AZAD.
593 planes.
SURELY when you induct 100 Thunder you will replace the vintage now 40 year old Mirage. THEY ARE virtual death traps in a modern 21st century battle.
More likely
100 Thunders
63 F16
180 F7 F7PG
80 Mirages (with the better newer airframes)
420 planes roughly comparable in nos as today but with far bigger % of BVR capable fighters with new air frames
(WILL PAF INDUCT 70 MORE THUNDERS IN 12 MONTHS) bit optimistic esp if its supposed to be getting upgraded to mk2
Well retiring of
60-80 airplanes is MUST and its part of Pakistani Air force's goals, probbly around 2015 after we get the J10B in our inventories we will likely see the oldest of the planes being retired from active duty
I was look at our F7 , and Mirages , but I think likely the older F7 would go first , but the F7 are
very agile planes - I personally feel these planes could play a role in suppose role for J10B
For F7/Mirages if we can just perhaps update the avionics and on board missiles , these planes could serve us for another 5-10 years. It remains to be seen what happens but as we know Pakistan is researching on Avionics
so would that avionics package be importable into F7 or Mirages remains to be seen , but Mirages we do have replace engines for mirages brand new so again its not like we are in super hurry
After retiring of these planese
Of course our ability will go down just a notch , but then we will also induct 150 more JF17 thunders for grand today of 300 fighters in our airforce so that will round things up nicely
The biggest thing for us is , that well if China promised us something they will deliver China has never delayed any shipment
I mean if we look at all our transactions with China I mean they deliver it on time , if they could not deliver us the JF17 Thunder they would not have said that but I think by 2011's end we will have grand total of almost
100 JF17 thunders , comparable to F16 C/D levels fully integrated with Chinese awacs in our inventory which is a tremendous boost to our operational capabilities
But the real wait is for J10B now , to see these beautiful planes in our inventories and I wonder who will be lucky pilots who will get to fly these beauties