SAC - FC-31 Grey Falcon Stealth aircraft for PAF : Updates & Debate

[Chak Bamu]

Harris Ali 2140, Obama Administration had approved the request for 8, so it is very possible that US will sell to PAF, ( Block 52+ likely 72 perhaps. ) $ from Pak side is the hurdle, Pak rejected the last offer to pay full price, but at the end defense is an expensive thing but can you place $ on Freedom ?

We could learn from Bangladesh. They have higher growth on back of higher HDI investment. In five years they could be in a position to afford what Pakistan would only dream of.

Defense is expensive, yes; but what good is hardware when HDI is abysmal & future prospects non-existent?

All the talk of 4.5 Gen & 5th Gen is nonsense if it means further dent to the very meager development budget. Rest assured that this is exactly what it would do.

 

[Sine Nomine]

We could learn from Bangladesh. They have higher growth on back of higher HDI investment. In five years they could be in a position to afford what Pakistan would only dream of.

Defense is expensive, yes; but what good is hardware when HDI is abysmal & future prospects non-existent?

All the talk of 4.5 Gen & 5th Gen is nonsense if it means further dent to the very meager development budget. Rest assured that this is exactly what it would do.

Pakistan stands at cross roads today,few years from that position,there won't be any coming back.
We have force to deter any aggression,we just need to sit down and think about nation building.
Left overs of East India Company can't think about other than themselves.

 

[MIRauf]

BD is India's Client state, sure Pak can ride that boat as well and likely can come out on top as well. Freedom has it's $, do you think India will allow BD to have decent military capability ?

I write this as no disrespect to BD, their model suits them well, will it suite Pak ?

I see hard work as salvation of Pakistan, not some quick $ making route that most their like to follow. I have had heard of stories of Arab's pumping $ in business in 70s and motto was roll with it and they will pump more and we don't have to deliver anything, very short term gains by businessmen.

 

[Chak Bamu]

BD is India's Client state, sure Pak can ride that boat as well and likely can come out on top as well. Freedom has it's $, do you think India will allow BD to have decent military capability ?

I write this as no disrespect to BD, their model suits them well, will it suite Pak ?

I see hard work as salvation of Pakistan, not some quick $ making route that most their like to follow. I have had heard of stories of Arab's pumping $ in business in 70s and motto was roll with it and they will pump more and we don't have to deliver anything, very short term gains by businessmen.

You are partly correct. BD had no choice but to become a client state. On my first visit to BD in 2001, I was surprised to see the quantum of Indian products in use. It looked like a market totally captured by India.

But numbers speak louder than first impressions. I have a lot of respect for BD, its people's hard work, & consistency. It is a fit case to demonstrate what is possible when government allows nation's people to work and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

While Pakistan stands up to India at every turn, other SAARC countries keep a very diplomatic attitude. Smaller neighbors of India take advantage of Pakistan's strong stance against Indian hegemony. So, in a sense Pakistan subsidizes other SAARC countries' diplomatic & strategic needs.

But now it is getting to a point where Pakistan can not keep pushing a hard line. The current situation has shown the limits of what is possible for Pakistan. According to some experts, with the current HDI Pakistan's can not grow at more than 4% annually. Periodically a government may push the growth rate above 4%, but the costs are high and subsequently the growth rate dips. Right now GDP growth rate has crashed from around 5.8% in 2017-18 to 2.8% in current FY. The bottleneck is HDI, not security. We could give a strong pushback to India without having to invest in expensive gear. The only way forward is to create markets for military hardware that Pakistan produces (JF-17, Al-Khalid, K-8, various munitions). The only way to support a 5th gen is if it is possible to leverage it economically & strategically.

There is no point in hankering after expensive gear when Pakistan's internal contradictions are so glaring.

 

[Quwa]

You are partly correct. BD had no choice but to become a client state. On my first visit to BD in 2001, I was surprised to see the quantum of Indian products in use. It looked like a market totally captured by India.

