First there is no harm in appreciating the real ones who designed and created the aircraft i..e Chinese. China make FC-1 without trainer to lower the development Price. Second Pakistan haven't ordered a Trainer, but China is developing trainer to get more orders in international market. And third Simulator aided the pilot for safer training, and for practicing, lowering the training price and lowering the maintenance and increasing the TBO of the aircraft, and is not the MUST, but a necessity for the Airforce, for new pilots training. and LCA tejas don't have a Simulator.
Tejas is not just a Plane, but the whole program, aiming to create the whole ecosystem in the country, and creating an aircraft from zero to 4+ gen fighter plane with 4 critical technology also from the scratch like FBW, FACEEC, Composites, and Turbofan Engine will take at least 35 for any country. Do you know the Budget of Tejas is well inside 1.25 Billion and which country manage to crate the 4th gen fighter plane by first creating the institution that do so.
Developing a fighter plane in house is long and difficult process, but its fruits come with great benifits. Many of us didn't realize that Tejas is present in the Jaguar Darin-2, and Mig 27 Upgrade program, or the EW suite of the MKI, which was produced for the Tejas.
1. You didn't quoted me specifically, but you was somehow challenging everyone that Simulator have replace the trainer role in the modern world
2. The AF around the world opted this technique to lower down the training cost, in a safer environment, but Simulator could not replace the real trainer completely till now. Technology have created the Simulator to be more realistic, and now we have the simulator like the DOME by the US, which gives the pilot feels 360 degree realistic environment, and soon the pilot will get the 5D effect also aka feel of gravity, g-force etc. This will lower the training cost, but still I feels trainer whould always be there, to give the Pilot to give the realistic feel, and not the feeling, and the output of the simulated values by the simulator computer, based on the data feeded for a fighter plane.
3. It was not the PAF, but the Chinese who is interested more in the trainer version, because the aim of the Chinese for JF-17 is the export.
4. I think the realistic date should be 2017-18. For LCA trainer version which is a Superlative LIFT also, could be used in the wars for CAS mission, which is also an advantage, and another advantage could be that it could be easily used for the pilot for training of MKI, whose controls gauge, and instruments could be MIMIC with the glass cockpit of the LCA trainer, thus increasing the TBO life of MKI.
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