Well - even taking the FC-1 story with a grain of salt and admitting for arguments' sake that it is true (I have seen this 'Izdeliye 33' story from the MiG bureau repeated in multiple places with multiple flavors)
It really doesn't matter what "you have seen"; if it looks like a goat, bleats like a goat and acts like a goat, it's a goat.
Regardless of the not so radically different end result, JF-17's origin is undeniable, no matter how much one wants to deny it.
it is also well known that although the wings were well researched, wind-tunnel tested and in an advanced stage of concept development to counter the f-16 the fuselage was a different story. "The FC-1 is not a direct derivative of the Product 33 design, and while the wings may reflect Soviet aerodynamic data, the fuselage and air inlets represent an entirely rather different configuration."
I myself have been an avid observer of Chinese aviation industry in the last decade, with the evolutionary development of the economical F-7PG and BGI models (with double delta wings) and then JL-9 variants from the original early MiG-21 F13 model from the 60's.
Then they updated the F-7BGI with double delta wings to improve slower speed and turning performance. Glass cockpit and PESA radar added.
And then into the radically changed JL-9 and its many slowly improved variants.
JL-9 (Jianlian 9): Initial PLAAF variant with splitter intakes moved to the sides to separate boundary layer as well as addition of indigenous radar.
JL-9H: PLANAF carrier-trainer variant, DSI Intake a la JF-17, exhausts/wing area/tails/tailplanes all enlarged and refined with full complement addition of flappery/slattery, under fuselage strakes removed. I believe the wing planform re: AOA (angle of attack) was quite significantly changed as well.
Thanks for the schooling but all I heard was, without the MiG-21 & MiG-33 there would be no JL-9 & JF-17.
Now tell me how similar does this look like a MiG-21 F13 to you?
Except for the canted cockpit and inlet design, pretty much the same.
So the upshot of all this is - the Chinese take a cost-effective and evolutionary approach to fighter development,
What I guage from the growth of the chinese aviation industry is, if you want to keep your fighter aircrafts numbers up while simultaneously looking to develop your Aerospace industry, have access to disgustingly large amounts of state money.
Chinese took the easier route, which allows them to induct fighters in numbers while learning some things slowly.
While this method keeps the deterrence up at regular levels and pumps more ACs into their airforce in the short term, it's costly over all, as they were properly able to develop something like a J-10 only after out spending on copies of Mig-21s, Flankers, Tu-16s, etc.
What India did cost IAF a few squadrons but is more cost effective and holistic as it attempted and succeeded in developing a platform to not just be self sufficient from the get go at fighter development but at making a competent fighter aircraft in numbers.
We hope to not pay large sums of money to the Russians to buy their designs to mass produce.
And likewise we have designed the AMCA on our own and this was made possible only because we chose to do the Tejas from the ground up.
equip their own Air Force and also make money by selling it to countries like Bangladesh, Nigeria, Peru, Ecuador etc...
Like the JF-17?
Clearly the PLAAF is inducting those in droves.
at a cost of $7 to $8 Million a copy
I believe the LCA costs around $20 million each?
Of course it is.
Tejas' subsystems are world class, chosen after a thorough competitive bidding between leaders of fighter aircraft tech.
Also, you comparing the cost of a primarily LIFT aircraft to that of a modern multirole fighter is both disingenuous and resorting to false equivalency.
There is no Indian equivalent.
Correct, there is no Indian equivalent as both Marut and Tejas are standalone platforms and not copies.
Only costly 'made from scratch' boast platforms, some of which see success, some don't.
Marut was inducted and so is Tejas, I don't know what quantifies as "success" if that doesn't.
As for being "costly", not true. Explained below.
And incidentally, these platforms all made with majority foreign parts.
True.
Which are being replaced every year with indigenous ones.
Accusing the Chinese of copy-pasting can apply salve to the wound of ineptitude, but should one be happy with this? Spending precious money from the state coffers with nary a concrete result to show.
Accusing?
Like you said, let's call a spade a spade.
A copy is a copy, is a copy.
As for precious monies.
I suggest you look at the total cost of the Tejas program, which comes to around north of a billion dollars, that is far-far-far less than most modern fighter aircrafts out there, in fact criminally less.
The chinese
spent absurd amounts of money for the chinese analogues based on the tot they got from the Russians, we otoh
spent time to make our own new aircraft.
While I understand the need for you to just brush past the Tejas development process to confirm your own bias, do realize that the Tejas is inducted with a completely normal fighter aircraft timeframe and if that ain't concrete who knows what is.
Although Kurt Tank (of Messerchmitt fame) did develop the Marut fighter for India back in the 1950's - when Chinese aviation industry was even less developed than India.
True.
However china also had & has more money than India which allowed it to engage in costlier practices.
From that point onward most of India's developed fighters could have followed from that example, but solely remained "adopted foreign platforms" or outright purchases,
We'd rather buy large numbers of competent fighters and develop only one fighter aircraft from the ground up and become independent later on than make several copied ones at inflated prices with nigh negligible difference between them and the original with very little scope of learning.
Also, I am sorry but most of chinese fighters are the "adopted foreign platforms", ALL Indian ACs otoh have been completely new, from the scratch systems.
but sadly with none of the evolutionary traits that Chinese aviation industry has shown and had adopted.
Evolutionary? Really?
They basically undertook small changes on already available platforms that were R&Ded beforehand by someone else.
Evolutionary would be a wholesome and cost effective approach through undertaking a completely new platform to develop an Aerospace industry and not just populating your air force.
Almost every country that has R&Ded a fourth generation fighter aircraft has done it like India has.
Let's call a spade a spade, brother, the record could have been better.
With the resources that were provided to the relevant agencies, it is but better, you not choosing to see it is not really an argument.
