hj786
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Thrust vectoring isn't always an advantage, most aircraft don't even bother with it mostly due to maintenance issues. At this point I believe the TVC rumour mostly stems from fanboy sources.
I recall reading a news article in which it was reported that ex-Air Chief Tanvir M. Ahmad mentioned FC-20 was chosen from "dozens of other candidates" partly due to its "use of advanced Russian engines with thrust vectoring." Can somebody find this news article? Pretty sure its here somewhere, I remember it cos an Indian poster on World Affairs Board was making fun of the Air Chief for saying "dozens of other candidates"... he added a sarcastic comment, something like "a dozen, nay, a double dozen candidates!"
Munir, if it is true, then FC-20 has conformal fuel tanks - I certainly did not know that. Can you tell me more about the implications of this feature? Is it for boosting loitering time or range? Is it to make FC-20 a strike platform (shouldn't this job be done by ALCMs?) or a CAP fighter for defending AEW/Cs, refuellers and other PAF force multipliers from attack (shouldn't this job be done by JF-17?).
(Also, can you tell us anything on the Naar UCAV you mentioned in another post, or do we have to wait for the 2 months?)
Good luck with those exams!Thanks a lot to everyone for appreciating my work. It means a lot. I should have been studying for my exams, but I was hooked onto it for hours (its addictive!).
Not reliable at the moment, waiting to see what Crobato and TPHuang say about it. I dunno, if FC-20 was to have conformal fuel tanks, why weren't they seen on the J-10B prototypes? We have seen everything else though, except perhaps the TVC engines. Maybe the CFTs and TVC engines will come later.Thanks hj786 for posting that. Since you seem to be a frequent visitor to that forum, how reliable, according to you, is this source?
TVC still isn't combat proven, I'd rather see that money sunk into ramjet BVRAAMs like MBDA Meteor and seekers that combine radar homing and IR guidance to get around the problems of both, particularly the ECM problem for radar homing missiles. TVC might give PAF a small advantage in 1v1 fights, but a superior BVR missile will be far more devastating to enemy air forces.If the J-10B does have thrust vectoring, I can no longer think of anything that would give the Su-30MKI an advantage over the J-10B (except for payload and distance), but even those advantages can be mitigated through numberical deployment and A2A refuelling.
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