PAC/JF-17 - DxB Air Show 2019

[jupiter2007]

Modi spellings or I am making a mistake???
View attachment 590142

Maybe it's written is punjabi. lol

 

[Dazzler]

Looks similar to the klj7a

 

[JamD]

No - maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO).

Anyways, AvRID's target drone program has the potential of being an underrated gem, assuming the PAF pushes for further development.

The next step of this thing would be loyal wingman drones (here's a great article on how).

Not to underestimate anything here, a wingman drone would still be a big project in its own right, and is by no means easy (don't want to get "that guy'ed" by @JamD again in 3 days).

But from what I've read, internal target drone research is a great starting point for it.

One intermediary step would be improving ALCMs, e.g you develop a larger frame for more range/payload while trying to retain the maneuverability and other benefits of a target drone.

From there, you move onto a wingman UAV. Besides the challenge of developing the actual aircraft (which we could extend the FGFA's research/facilities to, so it's plausible), one major bottleneck might be software development, esp. AI and Machine Learning. Wingman UAVs are not remote-operated at all times (or at most times), so that could be a stumbling block.

Believe it or not I am actually an optimist lol. I am not going to be the pessimist on this for one simple reason: There's a picture of the actual system being launched on this very poster(which is more than what we can say about anything else on it). Granted high-speed drones aren't exactly cutting edge but at least PAC is showing more than just 3D models.

Wingman drones should be an essential component of Project Azm (if they are not already). And you're right, a high-speed target drone give a good starting point for a wingman drone.

On the ALCM front I think it's best that AWC keeps the lead. They have decades of experience and tech for this and AvRID and AWC should work on the concept of comparative advantage. A target-drone already is the base platform. The challenge in converting it into a wingman drone program is scaling up it and payload. Of course both of these on their own are huge challenges but not insurmountable.

I disagree that software development will be a bottleneck. We have PLENTY of software development experience and it doesn't take an expert to do AI and Machine Learning even if we just have to use it (you just need people to do trial and error all day). They won't play as big a role as you are making it out to be.

_________________________
RANT: There is little or no room for AI/ML in flight control software battlefield decision making. For higher level decision making AI/ML won't be reliable enough for operation anytime soon. At the very basic level AI/ML is glorified curve-fitting with no guarantees. A bunch of computer science people discovered "least sqaures fitting" and discovered if they have ridiculous amounts of data AND they do this for long enough AND they tweak it by trial and error, THEN they SOMETIMES get good results AND they don't understand how it works so it must be magic. And now they have a boner for applying it to everything they can get their hands on. Nobody certifies anything like that to fly anywhere near people. Yes there are applications for AI and ML especially in image processing, data-processing, and seekers for weapons but battlefield decision making and flight controls are NOT such applications.

To explain where I am coming from: My area of expertise is flight control systems and I see AI/ML people claiming magic everyday (this includes people in the US gov labs) only to find out simple control techniques from the 60s can beat their performance without having to use terabytes of data and GPUs. I don't have anything against the AI/ML but I am strongly suspicious of the raging boner for ML types lol. Sorry for the long rant which is now over.
_________________________


I envision the wingman drone to be closely linked to the lead aircraft. You don't need AI/ML for any of the features you really want. And you wouldn't want to use AI/ML for any of the features you think you want to. The wingman could/should:
1. be a weapon truck.
2. be a sensor truck (made that term up: I just mean something that scouts ahead).
3. be a decoy.
4. be an EW platform.
5. be able to follow the lead aircraft in predefined formations and be assigned simple tasks.
6. have low-observable characteristics

And for 5 you'll need state-machines and not AI/ML simply because you don't know when a ML based system will crap its pants and you might not be able to diagnose or fix it. Most of these things can be done individually by advanced cruise missiles and drones today but the challenge is combining them into one large platform that can keep up in speed and endurance with modern jet fighters.

 

[Bilal Khan (Quwa)]

Believe it or not I am actually an optimist lol. I am not going to be the pessimist on this for one simple reason: There's a picture of the actual system being launched on this very poster(which is more than what we can say about anything else on it). Granted high-speed drones aren't exactly cutting edge but at least PAC is showing more than just 3D models.

Wingman drones should be an essential component of Project Azm (if they are not already). And you're right, a high-speed target drone give a good starting point for a wingman drone.

On the ALCM front I think it's best that AWC keeps the lead. They have decades of experience and tech for this and AvRID and AWC should work on the concept of comparative advantage. A target-drone already is the base platform. The challenge in converting it into a wingman drone program is scaling up it and payload. Of course both of these on their own are huge challenges but not insurmountable.

I disagree that software development will be a bottleneck. We have PLENTY of software development experience and it doesn't take an expert to do AI and Machine Learning even if we just have to use it (you just need people to do trial and error all day). They won't play as big a role as you are making it out to be.