But numbers speak louder than first impressions. I have a lot of respect for BD, its people's hard work, & consistency. It is a fit case to demonstrate what is possible when government allows nation's people to work and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

While Pakistan stands up to India at every turn, other SAARC countries keep a very diplomatic attitude. Smaller neighbors of India take advantage of Pakistan's strong stance against Indian hegemony. So, in a sense Pakistan subsidizes other SAARC countries' diplomatic & strategic needs.

But now it is getting to a point where Pakistan can not keep pushing a hard line. The current situation has shown the limits of what is possible for Pakistan. According to some experts, with the current HDI Pakistan's can not grow at more than 4% annually. Periodically a government may push the growth rate above 4%, but the costs are high and subsequently the growth rate dips. Right now GDP growth rate has crashed from around 5.8% in 2017-18 to 2.8% in current FY. The bottleneck is HDI, not security. We could give a strong pushback to India without having to invest in expensive gear. The only way forward is to create markets for military hardware that Pakistan produces (JF-17, Al-Khalid, K-8, various munitions). The only way to support a 5th gen is if it is possible to leverage it economically & strategically.

There is no point in hankering after expensive gear when Pakistan's internal contradictions are so glaring.

There's a middle path too. We can properly align military and political needs to the economy, and in turn, build the economy to support the former two.

So, while an aggressive focus on HDI is an option, we have to keep in mind we also made very little or zero investment in developing critical inputs for our military hardware, such as gas turbines, rockets, or semiconductors. Yes, education and facilities are required to achieve it, but you can make select or focused investments there (much like China and Russia do) and push the whole cart up.

Our problem has been that we approached defence in isolation of even its contributing factors. Had we developed the inputs in the 1950s, we could very well have had solid long term exports, perhaps mirror South Korea and Taiwan on both economy and defence spending.

 

[CHACHA"G"]

@The Eagle , @Horus , @WebMaster , @Dubious
Why few people turning every defence related thread into economy thread ?

 

[The Eagle]

@The Eagle , @Horus , @WebMaster , @Dubious
Why few people turning every defence related thread into economy thread ?

In my opinion, economy plays a major role for defence progress so we can afford a bit of discussion or couple of posts to support our arguments in regard to our acquisitions/force build up and possible route to enhance our defence capability. I do agree to the extent that Economy alone shouldn't be the center of discussion and it can be done only in manners where the relation can be established in specific area/point to argue.

 

[Quwa]

In my opinion, economy plays a major role for defence progress so we can afford a bit of discussion or couple of posts to support our arguments in regard to our acquisitions/force build up and possible route to enhance our defence capability. I do agree to the extent that Economy alone shouldn't be the center of discussion and it can be done only in manners where the relation can be established in specific area/point to argue.

I agree. In some respects, like the PAF FGFA, they're clearly connected. A big part of the PAF's stated vision with Project Azm is to build a proper aerospace industry. They're aware that the key for high tech acquisitions is to also export high tech solutions, hence the effort to design a fighter locally (a sub industry itself if we think about CAD/CAM expertise, design, testing in wind-tunnels, and in time machine learning, etc) and build as much as possible locally, which brings us to gas turbines, composites, etc.

If we can advance our aerospace, space and nuclear industries to an extent where we can export across each, we won't have to worry about our economy, IMO.

 

[The Eagle]

I agree. In some respects, like the PAF FGFA, they're clearly connected. A big part of the PAF's stated vision with Project Azm is to build a proper aerospace industry. They're aware that the key for high tech acquisitions is to also export high tech solutions, hence the effort to design a fighter locally (a sub industry itself if we think about CAD/CAM expertise, design, testing in wind-tunnels, and in time machine learning, etc) and build as much as possible locally, which brings us to gas turbines, composites, etc.

If we can advance our aerospace, space and nuclear industries to an extent where we can export across each, we won't have to worry about our economy, IMO.

Can't agree more. Having not so pleasant economic situation; one will have to look at two way road... if you have noticed, I was talking to another member in Mirage thread and I am of the opinion that we do have weak economy but unfortunately, we couldn't supplement that area due to incapable diplomatic forces in past. Yes, the economic issue will become secondary where we have achieved most of inhouse solutions with an exchange of expertise within departments as you mentioned while, the diplomatic forces can be helpful as & when needed. We will needed help for our friends and unlike past; we are now moving ahead.

