Featured Project Azm: Pakistan's Ambitious Quest to Develop 5th Generation Military Technologies.

[The Accountant]

General question, is the JF-17 a 4th generation or 4.5 generation fighter jet?

Something in the middle. Key characteristics of 4+ are:

BVR - check
HOBS - no
FBW - Partial
FADC engines - no
Precision strike capability - check

However, with block 3 all of this will be addressed

 

[graphican]

General question, is the JF-17 a 4th generation or 4.5 generation fighter jet?

My friend, you have asked a dangerous question! As per Mastan Khan and Stealth, its 3rd, for rest of PDF members it's 6.5!.

 

[Yaseen1]

not only qadyanis but we also badly treated dr A.Q khan who played important role in our nuclear bomb,there is a problem in our govt structure that we not allow capable person to perform to full potential,there is a certain level of authority given to humans to make judgement regarding the conduct of people otherwise there would be no need of courts and police if we leave every thing for day of judgement,the problem with qadyanis is that their leadership has contacts with agencies of foreign powers and which may cause damage to us.I know that the standard of life of their religious leader is like that of kings who get protocols in canada and western countries more than that of our p.m which shows their whole organisation is based on corruption and suspicious activities

Of a man is Ahmadi of whatever faith he chooses. The white stripe in our flag is their equal right as a citizen of this nation. I am ashamed when I hear such stuff. We should look after every Pakistani regardless of colour religion race etc.
Allah gives hadiyat. We are not Allah and hence have no right to judge or persecute.

 

[Syed1.]

Wasn't there a plan by PAC to send regular batches of 10-15 young engineers to China to get training at CAC, possibly these would come in handy in developing AZM.

 

[JamD]

Wasn't there a plan by PAC to send regular batches of 10-15 young engineers to China to get training at CAC, possibly these would come in handy in developing AZM.

There was/is. Unfortunately, this is not nearly enough people to run a project like Azm and these people were only in very limited fields like aerodynamics and structures.

 

[Bilal.]

There was/is. Unfortunately, this is not nearly enough people to run a project like Azm and these people were only in very limited fields like aerodynamics and structures.

Do you say technology map/tree to illustrate key technology areas/sub-areas that would need to be mastered? That would give the readers an idea of the length and breadth of the effort required.

For instance:

- Aerodynamics
- Sub-area
- Sub-area
- Structure
- Sub-area
- Sub-area
- Flight Control
- Sub-area
- Sub-area

If we arrange it in dependencies with each other. PDF will actually be proposing a technology roadmap hopefully to readers in position of decision making

 

[Indos]

I see for quite long time there is no Pakistani journalist ever make an extensive article about AZM project and ask many important question to Pakistan Aerospace (PAC KAMRA) official. It will be quite interesting to make an article about it as many Pakistani are quite curious about it.

I believe with so many Pakistani members are here, there could be some who work as journalist. Maybe their current desk is not in aviation, technology, or defense, but at least they can make one, considering many journalist have important contact or at least eligible to ask for interview due to their press pass. If they can make the article and being published somewhere, it will be helpful if they can put the news here.

 

[JamD]

Do you say technology map/tree to illustrate key technology areas/sub-areas that would need to be mastered? That would give the readers an idea of the length and breadth of the effort required.

For instance:

- Aerodynamics
- Sub-area
- Sub-area
- Structure
- Sub-area
- Sub-area
- Flight Control
- Sub-area
- Sub-area

If we arrange it in dependencies with each other. PDF will actually be proposing a technology roadmap hopefully to readers in position of decision making

I don't know nearly enough about all of these fields to make such a tree on my own. I actually attempted to make one some time ago and quickly realized how ill-equipped I was for the task. I'm a controls guy and therefore end up focusing on controls more than anything. I am acutely aware of the need for expertise in all the other fields, but I only have surface knowledge and don't know what's needed exactly in them. I don't know if we have experts in other fields on this forum.

However, I can attempt to make a list of fields one would need to run something like Project Azm:

1. Structures
   • Dynamics and Vibration
   • Composite Structures
     
   • Optimization of Structures
2. Materials
   • Composites
   • Metallurgy
   • Fatigue Modelling
   • Crack Propagation and Modelling
   • Thin films
   • High-temperature alloys
   • Single-crystal manufacturing
3. Industrial and Operations
   • Supply-chain management
   • Assembly line operations
   • Jigs and fixtures
4. Aerodynamics
   • Subsonic, transonics, supersonic, and hypersonics
   • Flutter
     
   • Heat transfer
   • Computational Fluid Dynamics
   • Wind tunnel testing
5. Electronics
   • GPU programming
   • FPGA programming
   • Microcontroller programming
   • Manufacturing of board, IO, cables, harnesses
   • Optics
   • EW
   • SIGINT
   • Honestly too much to list so going to give up now lol
6. Radars
   • RF circuits
   • Power electronics
   • Different frequency bands and their associated component design
   • Cooling
   • Signal processing
7. Control Systems
   • Classical control
   • Adaptive control
   • Model Predictive control
   • Robust control
   • Nonlinear control
   • Embedded control
   • Digital control
8. Instrumentation
   • MEMS Gyroscopes
   • MEMS Accelerometers
   • Pressure transducers
   • Optical sensors
   • Mechanical sensors
   • Filtering and estimation
   • Sensor placement
   • Sensor fusion
9. Flight Dynamics
   • Dynamics and simulation
   • Flight dynamics of aircraft, missiles
   • Control design for aircraft
10. Systems
    • System integration
    • Flight control system architectures
    • Hardware architectures
11. Ergonomics
    • User interface design
    • Cockpit design
    • Haptic feedback

