked with the bombers serving as missile trucks and target acquisition through the superior avionics of the fighter. A two seater version of the fighter spersed in between will help with data processing for the whole flying group.

For example: 3 single seat fighters, 1 twin seat fighter helping with data processing for the group(electronic warfare, target solutions and such) and 8 single seat bombers could form a group of twelve with an action radius of 500+ km.

The more kilometers the better, because targets are spread out and the F-16 has a 500km reach. The single seat bombers cruise close to their maximum speed and slow down to engage in ground combat while having low transport costs for the ordnance. That significantly ups the bombload while keeping costs lower than for a big bomber of which just 4-6 could carry out the same mission.
Unlike you, I'm not convinced that India can be dismissed just like that. While China does have good stuff, it has one major drawback for a weapon importer: They are embargoed. A major import from China can backfire by hazardizing the supply lines for all Western supplied equipment, a proposition Argentina can never afford. For these political reasons China is a most questionable source for major military investments. They are a suitable source for weapons subsummized under assassin's mace area denial and some electronics. Using a Chinese airframe requires at least indigenous manufacture and a tacit US-approval.
China can have the best engineers in the world, but a small country like Argentina can not risk the lead in buying Chinese stuff when they are under scrunity of two conflicts with good US allies like UK and Chile. If Brazil buys Chinese and Argentina bandwaggons things are OK, but never on their own.

Concerning India and the Tejas, you have to realize that the journalists reporting about the Tejas lack some basic knowledge about India. The Indians never say no, are very polite and never admit to seeing problems, especially to foreigners. Still they got their act together and developed the Tejas, an outstanding design, although I'd modify the air inlets for lower observeability and less pressure reduction. It's normal that every Indian aircraft will face a staggering report of problems in foreign news journals that per ounce of aircraft weight outperforms the JSF. That doesn't mean it won't fly.
Argentina still has lots of time and might even buy the Tejas design (that is outstanding!) for indigenuos airframe construction with Israeli supplied avionics and a free market engine. Building at home does have a major impact on strength as you can do it on your own with less recourse to supply dependence (that haunts Iran for example). The monetary export for acquisition gets much reduced and the labour skills at home are brought to a higher level. Both measures increase the defenseability of a land and require different calculations of costs as much of the investments into these machines will be paid back via taxes of the workers when building and after construction due to higher skill level reflecting ongoing other employments.
 
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Kurt

Junior Member
Re: New interceptors for the Argentine Air Force?

Looking at the Argentine air force, there are 63 outdated fighters, interceptors and ground attack aircraft to replace. These are split over various types that make maintenance extremely expensive and the best course to replace them with something that uses the same airframe and engines for all 60 replacements. The 30 modernized Pucaras are the element best suited to fighting under these conditions and should be modernized and retained.
The JF-17 doesn't appear to be development beyond the A-4 except for some tweaks and it most certainly is in no way a development that outclasses the Tejas despite being in the same price range.
Looking at the history of this programm you see the evident troubles of such weapon imports from China. The European avionics suit was impossible to get and airframe and avionics had to be separated in development. US companies left existing development contracts because of the embargo on China and Russia did join to provide special know-how. All the development was done by the PAC with Chinese help at the costs of 500 million dollars. For the current 50 aircrafts this is 10 million dollars development per airframe. The delivery was second choice because the avionics were not state of the art European nor was the engine that makes this fighter very weak in thrust to weight ratio. The development costs were mostly for a normal light fighter airframe without US cooperation as promised.
I mentioned that before, you can go for China as a military hardware supply source, but then you need a more complete range of deliveries t pay off for the political costs of that move. JF-17 highlights a botched attempt at that as it was not clear to Pakistan what trade-offs they would have to face.
You don't need the Tejas airframe, but it highlights a very important development of reduced number of components by a factor of 90% and light composite construction. That's exactly what can be best maintained under these rough environmental conditions. Same goes for the engine, Gripen made some modifications to the F404 (the standard for light fighters) for simplicity in order to keep it better operational.

Argentina can make a choice: India+Russia (plus Israel) or China (minus Israel) as Russia seems increasingly unlikely to have the same cooperation level with China as with India. Russia alone has a lower cooperation level with Western military technology suppliers than India that due to longstanding and stable political tradition is allowed to combine Russian and Western derived technology. Israel has a US alignment and has been reminded of the implications that limit cooperation with China, especially on US-sensitive issues like fighter avionics.
Complete reliance on Western military supply sources is simply a bad idea for Argentina because they are locked in a conflict with Chile and the UK that can go violent with each and in alliance.

