JF-17 Thunder / FC-1 Xiaolong

[Vladimir79]

Pakistan is not stupid. Most of the money that Pakistan uses to buy the weapons from US are donated by US itself. If anything, yankees are the suckers in this relationship.

Or maybe the US knew good and well Pakistan would be buying weapons to use against India. You ever think about that?

 

[johnee]

Or maybe the US knew good and well Pakistan would be buying weapons to use against India. You ever think about that?

Yep, I thought about it. US uses Pakistan against India. China uses Pakistan against India. Pakistan is, of course, more than happy to be rented by these 'super powers' against India. US has agreed to be a sucker as far as Pakistan is concerned so that they could contain and control India. Otherwise, US hardly had any handle over India other than Pakistan.

 

[bhramos]

It wont happen, India cant be pinned up by US using Pak.
as India wont either Accept US to pin down China using India.
India will not bow to any nation for their use.

 

[ZOOM]

No actually as compare to US China is more willing regarding tech transfer. No matter how good US fighters are USA is not reliable, Chinese are reliable in times of war etc. We can have fancy airforce with US help but we can grow with Chinese.


JF17 can be termed as F16 A/B block 25/30 compatible just like IBM compatible which can upgraded. However branded F16 is good for nothing just like branded IBM PC.

For 3rd world JF17 will start an era of unbranded up gradable IBM compatiable aircraft. IBM sold its business but compatible did wonders Dell / Acer etc etc

You can only be judged from the fact that, you are giving computers operating system as a basis to compare two different aircrafts. If you really don't know nothing about technical specification of the aircrafts then stop commenting

 

[ZOOM]

True true true but Pakistan can sell its Junk fighter to any country coz it has the OEM license unlike Bison

Just having an OEM liceance doesn't translate into export of fighter jets. First you need to succesfully domenstrate capabilities of the same as far as Mission objectivities are concerned then only you will have some export success. By the way, How many K-8 jet trainers so far exported by Pakistan? as far as what I know all the 500 of them were exported by china itself and biggest users of the same is none other then Egypt after china.

I don't see any war between India Pakistan in near future but i see wars in Africa Middle east and other other countries.

Oh so what make you see wars in Middle east and other countries? since there is no other place in the globe much more warprone then Pakistani soil.

 

[ZOOM]

Well in JF17 we are learning from scrath.

What are those learnings? please specify, so far I have seen all Pakistani dignitaries sporting themselves right in front of JF-17 and paintaing a test aircraft into National colours to flypast them during national day.

In TOT China can cancel the TOT license but in case of JF it can not

why don't you take some hard work in rechecking your comments?

JF17 airframe is alot better than F7

Once again, please specifiy specifications which makes them a lot better then F-7s, because we aren't firm believer in Pakdef forums myth.

 

[F-14]

the JF-17 thunder is a descent the abolished MiG-33 project and the Botched Super-7 upgrade program by Grumman during the the heydays of the Peace Pearl project the courtship that followed the Nixon era love story between the Dragon and eagle

the Following has is a Copy paste from wiki

In 1984 the latest export version of the Chengdu F-7, an extensively upgraded form of the F-7B and designated F-7M Airguard, were released. It incorporated Western avionics such as head-up display (HUD), IFF system, multi-mode radios, ranging radar and weapons-aiming computer, as well as a more modern ejection seat, two cannon in the fuselage, two more hardpoints under the wings and a re-located brake parachute housing.[18]

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) started looking for a new fighter to replace their large fleet of Shenyang F-6,[18] which were approaching the end of their service lives, in the late 1980s.[19] After becoming interested in the F-7M, the PAF initiated Project Sabre II to re-design and upgrade the Chengdu F-7M.[18] [20]

In January 1987, a contract was awarded to Grumman Aerospace of Bethpage, New York, to study and define the Sabre II concept with cooperation from CAC and PAF specialists. The study was completed after seven months and concluded that the project was a financial risk due to very high costs and other options were much more cost-effective, despite the prospects of producing Sabre II in Pakistan and giving the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex more experience and technical knowledge.[19]

In September 1987 it was reported that a 5 month feasibility study had been completed by Grumman, working in cooperation with CAC, CATIC and the PAF, in which the Chengdu F-7M was radically upgraded. Known as Sabre II, the upgrade involved fitting the F-7M with modern Western radar, avionics, engine and a re-designed forward fuselage. It was stated that Sabre II would replace 150 Shenyang F-6 in PAF service. A picture showed that the F-7's nose inlet had been replaced with a solid nose radome and a new pair of air inlets were mounted on the sides of the fuselage under the cockpit.[21]