This list doesn't even scratch the surface and I basically gave up towards the end because I have work to do lol. Also, these kinds of lists may be long but usually engineers (such as myself) are well versed in many of these things. So for example I may be a controls person but I am well versed in flight dynamics, sensor fusion, estimation, flutter as well. So you will need to get groups of people who will all do a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

I see for quite long time there is no Pakistani journalist ever make an extensive article about AZM project and ask many important question to Pakistan Aerospace (PAC KAMRA) official. It will be quite interesting to make an article about it as many Pakistani are quite curious about it.

I believe with so many Pakistani members are here, there could be some who work as journalist. Maybe their current desk is not in aviation, technology, or defense, but at least they can make one, considering many journalist have important contact or at least eligible to ask for interview due to their press pass. If they can make the article and being published somewhere, it will be helpful if they can put the news here.

Unfortunately, there are aspects of our military/national culture that don't lend well to such efforts. I have tried many times to ask insightful questions to people working at PAC but almost always I have been met with vague answers. Their motives I can only guess but seem to be the following:
1. Are you a spy or something asking all these questions?
2. Are you a bloody civilian who doesn't know anything about these things asking these questions to sound cool? (well our military journalism is quite bad as well).

PAC is happy to do fluff pieces like we see on news channels but as soon as you try to probe a tiny bit technically (as someone from this forum might) they get extremely defensive and dismissive.

 

[The Maverick]

Guys is there a model of the proposed project azm
I want to compare with j31 which paf other realistic option and indeed compare to models of the three or four other fifth generation fighters planned in Asian countries

Ie Japans which is the most developed and well financed
South Korean Indonesian project
And Indian Amca project which is also very early doors

 

[Syed1.]

Guys is there a model of the proposed project azm
I want to compare with j31 which paf other realistic option and indeed compare to models of the three or four other fifth generation fighters planned in Asian countries

Ie Japans which is the most developed and well financed
South Korean Indonesian project
And Indian Amca project which is also very early doors

At this point we have only been told that just the first level of conceptual design has been completed and there will be two more levels. I currently work for a large company that assists a very famous company in developing submarines for navies around the world. In my experience first phase of conceptual design is just deciding what system goes where and laying out the hierarchy of the vessel. For example the sonar system is a sub-system of the overall navigation system and the navigation system is a sub-system of the overall combat system. At this stage you can think of it as just aain baain shaain ki baatien but it is very important to have a strictly laid out structure to your project. I hope PAC is following a similar pattern, so that being said at this point we might only have a conceptual preliminary sketched layout of what AZM would look like.

 

[The Maverick]

At this point we have only been told that just the first level of conceptual design has been completed and there will be two more levels. I currently work for a large company that assists a very famous company in developing submarines for navies around the world. In my experience first phase of conceptual design is just deciding what system goes where and laying out the hierarchy of the vessel. For example the sonar system is a sub-system of the overall navigation system and the navigation system is a sub-system of the overall combat system. At this stage you can think of it as just aain baain shaain ki baatien but it is very important to have a strictly laid out structure to your project. I hope PAC is following a similar pattern, so that being said at this point we might only have a conceptual preliminary sketched layout of what AZM would look like.

AZM Concept

Indian AMCA

MOCK UP SOUTH Korean fifth gen

 

[Syed1.]

AZM Concept

Indian AMCA

MOCK UP SOUTH Korean fifth gen

That AZM concept is fake.

 

[The Maverick]

That AZM concept is fake.

Is there any model or is just a concept at this stage

It seems to me this project is just been discussed sat this stage at is 20 years away

Which means to me a you 5th gen options are naval fighter J31 only rom china

 

[GriffinsRule]

Is there any model or is just a concept at this stage

It seems to me this project is just been discussed sat this stage at is 20 years away

Which means to me a you 5th gen options are naval fighter J31 only rom china

It is 20 years away and there is no model

 

[Armchair]

This slow development method is p!ss poor. And shows that PAF's mentality is still decades behind. What we are seeing is use of AGILE based program management that is revolutionizing programs worldwide. What started of as a software development philosophy has now turned into a revolution of engineering methodology.

This is how SpaceX and Tesla are beating the odds - rapid development with an aim to gain by engineered constant failure. While the old way was to avoid failure at all costs. If PAF were to adopt a SpaceX approach to Azm, you wouldn't be stuck for years in the "initial concept" stage.

You'd go into prototyping in a short span, and then move on to competing designs and refining the prototype(s). By now you would be building actual airframes and trying to figure out FBW algorithms for the design.

With help from Chengdu, this FBW algorithm stage would then stabilize into a flyable control system. Using base engines (like say the WS-13 or RD-93) you'd be building the first flyable prototypes. As you figure out the issues, you'd be building multiple second stage flyable prototypes.

A low risk program like Azm surely is, is possible in 5 years. With SpaceX like rapid development methodologies in 3. But with the dinosaur methodology used by PAF, will take 20 years minimum.