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Pakistan F-16 Discussions 2

i just talked with my 2 cousins in pakistan who are working in paf as an engineer and air man at jacobad airbase where new paf f16 jets are based.
According to them that base is in control of usa airforce and they have full one squadron of usa airforce f16 over there.:hitwall:



Hi,

If the U S is still there--then they are also keeping up on the upkeep of the air base to their standards.

Gentlemen---please look at it as a blessings in disguise----you got to remember one thing----the americans always take ownership of the air base and and give it their 110% for upgrading it to the highest standards of operations and capabilitiy.

And after they move out---all heavy equipment is left behind as a gift for local consumption. That would be millions of dollars of equipment with no cost attached to it. :pakistan:
 
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Mastankhan, If you look at Jacobdaad Air Base from Google Earth - It looks nothing like typical Pakistani Base.It looks like a USAF base with much better infrastructure, climate controlled hangers to keep the airplanes cool as that area is very hot - plus according to sources at Pakdef.info USAF also brought a very big radar on air base and left it after vacating half the base.It is now under PAF control and its ranger is pretty good.US has spent milions of dollars on this base and it will be beneficial for us when USAF leaves or even right now as we're also opearting out of there.Members are getting suspicious here as US raided the base and got there - They forgot that we allowed them to be stationed there via agreement and i don't see anything wrong with that as long as americans pay the money and use base for logistics only (For Afghanistan war).
 
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Jacobabad has been vacated by the US military, and yes they did turn it into a full fledged base from its humble status before 9/11.
The only Americans that will be there are civilian advisers from LM who will be there just to settle in the newer birds and not to act as permanent nannies as widely reported. There will be inspections but these will be in lieu of technical observations..in plain words to make sure we don't screw the fancy electronics in our initial operational years.
 
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Mastankhan, If you look at Jacobdaad Air Base from Google Earth - It looks nothing like typical Pakistani Base.It looks like a USAF base with much better infrastructure, climate controlled hangers to keep the airplanes cool as that area is very hot - .

Hi,

I lived for many a years close to March Air Reserve base in riverside county calif---gets very hot in summer---within 10 degrees odf Jacobabad---.

The hangers for the F 16's are open---basically tin sheds---a few of the F 16's are parked in the open all the time. It is not an F 16 base but more of a logistics base right now----The 6 F 16 are based just for intercept missions I believe---.

Why are pak hangers air conditioned---I wouldn't know---maybe they are bunker style.
 
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Mastankhan, If you look at Jacobdaad Air Base from Google Earth - It looks nothing like typical Pakistani Base.It looks like a USAF base with much better infrastructure, climate controlled hangers to keep the airplanes cool as that area is very hot - .

Hi,

I lived for many a years close to March Air Reserve base in riverside county calif---gets very hot in summer---within 10 degrees odf Jacobabad---.

The hangers for the F 16's are open---basically tin sheds---a few of the F 16's are parked in the open all the time. It is not an F 16 base but more of a logistics base right now----The 6 F 16 are based just for intercept missions I believe---.

Why are pak hangers air conditioned---I wouldn't know---maybe they are bunker style.

Sir, Jacobabad is a very very hot place, in summer the temperature can go over 50, i believe even 10 degree difference does makes a lot of difference.

So for ease of staff and operational purposes, it seems some of tha hangars have been air condoned, so that the aircraft as well as the ground personnel can do their work with ease.

Even before the decision to house them at Jacobabad was not done, there were Chinese AC systems installed at much of the airbase, which unfortunately had to be taken down at the insistence of the Americans, as Chinese AC plant meant, Chinese technicians may have to come to the base, they wanted no Chinese stuff on the base.
 
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Even before the decision to house them at Jacobabad was not done, there were Chinese AC systems installed at much of the airbase, which unfortunately had to be taken down at the insistence of the Americans, as Chinese AC plant meant, Chinese technicians may have to come to the base, they wanted no Chinese stuff on the base.

are u serious??

:hitwall:


are these huge industrial ACs or what?? I feel any local mechanic can maintain a bloody AC

I mean it isnt like they would come and quickly dissect the aircraft and re-assemble it before anybody were to find out. This is just baseless paranoia, and it's on our own base.
 