Under Project Sabre II, considered a replacement of the abandoned Super-7 project by the Chinese, the F-7 airframe was redesigned with angled air intakes on the sides of the fuselage replacing the nose intake. The nose intake was replaced by a solid nose radome to house the avionics from the F-20 Tigershark. The Chinese WP-7 turbojet engine was planned to be replaced with a modern turbofan engine, either the GE F404 or PW1120, to improve performance.[22] The resulting aircraft, designated F-7M Sabre-II,[23] would have looked much like the Guizhou JL-9 (or FTC-2000) jet trainer / fighter aircraft.

The Pratt & Whitney PW1216, an afterburning derivative of the J52-P-409 turbojet producing 16,000 lbf of thrust, was also proposed for installation on the Sabre II. The engine's afterburner was designed in China.[24] [25] Fitting the APG-66 radar was also planned.[26]

Project Sabre II was terminated in 1989, due to the breaking of relations between the U.S. and China after the Tiananmen Square protest. The PAF decided on a much less expensive solution for replacement of the F-6, the Chengdu F-7P Skybolt, an upgraded version of the F-7M Airguard. The F-7P fleet was to be supported by a fleet of over 100 advanced F-16 Fighting Falcons from the United States, 40 of which had been delivered during the 1980s.

In March 1990 it was reported that after being rejected by the PAF, Sabre II had been superseded by the Super 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JF-17_Thunder#Origins_-_Project_Sabre_II


the Thunder is an evolution of the J-7 Skybolt (the PRC variant of the MiG-21F-13)

 

[Vladimir79]

True it is assembled and only 20% made in Pakistan. However as per plan 40th aircraft will be 58% Pakistani made


May be but 250 or more will be a good force.


True but 250 plane will do some damage



I doubt that


Not true coz refueler tankers from Ukraine have been inducted


No matter how poor u say it is, but it will be replacing Mirage A5 and F7, i think this fighter is better that those

No tankers have been inducted. They aren't coming until late 2010 and even then they will be 25 years old.

250 sounds like a nice number but they are going to be the backbone of PAF and a weak backbone at that. With up to 130-180 MMRCAs, 60 MiG-29SMT and 280 Su-30MKIs coming into IAF, this JF-17 fleet will be nothing but target practice.

Pakistan should have held out for straight induction of J-10 and ordered more F-16s if they really wanted to get serious.

 

[Singh]

Members please keep the discussions on topic.

 

[qilaotou]

JF-17 is a good investment by PAF that needs replacement for its Q-5s and J-7s. The plane has been developed on parameters specified by PAF. Pakistan owns 50% stake and will get their investment back soon because a number of countries are interested to induct the fighter. According to the agreement PLAF will induct 150 FC-1s. Perhaps the FC-1s can be used to replace Q-5s in China.

PAF will have a production rate of 10 per year in addition to the 50 they ordered from Chinese production line.

 

[IBM]

What ever it is . Wheather Pak has assembled or made but they still manage to make good fighters.Sadly, India still testing its prototype LCA, no news of MRCA ,with no good trainers , we are loosing our bigggest pride SU30. There are already 2 crashes in this year. who's to blame
1) Pilot ?
2) Lack of trainers ?
3) Red tapism ?
4) Corrupt leaders,middleman,beaurucrates ?

It's a shame, despite of money available to India . India has not able to keep the same pace of modernisation as Pak does.

Somebody has correctly said,"Too much democracy will hamper your progress".

India is doing nothing but making its enemy stronger and i fear the worse in future.

 

[fulcrum]

Thunder or Blunder?

Thunder or Blunder?

Pakistan has witnessed new defense acquisitions in this decade than any other, and in the center of it all is the new fighter which was designed by China with partial finding from Pakistan. It is formally known as JF-17 Thunder. When the fighter was in development, Pakistani online communities were jumping with excitement comparing it with it’s arch rival India’s modern combatants Su-30MKI, Mig-29S & Mirage-2000H. There were claims of it featuring western Radars and long range missiles, & Chinese ordering some due to its superior capabilities. But the reality is far from it-