I don't know what complete package China can offer at a bargain price that is about more than fighters. It would most certainly include the next aircraft carrier and amphibious warfare ships/ferries complete with escorts, a range of area denial technology(missiles, surveillance) and the amphibious assault equipment for the ground forces.

Going for India by contrast offers a solution that makes the military supply less hostage/aligned to one partner. As mentioned before, doing business with the Indians is very tricky with lots of well-hidden problems. The best option is to only import know-how and some prototypes. Argentina is on an economic and technological level not inferior to Pakistan or Sweden and I have little doubt that they can modify the air inlets of the Tejas and add good vertical thrust vectoring. It's always been easy to get India and Israel to cooperate on something and Israel is pretty much the top avionics source, except China, for Argentina. The JF-17 and the Tejas offer themselves for a direct comparison of the development of two countries that are almost identical in their problems of making promises that can't be kept and hiding problems. More than twice as much investment went into the Tejas airframe than into the JF-17 airframe with the JF-17 representing a solution of past technology for a light fighter and the Tejas taking the lead into the future. The JF-17 has no carrier component and will need modifications for naval operations unnecessary for Pakistan.
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is a blog post with interesting comments on JF-17 and Tejas worth reading.

The true potential of the Tejas needs some more tweaks for the thrust vectoring it is designed for in order to fully outclass the F-16, the other specific design requirement. I'm not sure about the air intakes, but if you look at the HAL Marut(indigenous development by exiled German team) and the HAL Ajeet(license production and development), there might be some established Indian tradition to it that is slowly changing (just like Americans using trapezoidal wings or the Euro-canards).
marut-1.jpgAIR_LCA_Tejas_2_Views_lg.jpg56-BMTC_Flight_cropped.JPG


I have no doubt that China can deliver Argentina something like the Tejas reliable on time at the same costs as the rather dated JF-17 or a weaponized L-15 design that can be shot in droves by the F-16, but what are the political consequences, how will these affect Argentina and what are actual total costs due to repercussions?
 
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Miragedriver

Brigadier
Re: New interceptors for the Argentine Air Force?

Kurt thank you again for taking the time to connect the dots, for me, with respect to the raptor issue. We can now put that topic to rest. I would like to retouch two previous topics we talked about earlier; the carrier issue and the Tejas.

In regards to the carrier I agree with you that there are certain elements in the Navy that still dream of the grand fleet with an aircraft carrier as the flagship/center piece of the armada, and then there is the rest of the military that sees a vessel of that size as a target to sink and therefore a liability. I can see the advantage of having a carrier to project airpower into the South Atlantic and the Pacific, and I believe we talked about the possibility of acquiring a refurbished US Tarawa Class amphibious assault ship as an inexpensive option, or tag along with South Korea’s carrier program. The acquisition of a carrier would require the Navy to invest in more support ships to protect the asset. However in weighing the advantage between a carrier and submarines I will lean more on the side of the submersible. The submersible is a great force multiplier (there is currently a submarine arms race occurring in Asia) and the lessons are still being learned by the sinking of the South Korean frigate a few years ago. Submarines can be used to deny the enemies invasion force the needed supplies to advance and divert their resources to locating them. Submarines do require a very well trained crew to function properly. However, a carrier also requires a very well trained crew all choreographed to perform the additional task of aircraft launch and recovery. They also require a substantially larger crew, supplies, maintenance and payroll. Granted you will not be able to project power beyond the coast with submarines, but you will deny the enemy access to your coast and make him pay dearly within your territorial waters. One last note, the last carrier Argentine operated was the Veinticinco de Mayo. The carrier was seldom used due to its high operational cost and extensive engine problems, and had its last real usage during the 1982 war.

