I think you take it personally. It was not my intention to make anybody angry at all.
and as far my little knowledge reminds me in current era I cant see any airforce developing or designing aircraft. Air forces normally issue the requirements and 2-3 contenders come up with something and then air force decide witch option to chose and develop further.
and regarding PAF developing an a/c its a fact whether its due lack of infrastructure or any thing else i can do nothing about it, its just a fact.
capabilities of JF-17 that is totally different story. its main puropse was to replace ageing fleet of ours in a most cost effective way.
to force india on table was not the purpose.
If our nuclear arsenal and missile programme did not bring india on table i dont think any thing else in this world can or will bring india on table.
these were my humble thoughts. I didnt mean any harm to anybody. I think we should respect each others tought.
A good post and worthy of praise.You have countered a senior member with a decent argument and without calling him names which is commendable. Mastan khan has views which are different from ours and sometimes we agree and sometimes we dont.
Thunders uniqueness stems from the Active involvement of the airforce rather thanb pilots alligned to an industrial complex. Even Smaller countries with an aviation industry do not do that. So whetehr he likes it or not, it is unique.
Its purpose is to replace PAFs ageing fleet of 3rd generation fighters which have seen better days and now desperately need to be replaced. It is an economical 4th generation replacement fighter, which unlike our ageing fleet has potential to grow. It may become a bit more expensive as the toys we want get put into it but still cheaper than any western fighter that PAF could have gotten. It is a testament to our poverty that we are still dependant on aid from US inspite of deep mistrust existing between the two goverments and even more so in the Pakistani masses. We are being forced to look at refurbished kit to tool our forces.
As far as I know the debate of heavy vs light fighters pertains to the area that needs to be defended. In EUs case, all the fighters have been designed with the cold war in mind, so UK has typically gone for heavy weight fighters with lower sorty rates but longer loitering time.Sweden on the other hand has devised a smaller plane with initially 7 hardpoints keeping this point in mind. talk to the Typhoon jockeys and the plane they are afriad of is the Gripen. They say it is difficult to see and the link system is the best in the world. During the 65 war we had a hard time against the Gnats again smaller fighters than the Sabres and therefore difficult to find .
Looking at the US it has a combination of single engined and double engined fighters .this is an economical step. F15s have ruled the skies for 50 yrs now.If the heavy fighters were all that one wanted we would never have had the f16s at all. Performance wise we see that f16s have had a venerable record, better than the f15s and F18s. So what does that tell you. The chicken hawk is not so chicken after all!!
With the advent of AWACs in the area, there may still be role for a sole runner like the MKI, but to say that we will all keep mum and stay in bed just because the MKI is out is not true. Longer mission time means more on board tanks and more ammo, but at the end of the day you only need one hit from a missile to account for you. So is mastan sayng that Thunder is so bad that it wont be able to score a hit on an MKI , I dont think so!!!
So this talk of "MKI is the big daddy" is all right on paper but with smaller distances, and a short sortie time, with good radar cover, how good will this big daddy be is something that will need to be seen.
Mastan has given you a list of F16s, M2K9s and J10s. Of those only the f16 is worth having. now. M2K9 is a good plane no doubt but its assembly line is shut and it is maintenance heavy and spares will never be cheap with the french unless you have them by their balls. I think J10 also has yet to mature and I suspect is still not for sale as it is fillling the desperate need for planes in the PLAAF. So where we are now is perhaps the best that we could have done.I think contrary to what mastan writes that we have got our hands on a little gem that needs to be utilized and matured to its full potential. It really will turn out to be a massive hit .
Araz
Anyways I was expecting a better post from you since you are a senior member. We know JF-17's capabilities and it's drawbacks and we also know about our rival. And I believe we are going in the right direction. We aren't going to fight United States Air Force. Do we?