China having spent significant amount of money into a fighter which it is never going to use most probably forced Pakistan to accept its avionics to offset some its development costs. Chinese who are known for their self reliance first and quality next, are further downgrading JF-17s capabilities with their poorly copy-pirated avionics. Along with their dubious weapons, any chance of JF-17 maintaining BVR edge over its adversary’s frontline combatants, for the most part, is unlikely.
Even in close combat JF-17 lacks what it takes to win the fight. It’s wings bearing resemblance to a fighter which china knows inside out, the J-7, doesn’t have wing twist nor does it have enough area to provide a low wing loading. It’s performance during low speeds and high alphas would be very dangerous for the pilot indeed. It has a Maximum G loading of only 8, as claimed by PAC. It’s thrust to weight ratio is another negative point. When it’s arch rival, the IAF, was overtly critical and severely blasted HAL’s Tejas for having a low Thrust to weight ratio, maybe they should have compared it with JF-17 which has even less, even with Emergency thrust. The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex(PAC) proudly displays the RD-93’s “Combat thrust with afterburner“ as 19,200lbf, while the whole defence community knows RD-93’s thrust is 18,300lbf and the only real thrust increase was achieved with it’s new re-designed Sea wasp RD-33MK engines- which has been explicitly stated by Klimov. However, Klimov’s RD-33 series 3(whose avatar is RD-93 with re-positioned Gear boxes) has a provision for emergency thrust which Klimov says can produce 8700kgf(~19200lbf) in their official released document. They further state that as “Take-off emergency mode”. So the mentioned thrust can only be used during take-off where the Air is denser, and also only during emergency situations since it would seriously lower the engine’s lifespan. This is a far cry from PAC's “Combat thrust“ claim. Why this is being stated is because, the engines(bought by the Chinese after pressurizing the Russians) are the only non-chinese & non-pakistani component, and even there they have lied about its capabilities. Hence the true -lower than published- specifications of Chinese and Pakistani components are open to any one’s guesses. In any case, the close combat capabilities of JF-17 is below average or average at best.
The next Achilles heal is JF-17’s speed. For a good interception, speed is an important criteria. However JF-17’s max speed is Mach 1.6 which is claimed by PAC. This indicates that JF-17 is draggier. When compared, their F-7’s has higher speed of mach 2+ with a lower thrust engine. The IAF fighters which it is going to face, all have speeds greater than the Thunder.

So why is Pakistan still inducting more and more of this fighter, which it’s critics increasingly call it Junk Fighter – 17 ? The answer may lie with Pakistan’s recent trauma & it’s psyche. Having sanctioned by the U.S, the star of their airforce, the F-16s were severally hit by lack of spares and most of the time grounded. The other 2 sources to procure modern Aircraft- Russia, have been sealed off due to the legacy of Soviet era friendship, current market in India & India’s pressure- and the other source, the European Union, for their ridiculously high costs. The third source, the Chinese, at that time were still flying their reverse engineered Mig-21s. In those circumstances, “Never again” was the motto of PAF and it instantly jumped into the project of further reversing the reverse engineered Mig-21, known as Super-7(a.k.a Super F-7) to obtain self reliance. The result of that project is the JF-17. So the decision was appropriate at that time, in those situations. However now with China having developed the J-10, and going by the recent reports of offering ToT to Pakistan, one wonders why are the Pakistans still ordering 250 planes. Is the trauma of F-16 sanctions so high that they don’t even trust the Chinese? This can't be the case because they still need the chinese to procure the RD-93 engines for them, even after the Chinese transfer all their associated JF-17 tech to PAC. So why...? The answer lies with their ego/psyche rather than the trauma. Unlike J-10, Pakistan shares copyright to JF-17 and that, for some weird reason, gives them something to celebrate about. This is strange for the reason, war machines are for fighting wars and achieving tactical & strategic objectives, not for gloating about who holds the copyrights. When JF-17 comes face to face with MKI or SMT, there won’t be much to celebrate about it, or the few millions if at all it earns though exports. In the end, it’s all about defending ones homeland from the enemy, and not copyrights.

JF-17 would have been the best fighter and a sensible decision in the absence of J-10, but now its reason for existence is as absolete as the fighter itself. This writer would rather have an upgraded Su-15TM or a Mig-23MLD than a JF-17 anyday.

 

[thakur_ritesh]

Pakistan is a country known to shoot their own feet, or cut the same branch that they sit on, or bite the same hand that feeds them, so is there any wonder they are into procuring 250 jets which do not have a radar, a stable engine, and avionics that are not even worth mentioning.

Guess what, the online community does not even talk about the jf17 anymore, they are anyways too preoccupied with the conspiracy theorists!

