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My younger self would have been very excited but I guess time takes its toll on everyone.
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Design is a low bar. Each batch of aerospace engineering student in Pakistan designs an aircraft during their bachelor's. Our class made 36. Every year this happens. The point is that design (especially conceptual design) is an academic exercise that costs very little to do. Furthermore, it is done to get several candidate designs. Finally, these designs are very "big picture", so it's just configuration, shape, engine placement, MTOW etc. It doesn't say anything about where the components will be sourced from, how the manufacturing will take place, how will the avionics be constructed, is the design viable from a control systems perspective. That is, this kind of design is a very "back of the envelope" kind of thing. It is so basic that 3rd year aerospace engineering students do it all the time. And yes, it's PAF professors teaching us all this so I have a pretty good idea of what they must have done (and all the things they definitely don't know) @Goenitz @M.AsfandYar.
Then we can see the missing expertise/infrastructure at PAC for some critical subsystems (like control systems), and I wouldn't hold my breath for PAC producing a "clean-sheet" FGFA prototype within 5 years. I would give this goal at least 15-20 years (even this is optimistic).
Like @Chak Bamu I do not want to share all the things I am privy to on an open forum, but the things I've come into contact with do not fill me with confidence.
Just my (realistic or pessimistic) two cents.
According to you why is so expensive to build STEALTH fighter ? Even KFX/IFX who is not fully STEALTH need 10 billion USD. I dont know where the money actually being spent since the design will be done with their own engineers (KAI+PTDI+ADD) and testing facility have already been there. Most money IMO is spent on building 6 prototypes, flying test, and there are some avionics development cost like AESA radar and others but most subsystems will be imported like engine.
For comparison, Indonesia aerospace (PTDI) only need less than 100 million dollar to develop N 219.
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