FC-31 could have been the choice back then but seems like PAF had our own plans in view of local solutions for the fighter in such category.

 

[ziaulislam]

You are partly correct. BD had no choice but to become a client state. On my first visit to BD in 2001, I was surprised to see the quantum of Indian products in use. It looked like a market totally captured by India.

But numbers speak louder than first impressions. I have a lot of respect for BD, its people's hard work, & consistency. It is a fit case to demonstrate what is possible when government allows nation's people to work and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

While Pakistan stands up to India at every turn, other SAARC countries keep a very diplomatic attitude. Smaller neighbors of India take advantage of Pakistan's strong stance against Indian hegemony. So, in a sense Pakistan subsidizes other SAARC countries' diplomatic & strategic needs.

But now it is getting to a point where Pakistan can not keep pushing a hard line. The current situation has shown the limits of what is possible for Pakistan. According to some experts, with the current HDI Pakistan's can not grow at more than 4% annually. Periodically a government may push the growth rate above 4%, but the costs are high and subsequently the growth rate dips. Right now GDP growth rate has crashed from around 5.8% in 2017-18 to 2.8% in current FY. The bottleneck is HDI, not security. We could give a strong pushback to India without having to invest in expensive gear. The only way forward is to create markets for military hardware that Pakistan produces (JF-17, Al-Khalid, K-8, various munitions). The only way to support a 5th gen is if it is possible to leverage it economically & strategically.

There is no point in hankering after expensive gear when Pakistan's internal contradictions are so glaring.

our model is to print notes, subsidize the rupee and drop the interest rate..resultant free (loan) money is than pumped into the country resulting infrastructure spending and consumption leading to growth....this than leads to huge fiscal, current deficits, low savings, low local investment than ultimately ends in situation where no one lends us any money..than to avoid bankruptcy we got to IMF with promise of reforms..reforms are partially done but quickly rolled back once we leave IMF and same cycle is repeated....
ironically its done by same people who were in power in one form or another for 30+ years..the push comes from leaders more and if someone down the line resists they are either fired, or they resign..

this is whats happening in last 30 years

zero focus on education (we are no different in primary education since 2000 infact our rates have dropped), health(~which should 10-15% of GDP), productivity and exports

 

[ZedZeeshan]

FC31 Promotional Video.
https://www.xuexi.cn/lgpage/detail/index.html?id=7954007171789412673

 

[PakFactor]

Any update?

 

[Silicon0000]

Any update?

No

 

[Deino]

No

 

[StructE]

These days most predictions regarding main stream products are made by supply chain or filings to financial regulatory bodies, here is one for Chinese Jet Engines.

https://news.yahoo.com/chinas-stealth-fighters-stealth-bombers-070000618.html

The mismatch between airframes and engines could be a drag on the overall performance of Chinese military aircraft.

Perhaps the biggest shortfall is in the production of WS-15s and WS-19s, the custom motors respectively for J-20 stealth fighters and FC-31 export stealth fighters. “Data provided by Hebei Cisri Dekai Technology Co. Ltd. shows a maximum of only five WS-15 and WS-19 engines each year from 2020 ‘til 2026,” Alert 5 reported.

The first few combat-capable J-20s reportedly entered service in 2017. Flight Global’s survey of all the world’s military aircraft for 2020 listed 15 J-20s in front-line use. J-20s usually appear in public with Russian-made AL-31 motors, which experts consider to be inadequate for the heavy, long-range, supersonic fighter.

Even the up-rated 117S version of the AL-31F “would likely not be sufficient to extract the full performance potential of this advanced airframe,” wrote Carlo Kopp and Peter Goon, analysts with the Air Power Australia think tank.

A dearth of WS-15s could force J-20 regiments to continue flying with AL-31s. Meanwhile it could be difficult for Chinese industry to find buyers for the FC-31 if the plane lacks a custom engine. Prototype FC-31s fly with what appear to be Russian-made RD-93s.