ACE OF THE AIR
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Well no military would provide actual details as public information till those are declassified. What is available in the Press is what we can get online. PDF tries to find some sort of reference to what is being said is true hence the source. Usually the sources are true only to what they can officially report. Many times media cell of MOD has to come and get some news edited as they did not want some part to be made public.I just hope that you will not get offended by my replying to your post and also will result in a healthy, logical discussion. My apologies if you mind anything.
Now I am new to this forum so I do not know what used to occur years back. But from replies and posts which I have read recently, what I think is that there is some type of low esteem issue. I have read how indians trolls on PDF, how they copy paste stuff from internet and than start chest thumping and most guys I think have never even seen a radar screen in real life or how those avionics work or have used the stick in cockpit other than fiddling with their own. So they basically do what they can at best do, matching specs provided on public internet and trying to fathom which is better. With indians trolling and chest thumping especially after Rafale purchase (I can just imagine how much chest thumping they would have done for Su-30 from this), this inability to respond had turned into a desire for some to some how get a jet they can also chest thump about and they want a Gripen or a EFT or a Su-35 or even a J-10. For some, may be mixed with patriotism, it has turned into such anguish which they are now venting out against PAF. I have come to conclusion that there is no point or use in trying to argue against it.
Case is point: After lot of non-coherent replies and refusing that he considers any issue with F-16 and skirting providing any thing concrete in terms of operations against buying F-16s, this volatile guy in the end mentioned: F16 has done it and its era is gone .Only way F16 will be relevant if it comes with SABR (which is not happening). The issue basically is they need to have some AESA or some 'advanced' avionics with public data available on net which they can throw in the face of indian trolls and do some chest thumping of their own.
Now about what you mentioned about Pakistan not buying EFT, or M2K or Rafale, I think we'll just keep going in circles but I ask you a simple question to ponder on. If fire control radars in fighter aircraft were so much pivotal than why everyone is trying so hard to build highly agile and capable dogfighters?
If EFT was such an excellent fighter that it can eclipse every other fighter than why is that EFT pilots feel so much proud of their 'virtual kills' against F22 that they proudly display these on their jets and Rafale guys actually released a couple of videos on net too about it. Putting your 'virtual kills' on jet before that was unheard of and not practiced before that. If F22 guys also start putting their virtual kills of EFTs, Rafales,F-16s etc there will be no place left on those jets. But the case in point, the jet which most probably accumulated most 'virtual kills' against F22s were neither EFTs or Rafales, they were F-16s of USAF aggressor squadrons.
In terms of radar and BVR combat, jet fighters fire control radars come on a lower rung than other radars it does not matter if they are AESA or MESA in range, in better detection as well as better ECCM, they are on a lower rung. E.g. in Becca vally air war, most Israeli fighter even did not turn on their radars and relied on their AWACS for targeting data for BVR solutions mostly trying to shoot in side along engagements. But even than with such an overwhelming advantage in BVR regime against an airforce which practically had no BVR range capability most of kill occurred in VWR combat.
In short to wrap this up. In 90s, we needed to induct a lot of jets preferably with BVR capability and Mirage 2k was way to expensive and beyond our financial means and also in VWR combat is at best comparable with our older Mirages (actually performed slightly lower because of becoming more heavy) and far below F-16s. So a way was found by purchasing older Mirages and upgrading them.
Rafale, we have already evaluated and did not find it to be a good fit. Its too expensive with higher service hours and lower sortie rates. Its also short legged without its drop tanks, depletes more energy in dogfights which can result in problems in VWR combat if that gets dragged for some time. Basically it is a good long range fighter bomber and that is why IAF is inducting it, without drop tanks it is more like a Mig-29 just a point defence/base defence interceptor albeit with excellent radar.
Companies that manufacture defence products or for that matter any product would only tell certain features so that an interest can be created. The actual performance would only be disclosed when proper training is imparted.
What the Indians are doing is nothing new it happens every where in the world. What I have is the best what you have is junk. To prove a point they have to find what ever source they can get but that must be restricted to the point where it shows superiority over the other. Those sources that compare critically and highlight the defects or short comings are usually posted for the sake of defence from the side who's product has been termed junk.
Public data on AESA is still very limited because this technology is very new and is being guarded. This does not indicate that PESA can not do the same task. This reality some how is very difficult to digest.
The basic concepts of Aerodynamics do not change be it a first generation dog fighter or fifth generation. The thing is since the Korean War WVR is being replaced by BVR (Theoretically) hence what we saw then was missile were being developed and with that the airborne radars. Today we have reach a point where life of a pilot is too complex because he / she must rely on computers then on instincts. Why did they go to this point is the Western World found the true cost of a mans life. Now the answer to your question is Pilots are required to fly out of situations where they have got primary flight instruments and flight controls and all their high tech computers have failed or are giving more trouble that help. This is where the true potential of a pilot and machine comes to reality.
The point regarding virtual kill is laho garam rakhne hai aik bahana. They know they have not gone to an actual war and would not go in the future so we should just put these virtual kills to our name so that one day when our children ask what did we do we can show them these.
In the 90's we could not induct aircraft but we should have upgraded our existing aircraft like we did later on. Very true we did add Mirage fighters in the 90's but ROSE upgrade was done much later. Any ways we should take positives from this and build mechanisms so that we do not make the same mistakes in the future.
We evaluated all aircraft including the EFT, Rafale, Gripen, Mig-29 and SU-27. The best aircraft in these was the EFT but at that time it was held very advance. Some times one has to see what else can be achieved in the long run. The French offered PAF avionics for the JF-17. These however would have increased the cost. The EFT would have given EJ200 engine to power the JFT but EFT itself was too expensive for PAF to operate at that time. Gripen was equivalent and it had a US engine that was not for export. The only option for engine remained the Russians through the Chinese. All other solutions regarding avionics and weapon systems were to be made locally or through collaboration from other countries hence giving Pakistan a much wider scope. Hence today the possibility of exports have increased exponentially provided the costs remain low.
We know F-16 block 52 would have given a boost to counter India but for some reason we may not see them coming to Pakistan in the short run. PAF if it is trying to do what it successfully did with the Mirages in the 90's and 2000's can not do the same with the F-16's what now.