I still have trepidation over the Tejas on several levels. I do however understand your comment that nothing is ever as good or as bad as advertised. With that in mind please let me express my concerns and we can review the items in questions individually. The first in the long time frame that the aircraft has undergone in development and the numerous setbacks that have popped up along the way some of which include: the development of the indigenous radar system which has caused delays (started in June 1991, with a probable date of completion of 7-years, and now 15-years in development) and was eventually scraped in favor of the of the EL/M-2032. The unresolved issue of the Kaveri engine and the use of the GE F414 turbofan for the initial production run. If the Kaveri engine is eventually refined it will cause additional delays in the rework for the engine refit; The Fly-by-wire system went through several designs and required assistance for Lockheed, and after the embargo, from Dassault.
I do NOT want to say that this is a bad aircraft, or not capable as a 4+ generation aircraft. It is just disconcerting to have and aircraft with so many difficulties placed in front of it. It makes you consider possible difficulties in obtaining parts, timely resolution to design flaws, support, and acquisition cost due to delays and most critical; the actual quality of the construction of the aircraft is the workmanship. Russian technician assisting HAL in the construction of the MiG-27s where appalled at the poor quality of workmanship, including the tools and part that where inadvertently left in the aircraft after construction. This caused the parts/tools to fall and find their way into the engine compartment and cause catastrophic engine failure. One way to prevent some of these short comings is to obtain a license to co-produce, or assemble from knock down parts. However, then the reliability of the supply pipeline comes into question. The Yugoslavians and the Romanians developed the J-22 relatively quickly and in secrecy from the Soviet Union (granted it was a simple aircraft, but still a remarkable feat). The Taiwanese developed the AIDC-FCK quickly with help from Lockheed, but then again the Tejas obtained design assistance from Dasault.

The Tejas is a good aircraft as you say, but it appears to be heading in the same direction as the Maurt, or will near an obsolete design by the time it enters full scale production. In addition to all this the estimated cost has risen from $US20 million to $US31 million (still low compared to the Gripen) and could leave India with an unaffordable solution to its MiG-21 replacement. All this feeds back into the overall programs lifetime costs and overall viability.
 
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Miragedriver

Brigadier
Re: New life to older aircraft

There is only so much you can do to upgrade and refurbish older aircraft until the costs of refurbishment outweigh a newer, similar aircraft due to replacement of fatigue items and corrosion. Furthermore, there may be issues with parts obsolesce; certain parts may be so obsolete, that there is no real replacement out there except to custom fabricate the component, which is costly.

Thank you! I guess I was being delusional as to the investment required in an old airframe. I was just trying to think along the Israeli style of upgades and with a 3rd world "don't throw stuff away mentality.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Re: New interceptors for the Argentine Air Force?

okay, I'm going to have to address this one. And I'm saying all of this as not a big fan of JF-17.
Looking at the Argentine air force, there are 63 outdated fighters, interceptors and ground attack aircraft to replace. These are split over various types that make maintenance extremely expensive and the best course to replace them with something that uses the same airframe and engines for all 60 replacements. The 30 modernized Pucaras are the element best suited to fighting under these conditions and should be modernized and retained.
The JF-17 doesn't appear to be development beyond the A-4 except for some tweaks and it most certainly is in no way a development that outclasses the Tejas despite being in the same price range.
JF-17 is quite a bit cheaper than Tejas and is in PAF at much large number than Tejas in IAF (which has yet to achieve FOC). JF-17 is 25 million each at most. China can get that cost down to $15 to 20 million if it goes with domestic engine and strip down a couple of things. You can't get cheaper than that for a plane of its class.
Looking at the history of this programm you see the evident troubles of such weapon imports from China. The European avionics suit was impossible to get and airframe and avionics had to be separated in development. US companies left existing development contracts because of the embargo on China and Russia did join to provide special know-how. All the development was done by the PAC with Chinese help at the costs of 500 million dollars. For the current 50 aircrafts this is 10 million dollars development per airframe. The delivery was second choice because the avionics were not state of the art European nor was the engine that makes this fighter very weak in thrust to weight ratio. The development costs were mostly for a normal light fighter airframe without US cooperation as promised.
That's nonsense. The development cost is already paid for and it's not going to be on new units, since it will get spread over hundreds of orders from PAF and other air forces. The avionics have never been a problem. The original one fit all of PAF's requirement and the following radars are only going to get better. The cockpit for JF-17 looks more modern than that of LCA. As for engine, it's not JF-17's fault that it has more talented designers and can get better aerodynamic performance out of a less thrust engine than the one LCA has.
I mentioned that before, you can go for China as a military hardware supply source, but then you need a more complete range of deliveries t pay off for the political costs of that move. JF-17 highlights a botched attempt at that as it was not clear to Pakistan what trade-offs they would have to face.
What political cost, there hasn't been any delays in delivery. Where is LCA?
You don't need the Tejas airframe, but it highlights a very important development of reduced number of components by a factor of 90% and light composite construction. That's exactly what can be best maintained under these rough environmental conditions. Same goes for the engine, Gripen made some modifications to the F404 (the standard for light fighters) for simplicity in order to keep it better operational.