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more rumours this time frm retird af officer tht there is infact a code required for avionic startup on the newer jets which are released from islamabad..im not buying this.. since its a retird off from another branch of the af...but on the off chance it is true..thats a sword hanging on our necks when it comes to usage of these jets.
however.. the regular inspections are a confirmed arrangment.. as is the presense of lm contractors on the base.
jacobabad ab is now a city of its own.. it has its own water supply/recycle, sanitation and living facilties ..and whether the whole nation is blacked out or not.. it still has its liights on.
 
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As per the explanation of Fighter planes, the person on the right is flying an F-16, therefore he absorbs the kickass-radiation from the F-16. As F-15 pilots absorb ego, F-18 pilots absorb the false sense of being cool, and F-22 pilots absorb loneliness as no new F-22s are made, F-16 pilots absorb kickassery. A person's kickass-level is sort of like a way of measuring how like Chuck Norris a person is.
F-16 pilot - Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
i know its completely irrelevant but do read the whole article...its awsomw
 
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More on ITT's sensors for EA-18G Growler, EA-6 Prowler and the F-16s. Interesting that at the time, Pakistan was the ONLY customer to have ordered the ALQ-211 (V9) version along with V4 one. Good read over all.....

ITT Corp. foresees double-digit annual growth of its Electronic Systems group, helped by the recent addition of the former EDO Corp. The market for electronic warfare (EW) systems is seen as a major driver of that growth.

The acquisition of EDO, valued at $1.7 billion, was concluded last December. It represented ITT’s largest acquisition since ITT Industries (now Corp.) was formed as an independent company in 1995. It also made ITT a top-10 U.S. defense contractor in terms of revenue. The company’s Defense Electronics & Services business, based in McLean, Va., generated $4.2 billion in 2007; it is expected to finish at $6.1 billion this year.

EDO, a multi-faceted manufacturer of electronic subassemblies for military and space applications, advanced composite structures, sonar systems and test equipment, came with an 80-year legacy and positions on a range of strike, EW and surveillance aircraft. ITT bought EDO not to absorb it, company officials say, but to expand ITT’s own offerings.

"ITT went ahead with this purchase with the idea that it was going to be a true merger/integration," said Christopher M. Carlson, director of U.S. business development for ITT Electronic Systems. "We were not looking to buy and consolidate. We saw in EDO, what they were doing, a lot of complimentary technologies and markets."

In an interview during the Farnborough Airshow in July, Carlson made the case that EDO and ITT combined are more capable than the sum of their parts. The expectation going forward, he said, is ITT’s $1.29 billion Electronic Systems group will grow by 10 percent annually.

One springboard for the merged company is the new EA-18G Growler, the U.S. Navy’s replacement for the 40-year-old EA-6B Prowler EW aircraft. EDO’s Defense Systems unit in North Amityville, N.Y., supplied components of the AN/ALQ-99 jamming system of the EA-6B, which is comprised of receivers and antennas in the aircraft’s tail cap and exciters, which optimize jamming signals, and transmitters contained in pods under the wings and fuselage. The Universal Exciter Upgrade extended the system’s frequency coverage and incorporated advanced jamming techniques and modulations.

Like the EA-6B, the Growler is fitted with ALQ-99 transmitter pods as well as an Interference Cancellation System (INCANS) from the former EDO facility at Thousand Oaks, Calif., now part of the ITT family.

"With us picking up Amityville, one of the major markets going forward is the electronic attack market," Carlson said. "The current Navy system supporting both the Navy and the Air Force — the EA-6B — is being phased out in favor of the [EA-18G]. The Air Force doesn’t have a replacement for it, so both the Navy and the Air Force are looking at new equipment. For the EW world, that’s going to be one of the major markets, at least domestically in the U.S., in the next decade."

The Navy is planning a next-generation jammer for the EA-18. Meanwhile, the Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded contracts to companies including ITT to mature technology for an EW pod that would be flown on the B-52 bomber, replacing the cancelled Stand-Off Jammer System for that aircraft. ITT has contracts to develop exciter and phased-array jamming technologies at lower frequencies.

With the former EDO’s contribution, ITT is better positioned to offer an EW system solution, Carlson said.

"The old EDO group already had a position on the EA-6B with their Universal Exciter," Carlson said. "ITT in Clifton (N.J.) had been working on the... transmit side, with a number of contracts from the Air Force to develop new phased-array technology. Now, we find with the merger, that we have the complete story. We’ve got the waveform generation with the exciter coming out of (Amityville); we have the new-technology transmitters and beam formers coming out of New Jersey. You put the two together [and] ITT has a complete system."