_________________________
RANT: There is little or no room for AI/ML in flight control software battlefield decision making. For higher level decision making AI/ML won't be reliable enough for operation anytime soon. At the very basic level AI/ML is glorified curve-fitting with no guarantees. A bunch of computer science people discovered "least sqaures fitting" and discovered if they have ridiculous amounts of data AND they do this for long enough AND they tweak it by trial and error, THEN they SOMETIMES get good results AND they don't understand how it works so it must be magic. And now they have a boner for applying it to everything they can get their hands on. Nobody certifies anything like that to fly anywhere near people. Yes there are applications for AI and ML especially in image processing, data-processing, and seekers for weapons but battlefield decision making and flight controls are NOT such applications.

To explain where I am coming from: My area of expertise is flight control systems and I see AI/ML people claiming magic everyday (this includes people in the US gov labs) only to find out simple control techniques from the 60s can beat their performance without having to use terabytes of data and GPUs. I don't have anything against the AI/ML but I am strongly suspicious of the raging boner for ML types lol. Sorry for the long rant which is now over.
_________________________


I envision the wingman drone to be closely linked to the lead aircraft. You don't need AI/ML for any of the features you really want. And you wouldn't want to use AI/ML for any of the features you think you want to. The wingman could/should:
1. be a weapon truck.
2. be a sensor truck (made that term up: I just mean something that scouts ahead).
3. be a decoy.
4. be an EW platform.
5. be able to follow the lead aircraft in predefined formations and be assigned simple tasks.
6. have low-observable characteristics

And for 5 you'll need state-machines and not AI/ML simply because you don't know when a ML based system will crap its pants and you might not be able to diagnose or fix it. Most of these things can be done individually by advanced cruise missiles and drones today but the challenge is combining them into one large platform that can keep up in speed and endurance with modern jet fighters.

That's cool. I was worried about AI/ML because the US was making a deal out of it with its own loyal wingman work, but I could tell that 99% of the stuff they were describing wasn't going to be there on Gen 1 models.

That said, loyal wingmen are but one way to apply low-cost drones. There are other concepts out there too -- e.g., swarming, saturating air defences, etc -- that could come into form much earlier than a Valkyrie counterpart.

I don't think a loyal wingman should be too far out if we work with China. I expect a lot of the subsystems can be bought there off-the-shelf (e.g., engine), the challenge, as you said, is designing and testing a bigger airframe to boot. It's an aircraft project in its own right, albeit more modest in scale than the FGFA-proper.

 

[Falcon26]

That's cool. I was worried about AI/ML because the US was making a deal out of it with its own loyal wingman work, but I could tell that 99% of the stuff they were describing wasn't going to be there on Gen 1 models.

That said, loyal wingmen are but one way to apply low-cost drones. There are other concepts out there too -- e.g., swarming, saturating air defences, etc -- that could come into form much earlier than a Valkyrie counterpart.

I don't think a loyal wingman should be too far out if we work with China. I expect a lot of the subsystems can be bought there off-the-shelf (e.g., engine), the challenge, as you said, is designing and testing a bigger airframe to boot. It's an aircraft project in its own right, albeit more modest in scale than the FGFA-proper.

Almost a year ago, the NYT broke a story about the Chinese interest in investing in Pakistani military industrial complex. Some of the information that has recently come out lends credence to the essential substance of the story. For example:

“According to the undisclosed proposal drawn up by the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials at the start of the year, a special economic zone under CPEC would be created in Pakistan to produce a new generation of fighter jets. For the first time, navigation systems, radar systems and onboard weapons would be built jointly by the countries at factories in Pakistan”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/world/asia/pakistan-china-belt-road-military.html

I could be wrong, but the only inertia that I can recall is in the area of space cooperation. We haven’t seen much movement in that area.

 

[JamD]

That's cool. I was worried about AI/ML because the US was making a deal out of it with its own loyal wingman work, but I could tell that 99% of the stuff they were describing wasn't going to be there on Gen 1 models.

That said, loyal wingmen are but one way to apply low-cost drones. There are other concepts out there too -- e.g., swarming, saturating air defences, etc -- that could come into form much earlier than a Valkyrie counterpart.

I don't think a loyal wingman should be too far out if we work with China. I expect a lot of the subsystems can be bought there off-the-shelf (e.g., engine), the challenge, as you said, is designing and testing a bigger airframe to boot. It's an aircraft project in its own right, albeit more modest in scale than the FGFA-proper.

You are right. Not even the US can put AI on aircraft right now. The place where AI fits in for a lot of these systems is misunderstood by a lot of people (and scientists) in my opinion. It's currently useful for some low-level and specific stuff.

Yes that is something that must be looked at. Not sure if swarms would be an AWC thing or an AvRID thing. Perhaps a collab would be needed.

I am not sure if it's just my feeling but I feel there's a certain wariness about going to China for everything (Shahpar vs Burraq, IREK vs REK, Azm vs FC-31). So AvRID might not be too keen on going to China for too many things. There seems to be a certain protectionism of our defense products happening.

