The Q-5, J-7, J-8 and older PLAAF aircraft

challenge said:

singapore AF F-15 will be fitted with AESA,other countries such as japan,south korea and possible TW may opt for AESA upgrade.
upgraded F-8-2 fitted with conventional mechanical radar will be suicidal for the pilot when confronting AESA equip fighter,.seond the aircraft itself is base on old design,further upgrade for the aircraft will be consider waste of resources.

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I agree that the J-8-II is old and based largely on an obsolete design. But the AESA radar upgrade is not something that would happen tomorrow. By the time that they're done with evaluation, budget, negotiation, budget cut, round 2 negotiation, etc., it'd probably be years before the radar is installed, certified for active duty, and the pilots/techs trained to use them.

J-8-II was incrementally upgraded to support PRC's defense industry, and to compensate for the lengthy time it takes to bring new combat aircraft into service. If a war happened today, you wouldn't have the AESA radar that takes years to develop and install.

tphuang said:

not necessarily. When supported by AWACS and with other fighters around. J-8F could be very useful against F-15s. they really just need to fly in, launch and fly away.

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Indeed, AESA AWAC platforms like the KJ-2000 can more than make up for the J-8H/F's lack of AESA is used corectly. In comparison, Singapore and ROC operate the E-2C which does not have AESA and neither air force will actually get AESA for several more years most likely

Semi-Lobster said:

Indeed, AESA AWAC platforms like the KJ-2000 can more than make up for the J-8H/F's lack of AESA is used corectly. In comparison, Singapore and ROC operate the E-2C which does not have AESA and neither air force will actually get AESA for several more years most likely

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correct me, USN already rolled new version of E-2,call hawkeye-2000,report ed uses AESA .
AESA operated at lower frequency unlike high band RF ,can use existing transistor technology to fabricate T/R.

challenge said:

correct me, USN already rolled new version of E-2,call hawkeye-2000,report ed uses AESA .
AESA operated at lower frequency unlike high band RF ,can use existing transistor technology to fabricate T/R.

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Oh right, the Hawkeye-2000, I was using books as a source yesterday and that were written before ROCAF and JASDF got the superior Hawkeye-2000 only a few years ago. From what I've read what you says is correct, its big improvement over the older E-2C.

A while back I thought I read somewhere that the Bangladeshi F-7BGs are BVR capable and were armed with MRAAMs but recently I have read another article saying that its nearly identical to the J-7G in terms of avionics and only has a range of about 30km, and is armed with only short range missiles. Is this correct?

crobato said:

The J-5 was the first jet fighter China actually started to produce. That would be the MiG-17. Prior to that, MiG-15s had all been imported, but none domestically produced.

The first jet fighter ever imported to China and wore the PLAAF insignia was the MiG-9. That was based on a secret project Messerschmitt concocted in the closing days of World War II. A few of these aircraft are still in some museums in China.

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Actually I think SAC did produced J4 as well, which is Mig 15

yehe said:

Actually I think SAC did produced J4 as well, which is Mig 15

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So did the J-4 exist or did it not exist? I'm still confused over this

E-2D is the one with the electronically steered array, not the Hawkeye 2000. The E-2 2000 is the same as all the previous others but the radar backend is updated with COTS, which gave a big boost in performance and capability.

The radar on the E-2D despite Internet myth, is unlikely to be an AESA.



* Some of the many new features of the Advanced Hawkeye are: A completely new radar featuring both mechanical and electronic scanning capabilities
* Fully Integrated "All Glass" Tactical Cockpit
* Advanced Identification Friend or Foe System
* New Mission Computer and Tactical Workstations
* Electronic Support Measures Enhancements
* Modernized Communications and Data Link Suite

Those key phrase indicates a linear phase array, which electronically scans at elevation but mechanically rotates to scan for horizon.

Nothing wrong with that choice. This kind of radar system is common and well proven for volume air search. AESA isn't efficient---actually crappy---for longer frequency radio wave. The size of the AESA element has to be set about the size of the frequency used. You got problems and the longer it gets the more awkward it becomes because it would require longer and longer elements. Low frequency radar and AESA should not be part of the same vocabulary.

Semi-Lobster said:

A while back I thought I read somewhere that the Bangladeshi F-7BGs are BVR capable and were armed with MRAAMs but recently I have read another article saying that its nearly identical to the J-7G in terms of avionics and only has a range of about 30km, and is armed with only short range missiles. Is this correct?

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I doubt that the radar is BVRAAM capable. As for the range, even a small radar like that should have a range in excess of 30km. I would speculate 50 to 60km is possible using range while search. However, on a track while scan function it should go down to 20 to 30km. If the radar is the SY-80, which operates at Ku band, not like the KLJ-6E at X-band, the range maybe shorter but on the other hand, the resolving and tracking power is even greater.

crobato said:

I doubt that the radar is BVRAAM capable. As for the range, even a small radar like that should have a range in excess of 30km. I would speculate 50 to 60km is possible using range while search. However, on a track while scan function it should go down to 20 to 30km. If the radar is the SY-80, which operates at Ku band, not like the KLJ-6E at X-band, the range maybe shorter but on the other hand, the resolving and tracking power is even greater.

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Well thats the thing, the F-7BG does use the KLJ-6E, the same the Chinese J-7G which as far as I can tell, has an effective range of about 30km. This article says that while the F-7BG had BVR while in the same article only said it had a range of 30km. Then again this article is a bit suspect. After the first few paragraphs its word-for-word copy of this article from a Sri Lankan Newspaper about the Sri Lankan F-7GS

EDIT: Hmmm... thats weird, it won't seem to let me show the link, strange....