Forecast International estimates $23 billion will be spent on development and production of major EW programs over the next 10 years — driven by the need to counter improvised explosive devices, to adapt airborne EW systems and potentially to protect civilian airliners from missiles. Frost & Sullivan has pegged the U.S. market for EW programs at $1.25 billion in 2008, growing to $1.31 billion in 2013. The market leaders across reports include Northrop Grumman, ITT, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Thales.

One technology that Carlson does not see as raining on this parade is the use of Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar for electronic attack. That application is being studied by, among others, Northrop Grumman, which supplies AESA radars for the F-22 and F-35 multirole fifth-generation fighters.

"The problem, or the issue, in electronic attack is you want to attack the radars that span the entire frequency range," Carlson said. "When people talk about using the AESA radar as also an electronic attack device — of the whole range, that covers a small [amount]. Although the radars that they’re putting in the modern airplanes are broader bandwidth than a generation ago, instead of a tiny sliver of the frequency range, they’ve now got a small niche of it."

ITT at Farnborough had other developments to report — the first international sale of its ALQ-214 Integrated Defensive Electronics Countermeasures system as part of Australia’s procurement of 24 F/A-18E/F fighters; and Turkey’s selection of the ALQ-211(V) 4 EW suite for new F-16s, joining Pakistan, Poland, Chile and Oman. Pakistan also was expected to order the (V) 9 podded version of the system to equip older F-16s under a Foreign Military Sale. The company’s ALQ-211 (V) 2 for the U.S. Air Force CV-22 tiltrotor and (V) 6 for the U.S. Army Special Operations MH-47E Chinook have entered full-rate production.

"This is the fourth or fifth good year we’ve had in a row," Carlson said. "We feel good, with the 211 and 214 in full-rate production, new technology with electronic attack and new capabilities [such as] test equipment in California, through the EDO purchase. The new group in (Amityville) is heavily involved in the electronic attack market and is going to enhance our position in the market." — Bill Carey

Avionics Magazine :: Industry Scan
 
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Yes it is a newest fighter although in use since 1990 but now it is operated with much better avionics and improvements to its airframe and powerplant.

He is referring new block 52 with block 52 plus whic this topic is on. And a correction... block 52 plus is in service since 2000-2002..
 
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Mastankhan, If you look at Jacobdaad Air Base from Google Earth - It looks nothing like typical Pakistani Base.It looks like a USAF base with much better infrastructure, climate controlled hangers to keep the airplanes cool as that area is very hot - .

Hi,

I lived for many a years close to March Air Reserve base in riverside county calif---gets very hot in summer---within 10 degrees odf Jacobabad---.

The hangers for the F 16's are open---basically tin sheds---a few of the F 16's are parked in the open all the time. It is not an F 16 base but more of a logistics base right now----The 6 F 16 are based just for intercept missions I believe---.

Why are pak hangers air conditioned---I wouldn't know---maybe they are bunker style.

Depends on the shelter. The HAS typically are Air Conditioned but not always. Secondly, the tin sheds are usually at FOBs etc. or in temporary parking areas within bases to keep the aircraft relatively cooler or protected from rain when air crews are working on the aircraft.
 
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Yes you are too generous towards the F16 and its capabilies! :)

The F16 is not and never was meant to be an air superiority fighter, similar to F15, EF, or Flankers and that's why it lacks in many fields compared to them in this role. That's why even the air forces of America, Israel, S.Korea, or Singapore, that has latest versions of the F 16, operates more capable F15s in the air superiority role, or why PLAAF operates numbers of J11 and Su 30s, above the J10s.

The F16s is a good fighter in the medium class, but should not be overestimated. Yes in WVR, with its smaller size and manouverability it will have some chances (like you said possibly in lower altitudes), but that doesn't makes it equal in A2A, because the these air superiority fighters still have more advantages like radar range, t/w ratios, speed, more capable EWS, more weapons, or in case of EF also lower RCSs and manouverability. That's the same reason why the US still developed a bigger F22 twin engine air superiority fighter and a F16 successor (F35) only in addition to it.


Now to your points, AIM 120 C5 is available for the EF since the trance 2 block 5 upgrade and the Royal Air Force is using these missiles for their EFs and Tornados:


Eurofighter Typhoon to be Showcased at Aero India 2007 | India Defence

The only reason why the other customers keeps older versions of AIM120 is, because they wait for the Meteor missile!