I think when you said software development I misunderstood what you meant. The actual writing of code will be easy (is what I meant). The hard part will be figuring out the decision making algorithms and testing them (which is probably what you meant by AI/ML software development). This will take a lot of smart people with expertise in game-theory, swarms, control systems and a lot of time. On the bright side these things can be developed/tested in simulations and on the small target drone that we already have.

 

[messiach]

Its in the skunkworks with an additional one for NGFA. @HRK

@Trailer23 tell them about this.



So in-house idea with homogenization and self reliance into AESA Radar, is now official and we are heading forward which will definitely target Block-III (possible at-least) for independence in regard to mate whatever available from the market or as per our need from East or West without any objection to the Source Code.

Thanks to @messiach as well for information before, which is now official and as the same is being marketed means, achieved a lot in this regard.

Congrats in advance to everyone.

FBO

@messiach or another senior member here mentioned about usage of fiber optic cables in JF-17 but I can't remember if it was for flight controls or weapon operations.

 

[Thorough Pro]

since you have come up with the scenario, give me a good reason why would you send a Mashaq for for this mission?

Overkill for COIN ops where you don't want civilian casualties as I said, and they don't need rocket motors if launched from air.

Lets say there is a HVT inside of a house, and there are innocents outside the house. Are you going to be launching a 20 kg warhead on it and kill everyone? Same concept as BGM-176 Griffin.

 

[Philip the Arab]

since you have come up with the scenario, give me a good reason why would you send a Mashaq for for this mission?

For one it is cheaper to operate and use less flight hours on 4th gen aircraft in PAF service.

 

[Thorough Pro]

Option 1.
And it would be even cheaper to forget about the HVT, go home, go to bed, bury your head under the pillow an d go to sleep hoping your problem would be solved for free. If "cheaper" is the criteria, then dismantle the whole military apparatus.

Option2.
In that case the person in-charge of planning should be executed on the spot.

On one hand you talk about HVT and on the other hand cost saving during a critical mission. You need to think clearly before you post a scenario.

For one it is cheaper to operate and use less flight hours on 4th gen aircraft in PAF service.

 

[Philip the Arab]

Option 1.
And it would be even cheaper to forget about the HVT, go home, go to bed, bury your head under the pillow an d go to sleep hoping your problem would be solved for free. If "cheaper" is the criteria, then dismantle the whole military apparatus.

Option2.
In that case the person in-charge of planning should be executed on the spot.

On one hand you talk about HVT and on the other hand cost saving during a critical mission. You need to think clearly before you post a scenario.

For Pakistan cheaper is he best option, why not use Mushshak in the COIN role?

 

[Bilal Khan (Quwa)]

Almost a year ago, the NYT broke a story about the Chinese interest in investing in Pakistani military industrial complex. Some of the information that has recently come out lends credence to the essential substance of the story. For example:

“According to the undisclosed proposal drawn up by the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials at the start of the year, a special economic zone under CPEC would be created in Pakistan to produce a new generation of fighter jets. For the first time, navigation systems, radar systems and onboard weapons would be built jointly by the countries at factories in Pakistan”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/world/asia/pakistan-china-belt-road-military.html

I could be wrong, but the only inertia that I can recall is in the area of space cooperation. We haven’t seen much movement in that area.

My theory about this is that the PAF may have asked China to set-up its own (AVIC-owned) turnkey manufacturing lines for engines, electronics, etc, in Pakistan and, in turn, the PAF will order from those companies for the FGFA. It would be a similar model to what the US and Russia did in Turkey and India, respectively. The goal is to set-up the tech and industrial basis locally (albeit under majority or entirely Chinese ownership), but to ensure enough of our local population are getting exposure to it (esp. engineers, scientists, etc) to eventually (way later down the line, like 2050-onwards) set-up their own ventures independent of the Chinese.

 

[Bilal Khan 777]

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This White guy (below) had been lurking around the Super Mushak Demo for Hours on Day I. I guess he finally got a meeting with the PAC.
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This white guy is Collins Aerospace, with him is Pervis Hussian, and their employee Air Cdre (r) Waqar Haider.

 

[krash]

However, like the first day, I did manage to talk to an Official from Kamra & he gave me a very conflicting reply regarding the First Test Flight for the Block III. A Official whom I spoke on the First Day stated that the Block III will make its Maiden Flight within the next 02 Months (Mid-January 2020 be the latest).

But today, another Official gave me an entirely different time. Now he states it would be between July to November. Not sure who is telling the truth. But he did say NO Test Flight will be conducted without the new AESA Radar. They are looking get it into Production with everything in place.

Frankly speaking, they didn't know it themselves. These guys aren't exactly sent there based on their qualifications or even relevance to the programs being showcased. They aren't prepped either. I'll stop before this becomes a rant.

According to him, the reason for bringing in the B-variant is to have a 2 set of eyes during a Mission.

See what I'm talking about?

And they give you these statements with such conviction too. Next thing you know, someone on this forum has found another "insider source".

 

[Bilal Khan 777]

Link, or evidence pls.
This?
Different design overall, and unless you give me proof you are wrong.

I could be wrong. Its just my opinion.