JF-17 Thunder Multirole Fighter [Thread 6]

[SQ8]

high-end AESA radars increase the cost by 3-5 Million $ per aircraft, If 150 gets in production 450-750 million dollars are required. I think it is worth it but I don't know it is unavailability of the AESA radars to Pakistan or negligence of PAF officials

No, the cost is incorrectly calculated. the radar has its cost, the changed required to fit the radar has its costs, the integration time and labour has its costs, the testing of the fit has its costs. The training of personnel to service the radar has its costs.. and so on.

 

[PK_Patriot]

No, the cost is incorrectly calculated. the radar has its cost, the changed required to fit the radar has its costs, the integration time and labour has its costs, the testing of the fit has its costs. The training of personnel to service the radar has its costs.. and so on.

Heard china is modifying AESA radars for JF-17 thunder, I don't know how much successful the project is but if you buy a massive quantity of AESA like 200. Such costs are covered along with it !

 

[SQ8]

Heard china is modifying AESA radars for JF-17 thunder, I don't know how much successful the project is but if you buy a massive quantity of AESA like 200. Such costs are covered along with it !

Nope. China and other nations all have AESA on offer.. and issue is not modifying AESA. Also, costs for 200 radars are going to be prohibitively expensive. Essentially you are asking the PAF to spend its entire budget on JF-17 AESA.

 

[PK_Patriot]

Nope. China and other nations all have AESA on offer.. and issue is not modifying AESA. Also, costs for 200 radars are going to be prohibitively expensive. Essentially you are asking the PAF to spend its entire budget on JF-17 AESA.

Cost of 200 AESA radars are not bigger than 1 billion $ even less which is less than a metro project. I am finding the article in which cost of AESA radar is written as 3-5 Million dollars per unit. But some aircraft like Grippen-39 NG with AESA radar is ~40 million dollars each without TOT

Nope. China and other nations all have AESA on offer.. and issue is not modifying AESA. Also, costs for 200 radars are going to be prohibitively expensive. Essentially you are asking the PAF to spend its entire budget on JF-17 AESA.

Found the article overall upgrade of 136 F-16 block 52 is costing 1.1 billion dollars including AESA Source: Raytheon Radar Wins S. Korea Fighter Upgrade | Defense News | defensenews.com

 

[Viper0011.]

What a difference would a couple of extra stations make.....thus an extra drop tank and a second c-802.

Add diamond-cone nose to it. This thing would look very good. Do you have more real pics with BVR's inflight?

 

[gambit]

Gambit.
Thank you for your extremely informative posts. MY question is an elementary one.and to my mind if there is a mechanical way of carrying the missiles closer to the wings the pressure on the wings and possibly the RCS could be reduced. The mechanism would then unfold(to the normal position) prior to firing the missile. Why do planes not adapt this and what would be the technical difficulties in achieving this.
Response would be appreciated
Araz

We are experimenting with enclosing ordnance into weapons pods, if that is what you are asking. The F-15SE and the F-18 are test beds for that. Does not matter if the ordnance is missile or bomb, as long as there is a way to safely and quickly discharge the load, the issue is more finance than engineering.

SNAFU!: F-18 Pod Carry Weapons Graphic.

There is a catch, though. The enclosure must be robust enough to carry the weapons load, which may cut into how much weapons load originally the aircraft or wing can carry. It is not 'if there is a mechanical way' but 'if there is money to develop the idea'.

A lot of RCS measurement needs to be done on a clean aircraft as baseline. Then a fully loaded version must be measured. All radar viewing angles must be done. Then from the clean model, we begins to incrementally load it with external stores, which includes fuel and weapons, measuring as we go along.

Here is where things get complicated, as if it has not been complicated enough already.

Remember, external stores includes fuel and weapons, and for the latter, we have air-ground and air-air, which affects how much external fuel do we want to carry. If we load one external fuel tank, how much is the aircraft's RCS is raised in percentage to the fully loaded version ? If the elevated RCS is within 50 %, for a rough example, to the fully loaded version, then you must ask yourself if a weapons pod design is worth it at this point. If only one external fuel tank and you are within 50% of the fully loaded version, then how much closer to the fully loaded version if you install two wing weapons pod ?

Remember, even though the weapons pod will reduce the RCS of a load of missiles/bombs, you will lose one or two missiles or bombs for that RCS reduction. Instead of 6 missiles, may be you can carry only 4. Instead of a pair of 350kg bombs, may be you are reduced to a pair of 250kg bombs. Instead of 12 small diameter bombs, may be you down to 8. Instead of 2 runway denial bombs per wing, you are now down to 1 per wing. And for a runway denial mission against enemy base, two bombs per fighter are not going to cut it.

Here is a cluster of Durandals on one wing of one F-111...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/F-111_with_Durandal.jpg

Remember, practically all fighters are multi-role today. What if with one external fuel tank and a pair of weapons pod, which may contains missiles or bombs, you are now 75% of the RCS of the fully loaded version, which can carries two external fuel tanks, two clusters of small diameter bombs, and four missiles ? Can you accomplish your missions with this reduced configuration ? If you answer no, then financially speaking, it is not worth the development time and cost. Your test fighter is now limited to half of the original load but is 75% of the RCS of the fully loaded version. Not worth it, in my opinion.

