You've sort of answered your own concern. The JF-17 has composites in nonstructural places already. Those are relatively easy to design, maintain, replace. Keep in mind it's hard to find anything on an aircraft that isn't load carrying (even the skin carries a lot of load in some places).
There's plenty metal in US designs still. It's not like US engineers are looking at Aluminum with disdain or anything. It's an engineering decision not a high-school popularity contest. If the US DoD can dish out $220 million per plane, then the engineers have the freedom to incorporate all sorts of fancy composite structural members. It would be cost-prohibitive even for the US to go 100% composite. It's what you can afford and what capability it gets you.
It's not about lacking the capability to manufacture, diagnose, and maintain composites. There's plenty of people and tech in Pakistan that can do this correctly I can assure you of that. It's about the cost, both in manufacturing and maintenance.
Also whatever I said about composite aircraft structures was equally (if not more) true for small fighters. Airliners go through predictable cycles during operations. It's easier to account for composite fatigue in that case with decent models. Fighters go through harsh maneuvers that are "non-standard" and that's where you need either complicated models, sensors, or both to guess how your structure has degraded. My point is it isn't as simple as carbon fibre cloth lay up in an oven and you're done.
Yes they are. My point was simply an aircraft made with composites is significantly more expensive to design, manufacture, and operate. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I am sure we will see much more significant use of composites in Azm because that will be an expensive and high-end aircraft. The JF-17 is a budget workhorse. It doesn't make sense for it to have a high percentage of composites. That would've reduced your JF-17 numbers by half and in return you would get maybe 10% more thrust to weight and 10% endurance. Not worth it if you ask me.
The internet is a funny place, we really don't know who we are talking to. Otherwise I would have given full weight to your assurances. However, I do think there is a level of phobia when it comes to something new and for the Pak military base, composites may be one such phobia.
To every argument, the unimaginative reply typically is "it will cost too much". And then, bam, they buy something incredibly expensive from abroad. Case in point, the SMG purchase. Later this turned out to be a case of brown envelopes changing hands.
Here is a quote from Burt Rutan on aircraft design:
"If composites had preceded aluminum, we would have never certified aluminum for aircraft, due to its fatigue characteristics and its corrosion issues."
Think you might find it interesting and perhaps detracting from your understanding of the greater scheme of things.
We have a lot of engineers and scientists trained abroad and they come back thinking they know the world. But there is something they don't know. The evolution of those technologies they learned about. When Boeing puts sensor and takes microscopic care to ensure there is no fault in the aircraft, they imagine this is how its done and should be done.
Yet, they never learned the pioneer spirit that is needed that preceded the stage where Six Sigma black belts were needed. Such engineers and scientists can never truly be innovators. Because when you have a nascent industry, you need people who are passionate pioneers, hobbyists. Not "I memorized notes, went abroad and got a degree, now don't try to tell me what I know".
You see, the Wright Flyer wasn't built with Six Sigma. it wasn't stress tested. Neither were the vast majority of the innovations coming out of the West. One does not need to put sensors between composite sandwiches because that is where the bozzo who got his degree from Amreeka is stuck at.
When you have a pioneer mindset, you are willing to make leaps of faith. You are willing to take a risk and "see what happens". That mindset is sorely lacking.
Instead of saying "lets put sensors in the structure" one could have easily said "how does this part generally perform in other similar aircraft". "Can we have a ball-park figure on the MTBF".
If Pak military industrial complex and PAF were such straight thinkers, they would not be needing Chinese assistance at every baby step. Al Khalid would be a proper tank built in numbers and not derided during the Saudi tests. Pak would be able to build a corvette on its own and have some form of SAM systems for all services developed. Drones would not need to be imported left right and center.
So forgive me if your assurances about the competence in the back room is taken with a dose of salt.