Argentina can make a choice: India+Russia (plus Israel) or China (minus Israel) as Russia seems increasingly unlikely to have the same cooperation level with China as with India. Russia alone has a lower cooperation level with Western military technology suppliers than India that due to longstanding and stable political tradition is allowed to combine Russian and Western derived technology. Israel has a US alignment and has been reminded of the implications that limit cooperation with China, especially on US-sensitive issues like fighter avionics.
Complete reliance on Western military supply sources is simply a bad idea for Argentina because they are locked in a conflict with Chile and the UK that can go violent with each and in alliance.
There is no political issues with JF-17.
I don't know what complete package China can offer at a bargain price that is about more than fighters. It would most certainly include the next aircraft carrier and amphibious warfare ships/ferries complete with escorts, a range of area denial technology(missiles, surveillance) and the amphibious assault equipment for the ground forces.
Let's just talk about aerial weaponry for JF-17. China can offer SD-10A, PL-9C, PL-10, C-802A, CM-802AKG, LT-2, LS-6, FT-1 to 5. There is no shortage of A2A, A2G and A2S weapons that can be offered with JF-17.
Going for India by contrast offers a solution that makes the military supply less hostage/aligned to one partner. As mentioned before, doing business with the Indians is very tricky with lots of well-hidden problems. The best option is to only import know-how and some prototypes. Argentina is on an economic and technological level not inferior to Pakistan or Sweden and I have little doubt that they can modify the air inlets of the Tejas and add good vertical thrust vectoring. It's always been easy to get India and Israel to cooperate on something and Israel is pretty much the top avionics source, except China, for Argentina. The JF-17 and the Tejas offer themselves for a direct comparison of the development of two countries that are almost identical in their problems of making promises that can't be kept and hiding problems. More than twice as much investment went into the Tejas airframe than into the JF-17 airframe with the JF-17 representing a solution of past technology for a light fighter and the Tejas taking the lead into the future. The JF-17 has no carrier component and will need modifications for naval operations unnecessary for Pakistan.
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is a blog post with interesting comments on JF-17 and Tejas worth reading.
Why would Argentina need a carrier? And how is livefist, an Indian military blog, proof that JF-17 si better than LCA. PAF chief can say the same thing. Have you read about all of the trouble they've had in getting Tejas achieve its design flight performance? What do you think the actual tested maximum g and speed that LCA have reached? Go through some of the threads on LCA in AFM and DT and take a look.
The true potential of the Tejas needs some more tweaks for the thrust vectoring it is designed for in order to fully outclass the F-16, the other specific design requirement. I'm not sure about the air intakes, but if you look at the HAL Marut(indigenous development by exiled German team) and the HAL Ajeet(license production and development), there might be some established Indian tradition to it that is slowly changing (just like Americans using trapezoidal wings or the Euro-canards).
View attachment 6995View attachment 6996View attachment 6997
Great, now TVC is a magical pill that will fix all of Tejas' problems. And developing a couple of low level trainers means you can develop a world class fighter jet?
I have no doubt that China can deliver Argentina something like the Tejas reliable on time at the same costs as the rather dated JF-17 or a weaponized L-15 design that can be shot in droves by the F-16, but what are the political consequences, how will these affect Argentina and what are actual total costs due to repercussions?
You know absolutely nothing about what China can develop. This is the among the most ignorant posts related to Chinese aircraft platform I've seen on this forum.
 

montyp165

Senior Member
Re: New interceptors for the Argentine Air Force?

By this point the EU/US military embargoes are utterly irrelevant to Chinese military exports, as Chinese companies are perfectly capable of providing the entire spectrum of modern AA and AG weapons along with avionics et al on par with whatever the west can provide. To claim otherwise betrays far too much ignorance about fundamentally self-sufficient capability of Chinese arms procurement.
 

Pointblank

Senior Member
Re: New interceptors for the Argentine Air Force?

By this point the EU/US military embargoes are utterly irrelevant to Chinese military exports, as Chinese companies are perfectly capable of providing the entire spectrum of modern AA and AG weapons along with avionics et al on par with whatever the west can provide. To claim otherwise betrays far too much ignorance about fundamentally self-sufficient capability of Chinese arms procurement.

However, can the Chinese provide full product support throughout the life of the product, assuming good political relations? The Chinese haven't really exported advanced military hardware until very, very recently.
 

montyp165

Senior Member
Re: New interceptors for the Argentine Air Force?

However, can the Chinese provide full product support throughout the life of the product, assuming good political relations? The Chinese haven't really exported advanced military hardware until very, very recently.

Chinese product support is already better than what the Russians have been doing for the past 20 years, and the Pakistanis (and Iranians for that matter) certainly aren't complaining about the support issue with their latest purchases either.
 
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