So if is is as simple as enclosing the weapons into a pod, everyone would have done it a long time ago. Instead, because the aircraft was not designed with RCS control tactics in the first place, you have to perform these measurements and all sorts of tactical calculus to see if the reduced RCS is worth the effort and money.

You can bet your next year's salary that everything I said above, competent engineers and military officers have already thought it out. All they need are the facilities and the aircrafts to verify their math. Unfortunately, not every country have the technical resources to back up their mental ones.

 

[syedali73]

My understanding of @araz question is as follows:

Most munitions have wings and fins, and are hanged on the pylons. The hight of the pylon (from the under wing surface) would differ depending on the size of the wings/fins of the munition intended to be hanged. The wings/fins (of the munition) plus the pylons, plus the distance between the munition and under wing surface may contribute to the RCS. Is it possible to design munitions with foldable wings/fins, so that they could be hanged on shorter pylons closer to the wing, which may possibly reduce the RCS.

I don't know if a missile with foldable wings/fins would contribute to lower RCS. However, missiles with foldable wings have been designed but the purpose of these foldable wings is to accommodate the missiles in the inner compartments (bays) of an aircraft (usually of 5th generation), which obviously results in lower RCS.

Following is Russian X-38 missile with foldable wings and fins.

Following is a Russian R-77 with foldable fin. However, I have not seen any picture of R-77 hanging on a pylon of an aircraft in this configuration.

 

[shanis]

Nope. China and other nations all have AESA on offer.. and issue is not modifying AESA. Also, costs for 200 radars are going to be prohibitively expensive. Essentially you are asking the PAF to spend its entire budget on JF-17 AESA.

My dear friend ... if we have to spend once entire budget on JF-17 for AESA ... then i think we have to do ... because
Simple exp hai ...
kabotar ki tarha ankhain band kar laay or sochy k koi nahi dhek raha

will not good for us now ... all country right now have AESA in their aircrafts except us ... so if we have to match with them then have to think and have to work on AESA.

 

[SQ8]

My dear friend ... if we have to spend once entire budget on JF-17 for AESA ... then i think we have to do ... because
Simple exp hai ...
kabotar ki tarha ankhain band kar laay or sochy k koi nahi dhek raha

will not good for us now ... all country right now have AESA in their aircrafts except us ... so if we have to match with them then have to think and have to work on AESA.

And exactly what is going to become of the fleet of F-16s, Mirages and F-7s?
Please be realistic rather than emotional reactionary.

 

[shanis]

And exactly what is going to become of the fleet of F-16s, Mirages and F-7s?
Please be realistic rather than emotional reactionary.

And exactly what is going to become of the fleet of F-16s, Mirages and F-7s?
Please be realistic rather than emotional reactionary.

after being realistic ... i was said, see my friend ...
right now india china have AESA technology, being a neighbors, we much touch now AESA technology,
now we will do Upgrade our F-16 to AESA or will do with Jf thunder block 3 or will buy J-10b aircraft's .... but we must must have now more than 100 aircraft's with AESA + upgraded missile.

 

[gambit]

I don't know if a missile with foldable wings/fins would contribute to lower RCS.

There are three foundational rules regarding designing a radar low observable body:

- Control of QUANTITY of radiators.
- Control of ARRAY of radiators.
- Control of MODES of radiation.

Folding the fins falls under rule 2.

The idea is that if you control the quantity of reflecting structures, aka radiators, rule 2 would get progressively less problematic. So unless you are able to collapse the fins into a point where the missile would be a smooth cylinder, anything less and you would still be left with rule 1, which leads to rule 2.

 

[FunkyGen]

You have to upgrade otherwise you will not even have a hope to survive. The issue is with misuse and misappropriation of funds throughout the force. The aircraft will not have an AESA till the third block which is not due for another 4 years.

How do you rate the new Air Chief, guy got decent brains?

 

[PK_Patriot]

My dear friend ... if we have to spend once entire budget on JF-17 for AESA ... then i think we have to do ... because
Simple exp hai ...
kabotar ki tarha ankhain band kar laay or sochy k koi nahi dhek raha

will not good for us now ... all country right now have AESA in their aircrafts except us ... so if we have to match with them then have to think and have to work on AESA.

Totally agreed ,,,,,,,,,, all F-16 can be AESA upgraded less than 600 million dollars ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, JF-17 can be done in 1.2 billion dollars ............. that is it ,,,,,,,,,,, we already have BVR and AWACS

 

[Imran Khan]

How do you rate the new Air Chief, guy got decent brains?

he did not work alone or decide its team always

 

[Bratva]

At this point, we are only losing suppliers for the JF-17 to India''s much larger market. Recently we lost Denel Dynamics who are involved in a lot of programs with the PAF.

Money hai to Honey hai. Back in those days, Denel were cash strapped, Pakistan provided them hard cash, even bought some denel engineer for 5-6 million rand ( he latter get caught in 05-06) who provided critical designs to PAF. Now PAF is cash strapped while Denel is going through a happy phase. A-darter funding as well as indigenous R&D it is carrying out.