Next point is the radar range, what is a decent range for APG 68 in your opinion?
Is it comparable to the estimated 160 - 185 Km range for targets of a RCS between 3 and 5m2, of EFs actual Captor M radar? Detection of bigger aircrafts are expected at ranges up to 370Km, it tracks 20 targets at a time and engages 6 of them, which brings it even close to Bars ranges and capabilities!

And as umair86 mentioned, the F16 Block 15 are generally counted to the most manouverable F16 versions. The later has more thrust, but also clearly more weight, which makes it very unlikely to compete against latest delta cancard designs, which was reported in the past too. In the fighter competition in Singapore for example EF was fielded against F16 B52s and according to some sources won 3:0. In an exercise before Red Flag, the Rafale F2 was fielded (in WVR combats) against US F16s (also older versions) and the Rafale won 3:1. So just because of some thrust impovements, the newer F16s won't have a chance against the EF, which puts all the hope at JHMCS + AIM 9X. But as I said before, these air superiority fighters are also geared with latest avionics and EW Systems, which means even that combo won't give the F16 a clear advantage.


Once again in A2A compared to latest F16 blocks, the EF offers:

- high t/w ratio
- more manouverable design
- lower RCS
- better radar
- latest EWS and avionics
- same missiles

So I don't see where the latest F16 (especially without AESA), will be comparable to it in A2A.

I had been meaning to respond to your post, but then came across this which drives my point home and saves me a lot of time from repeating many of the same points made earlier. The parts in bold were the essence of my argument. Its an aircraft which is nice, but a little late for its time. Not a lot of market for it and those who are beholden to it are cutting back to cut losses and consider the next generation of fighters.

Typhoon Runs Out Of Wind

The Eurofighter Typhoon only entered regular service in the last three years. Now, Britain is planning to phase out a third of those it has, in the next five years. Germany is also cancelling Typhoon orders. Last year, Britain decided to not take all of its third batch (or "tranche", as they like to call it in Europe) of 88 Eurofighter Typhoon fighters.

Britain had decided to take 40 of the fighters from the third batch, and resell another 24 to Saudi Arabia. In effect, Britain was pulling out of the Eurofighter program, and cancelling 16 of the aircraft it was to have received from the third batch.

The British government believes that 184 Eurofighters will be sufficient, and that it cannot afford any more than that. Originally, Britain planned to buy 232 (Germany was to get 180, Italy 121, and Spain 87.) With export orders, it was expected that nearly 500 would be built, now it will be less than 400. Like the F-22, the Typhoon got too expensive for a need that disappeared.

The Eurofighter project began during the Cold War, to deal with advanced Russian combat aircraft that were never manufactured, because the Cold War ended in 1991 and the Soviet Union, and its armed forces, collapsed.

But Cold War era combat aircraft development projects continued anyway. This was mainly for political reasons. Those projects created a lot of jobs, and were worth a lot of votes. But reality caught up with the politicians during the current world recession, created in part by a lot of spending on things people could not afford.

Development of the Eurofighter began in the 1980s, and the first flight took place in 1994. Each aircraft costs about $122 million. The Typhoon is a somewhat stealthy multi-role fighter.

It is fast, maneuverable, and carries a lot of weapons. It also can be used for attack missions. This 23 ton aircraft will be the principal fighter in the air forces of Britain, Spain, Germany, and Italy. The Typhoon is closer in capability to the F-15, than the F-22, and is competing with the F-35 for many export sales.

The Typhoon was purchased by Saudi Arabia, mainly to provide protection from Iran.

Warplanes: Typhoon Runs Out Of Wind
 
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Importance of EW warfare in modern combat has increased many folds, in fact, it has gone to an extent that i would call it "offensive measure" instead of defensive which was the case back in 90s. Falcon D20s have seen a thorough upgrade in France fairly recently and now possess increased jamming algorithm based sensors as well as ELINT systems that brought them close to current D20 variants in service with very few air forces in the world.

PAC is spending significant time and resources in developing sophisticated EW sensors which include our very own EW pod that will be mounted both internally and externally (JF-17s initially) and will be tested on Mirages and F-7s, along with our very own advanced avionics on board our existing and future fighter fleet especially JF-17s. So much development is going on that PAF and related organizations have their hands full at the moment.

I do want to add, the Erieye will provide an even more comprehensive ELINT capability than the DA-20s in use. So overall the ELINT capability has increased manifold with the upgrades of the DA-20s and specifically due to the induction of Erieyes.
 
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