Air Marshal Khalid Choudhry, Chairman of the Pakistan aeronautical Complex Board (PACB), accepted KDR’s exclusive interview. He disclosed that 8 JF17 fighters are now on the production line in Chengdu, and some of them will be delivered to Pakistan on March 23, 2007, the Independence Day of the country. These two JF17 fighters are expected to give demonstrative flights on the Independence Day, and the remaining JF17 fighters will all be delivered to Pakistan within 2007. In January 2008, Pakistan will start producing JF17 fighter.
Air Marshal Choudhry told KDR that the first batch of JF17 fighters would be fitted with Chinese-made radar systems, and currently two research institutes in Nanjing and Wuxi (KDR note: No.14 Institute and No.607 Institute) are bidding for the radar systems. Pakistan will make a decision upon completing all tests. Meanwhile, since the Pakistani Air Force has chosen the Grifo-7 radar system designed by Italian Galileo Avionica Company for F7PG fighter, Galileo Avionica hopes that eventually it will win the bid for JF17 radar system. “Pakistan is very clever. They will allow two Chinese companies to compete with each other first, and then get the Chinese compete with Western companies. If Pakistan requests, Galileo Avionica will provide Pakistan with the radar system for testing on JF17,” a source from Galileo Avionica said. KDR learned that the testing JF17 uses Chinese KLJ10 radar.
As for the weapon systems on JF17, China offered a number of choices, including LT-2 laser guided bombs, LS-6 GPS guided bombs and SD10 active radar guided AAMs. Nonetheless, Air Marshal Choudhry said that they are still assessing these offers and no final decisions have been made. JF17 can be fitted with either Chinese weapon systems or Western weapons.
As regard the application of RD93 engines, Air Marshal confirmed that “it is not an issue at all.” He said that Pakistan would formally begin manufacturing JF17fighters in January 2008. With technological assistance from China, installation of the production facility is now under way, and some of the equipments are imported from Western countries. The production output of JF17 after 2008 will be very much depending on the demand of the Pakistani Air Force, probably 15-20 annually. Air Marshal said that the eventual production plan would be more than 150, because the Pakistani Air Force needs to fully replace the existing hundreds of Mirage and J7 fighters.
Air Commodore Muhammad Kamal Alam, Managing Director of PACB, told KDR that the current plan is that RD93 will be serviced by China, but Pakistan has confidence that it would eventually maintain and repair the engines on its own, as Pakistan had the experience of repairing the American and French aviation engines simultaneously under extremely difficult conditions. He said that Pakistan planned to manufacture 15 JF17 fighters in 2008and another 20 in 2009.
According to the terms in the original JF17 production contract, eventually 50% of the production activity will be in Pakistan, and the final assembling will also be in Pakistan. There is also a plan to promote JF17 to the Sri Lanka Air Force.
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KDR has confirmed that JF17 uses longitudinal quadroplex fly-by-wire (FBW) system, and the lateral flight control system is still mechanical. The FC1 designed in 2001 was planned to use longitudinal duplex FBW system while Air Marshal Choudhry said that the upgraded JF17 fighter would use all directional FBW system.
Br. General Raja Hafeez, Managing Director for aircraft manufacturing at PACB, told KDR that the unit price of JF17 would be under US$20 million.
At the same time of receiving JF17 fighters, Pakistan also plans to purchase 18 F16 Block 52 fighters during the first phase, and it also reserves the option of purchasing another 18 fighters of the same model. In addition, Pakistan will upgrade the F16 fighters currently in service. The F16 Block 52 fighter currently being promoted to Pakistan is fitted with external fuel tanks similar to the F16 Block 52 fighters of the Singaporean Air Force. A source from the Pakistani Air Force says that the weapon systems to be fitted on F16 Block 52 are still under final assessment.
Group Captain Arif Mahmood TI (M), Director of Human Resources Department of the Pakistani Air Force Headquarters, disclosed to KDR that Pakistan is now tired of the constant sanctions and technological restrictions of other countries, and thus earnestly hopes that it can manufacture fighters independently. Nonetheless, he frankly acknowledged that the pilots of the Air Force like the US-made F16 better, and annual training time of these pilots is 100-200 hours. The requirements for F16 pilots are different from those for other types of fighters, and they are often assigned with a variety of tasks.
KDR assumes that the Pakistani Air Force has already put the JF17 plan on the top of its priorities.
With JF17 fighters entering the Pakistani Air Force soon, the Chinese military enterprises have started to bid for the weapon systems to be fitted on JF17. The laser guided bombs currently fitted on JF17 is extremely similar to the LT-2 LGB developed by Luoyang Optical-Electro Technology Development Center. In addition, China also put on display at the 2006 Zhuhai Air Show another type of laser targeting pod specifically designed for JF17.
At the IDEAS 2006 in Karachi, NORINCO displayed a 500kg laser guided called GB1,
which uses a laser seeker similar to that of the Russian 155mm Krashnopol gun launched projectile. This GB1 LGB is semi-active guided, and along with it on the display platform are a laser target designation device and a laser targeting pod. _
KDR reported earlier that Xi’an Sicong Group has obtained one set of the Russian Krasnopol LGB laser seeker, and Russia has also transferred the technology of this laser seeker to China. Technical experts from Xi’an Sicong Group claim that before the technological transfer from Russia, they had developed a laser seeker similar to that of Krasnopol. This laser seeker can be used not only on guided projectiles, but also on other aviation bombs.
Sicong Group displayed the Chinese edition Krasnopol laser seeker at the 2006 Zhuhai Air Show for less than one day before removing it from the exhibition platform, indicating that the Chinese military forces are now armed with this system. A source says that they not only hope to introduce the GB1 LGB onto the JF17 fighters of the Pakistan Air Force, but that the A5 attackers currently in service in Pakistan can also use this laser guided bomb. Nonetheless, a source from the Pakistan Air Force told KDR that they do not have plans to upgrade A5 attackers at the moment, as the lifespan of A5s is almost coming to an end.
The physical structure of this 500kg GB1 LGB is almost identical to that of LT-2 LGB, with the only difference in their guidance systems.
The Pakistan Air Force has already acquired the US-made GBU12 LGB, and Pakistan is also producing GBU12 laser seeker under technological license from the US. Some Western military observers have even claimed that China acquired the GBU12 laser guidance technology from Pakistan in the earlier years. The laser guidance technologies of LT-2 and GBU12 belong to the same generation. Under this circumstance, LT-2 will be in face of challenges in the Pakistani market from the indigenous GBU12.
This is a Kanwa article unfortunately the link does not show the article as it will only be for subscribers
, there are few pictures as well, i will try to find them for ya