Committing blunders is the name of the game in Pakistan!

 

[sob]

Fulcrum,

Could you please let us have al link to the article.

Many of the points in your posts have been up for speculation for some time.

 

[Quickgun Murugan]

Pakistan is a country known to shoot their own feet, or cut the same branch that they sit on, or bite the same hand that feeds them, so is there any wonder they are into procuring 250 jets which do not have a radar, a stable engine, and avionics that are not even worth mentioning.

Guess what, the online community does not even talk about the jf17 anymore, they are anyways too preoccupied with the conspiracy theorists!

Committing blunders is the name of the game in Pakistan!

You are right. You will never get to know the actual facts for any Chinese fighter. Chinese technology are always over-hyped and we would get nothing which is near the truth.

If anything, their J-10 lost to Mig-29 tender for Burmese fighter tender. Even an Airforce as inexperinced as Burmese understand that they are Junks in front of technology as proven as Russian or Western. But, Chinese are known to copy very stable air-frames. So, if not anything, we can rely that JF-17's airframe is good.

Imagine pakistan, which technically wont even be operating a genuine 4th gen plane until F-16 Blk-52 arrives, is not happy with the avionics accompanying this JF-17 and J-10. That speaks volume of how crappy Chinese avionics and engines really are.

Pakistan has to brag about this Junk fighter because they have no other option but to embrace it. The way they were celebrating an Assembled JF-17 coming out of their PAC speaks how under-developed they are in the field of modern aviation.

You will hear volumes on F-22P frigates and JF-17's and J-10. All B.S. On top of it they claim their J-XX would be operational before Pak-Fa. If they don't see Pak-Fa, from which model will they copy . They don;t even have a 4th gen engine as yet.

 

[jakojako777]

"Thunder or Blunder?"

I suggest "Thundering Blunder" as name

 

[anoop_mig25]

never underestimate your enemy specially if it`s china from whatever i know china has at least developed a working engine of fighter plane which is heart of any fighter plane. this is going to help them in there next /new development fighter aircraft.regarding avionics they might develop in future.our Indian tegas is still dragging its feet over it`s engine. if we cannot develop heart for our tegas than whats` use of developing brains because brain`s requires blood which is pumped by heart. so untill we develop a good engine our so called development of indigenous fighter plane would remain incomplete.

 

[fulcrum]

.. totally forgot about this topic.

Could you please let us have al link to the article.

Many of the points in your posts have been up for speculation for some time.

That's my article. And to lay the speculation to rest here are my references:

PAC lies exposed:

That's their official published specs of JF-17. None of the info can be verified because they and their copyright-thief friends are the manufactures.. that is, except for the engines. Here is the klimov's published specs on RD-33 where it says the take-off emergency thrust, not "combat thrust"(as PAC claims) is 8700kgf. That translates to ~19200 lbf. http://klimov.ru/f/download/press-kit/2100054687/2100054340/ That thrust can only be used during take-offs where the Air pressure near the ground is more/dense.. also it is to be used only in an emergency as using it often means- good bye engine life. That is a far cry from the lie which PAC tries to project as it passes it off as normal after burner thrust.
Now since they lied on the specs of their engine, who knows what the other true specifications of the blunder is.

 

[Armand2REP]

Guys, the RD-93 doesn't have the performance being stated. RD-93 wet thrust is 8,301kg or 18,300lbs.

http://www.deagel.com/Fighter-Aircraft-Engines/RD-33_a000909001.aspx

Now, when you fill the JF-17 up with fuel and only add two SRAAMs on the wing rails she weighs 20,000lbs. That already gives it a pretty shitty T/W. If you try loading up some bombs or fuel tanks to push it past 26,000lbs you are talking about a flying brick. The low wing lift and low T/W requires afterburner just to take off with a combat load. If she wants to do any manuevers with a serious armament she will need more afterburner making the internal fuel load of 2300kg disappear real fast giving it a pathetic combat radius. Needless to say the avionics are crap. Thunder Blunder seems to be the right nickname for this piece of junk.

 

[mattster]

Guys, please dont jump - but based on the looks of the airframe, the JF-17 kinda looks like the LCA doesnt it ??
I have to admit the LCA does look better.

As for the weight, I suppose the LCA is probably lighter. But both would qualify as 3+ generation fighters ??

I seriously doubt that the LCA is a match for the latest F-16 block 50-60 even though everyone here claims it is.