Can you give more details about this? I'm not too familiar about what went down during the project and our input apart from the requirements needed in the aircraft.
@Bilal Khan (Quwa) @JamD How much did the JF-17 project actually help develop our local industry?
Even if we don't take it to a semi-stealth or full stealth level, shouldn't we be trying to indigenise all the parts and manufacturing capabilities over time? So our local industry and know-how can grow
No fighter project creates or develops an industry.
It's the other way around.
The industry develops the fighter.
So, the JF-17 is more of an outcome of the Chinese industry. However, in Pakistan, we built a capacity to support fighter production towards the end of the chain, e.g., manufacturing, assembly, integration, testing, etc.
These are all useful additions for PAC, but they're not enough to conceive a new fighter from scratch; for that, you need an industry that provides steel, composite materials, gas turbines, electronics, etc.
The right thing to do was that in parallel to the JF-17, we should've invested in those critical inputs. Imagine if we had properly started work across aircraft-grade steel, composites, gas turbines, electronics, etc, in 1992. So, in 30 years, we would've developed some capacity to support an original fighter project from an industrial perspective.
This is what India did with the Tejas. Yes, while the Tejas project itself didn't materialize as originally hoped, India developed many critical industries along the way. If it gets the project management side right, India will succeed with its ORCA, TEDBF, and AMCA. Likewise, Turkey had done the same thing when it first started manufacturing F-16s on license in the 1980s and 1990s.
