A good read, informative article and factually correct for the most part. I brought up similar points in a Pakistani forum and was harrassed and banned over questions such as, "J-10 program was almost identical in time-frame to FC-1, why the hell did we choose this underpowered cold war relic?", etc. I never got any answer worthy of a mention. J-10 even though still behind by western standards, if far superior in any category than the JF-17 Tanduri. Supposedly the Chinese are secretly upgrading the J-10 with PAF help. I doubt this because they didn't need any of our help in making the JF-17 other than offering soft loan poison and taking our hard saved billions.
The author is correct for many reasons when he states that Thunder was inducted in numbers and given big standing ovations because of an ego that needed to be massaged by "indigenous" production label. Far from the case as we travel through many time zones just to receive the engines. Cash is exchanged through 3 different hands just for the heart of the aircraft. The fighter is an absolute disgrace to PAF who were flying J-6, J-7, 40 year old Mirages, etc, Fantan junks, etc. and now have to field something much technically inferior to anything their number 1 counterpart will be inducting in the future. The radar is 3 times less capable than the one in the SU30MKI. Pakistan chose China and now has to stick with this bad decision for dozens more years. We only ordered a fistful of new capable, proven and technically superior F-16 but a dozen squadron worth of sweet and sour scrap metal whose engine is Russian. Our air force managed to maintain a deterrence factor with F-16 even during lack of spares due to sanctions, which shows the quality of this bird. If we are so scared of sanctions, perhaps we should change our policies and duplicitous ways.
