So how good is Pakistan’s JF-17 fighter? Analysis from RUSI think-tank’s Justin Bronk

[HariPrasad]

Will have is the key word. Harp about it when it reaches your operating bases. Dont harp on about platforms you do not have.
A

We already have it. I am just talking about upgradation of our bird like you guys are discussing about jf 17 block 2 and block 3.

 

[araz]

We already have it. I am just talking about upgradation of our bird like you guys are discussing about jf 17 block 2 and block 3.

No one has seriously discussed Block 3 for the very simple reason we do not know what the configuration will be. You are going to order the MKIs and are going to order the upgrades. Like you are going to upgrade the M2k H to M2K5 standard. This is all farting aginst a storm and unrealistic as it has not happened NOW. Let us discuss what is there NOW.
A

 

[MastanKhan]

so JF 17 can go for long range patrol with 2500kg of fuel internally and 800 Liter central drop tank with 2 anti ship missiles(900kg each) and 2 BVR and 2WVR (payload 1600+400+800+100=~3000kg)

but it become a short interceptor when it carries 4 BVRS of each 200kg and 2 50kg WVR with central drop tank(total payload 800+100+800kg=~1900kg)........
PS
all of your other assumptions are wrong
no body can generate a 90% servicibilty
neither do we have 120 thunders

Hi,

Fighter aircraft are not Pakistani Donkeys loaded up to the hilt---. An aircraft going on an anti ship mission will possibly only have anti ship missiles on it other than the fuel tanks and would have an escort.

The limitation is Oxygen for the pilot---1 hour and 45 minutes I believe---. Otherwise you could do air to air refueling and let it fly for longer hours---.

 

[khansaheeb]

Fighter jets, like the Lockheed F-35, are becoming increasingly expensive. Is it possible to make something much cheaper? Angus Batey reports on a new breed of plane poised to take to the skies.

• By Angus Batey
• http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140903-low-cost-fighter-jets-take-off

3 September 2014
At this summer's Farnborough Air Show in England, the talk was dominated by the mishaps of one plane: the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter. Due to be adopted by major air forces in the decades to come, it was supposed to be the star of the show. But in the end, the $100m-a-unit jet failed to turn up to its coming-out party after an engine fire in one of the production models grounded the fleet.

But another new jet fighter, which had taken less than two years to design, build and fly, did make it to Farnborough. The Textron Scorpion costs $20m, still not exactly a bargain by most people's standards, but a fifth of the cost of the F-35. It suggests that not every advanced defence project has to necessarily come in years late and billions over budget – and points to a new twist in not only the future of fighter-jet design, but also in more humanitarian roles that a budget jet could carry out.




The Scorpion took only two years to go from concept to its first flight (Textron)



As Textron AirLand president Bill Anderson has said, the majority of work devoted to designing and developing fighters over the last several decades has focused on creating expensive, sophisticated machines. Whether it's Lockheed’s F-35 and F-22 Raptor, the Eurofighter Typhoon or the Boeing F/A-18, the designs have reflected the desire for advanced performance over affordability. Yet in today's economic environment, cost is becoming an unavoidably compelling issue for even the richest western nations.

Budget busters

Textron aren’t the only ones creating the tech to address this issue. The single jet fighter JF-17 is a Chinese design, currently being built in collaboration with its sole export customer, Pakistan, and is said to be available for around the same per-plane price of US$20m. Meanwhile, a Russian design, the Yak-130, has also been touted as a low-cost plane to carry out everything from air combat to reconnaissance, as well as train pilots.

This isn't the first time plane-makers have offered cheaper designs. The list of current and former operators of the Russian MiG-21 – a 1950s design still going strong today - reads like a who's who of the former Soviet bloc. And other nations who have more recently bought China’s modern upgrades of this old Soviet model show that cheap fighter planes are still a prized purchase for cash-strapped air forces.

The US used to create such designs as well; in the 1960s and 70s, air forces that couldn’t afford the heavy, twin-engined F-4 Phantom were offered the light, adaptable F-5 Freedom Fighter. The F-5 ended up serving in more than 30 air forces, and a reverse-engineered version built in Iran has just entered service with the Iranian Air Force.

There are three main classes of potential customers for planes like the Scorpion, which has a top speed of around 520mph. The first are air forces who want a small jet aircraft capable of carrying out a range of strike and intelligence-gathering missions, and who have either never flown combat jets before or are looking to replace older aircraft. The second are countries who already have, or are developing, high-end fighter forces, but who might buy fewer of the more expensive jets to obtain a larger number of cheaper aircraft. The third are the major military powers who will need the advanced jets for simpler missions in low-risk environments.




The Russian Yak-130 is being marketed as a light strike fighter as well as a training aircraft (AFP/Getty Images)



But how exactly do you make something as complex and technologically challenging as a fighter plane cheaper? Textron looked to its existing suppliers and used components that were already in production, rather than designing everything from scratch (the F-35, for example, uses an engine which was developed especially for the aircraft). The development team was deliberately kept very small, so Anderson and Scorpion chief designer, Dale Tutt, could make decisions quickly.

"Once we'd developed the initial design concept we set high-level design requirements for the team, and we didn't overburden them with a lot of detailed requirements," Tutt says. “We didn't have to invest time in developing, for example, a new engine or ejection seat. We were able to focus on putting those components together for the airplane and get it flying."

Patrol role

Textron also had the advantage of not having to meet the requirements of a specific nation or an air force. This meant that the development team could make changes to the design if they felt it would help the overall project.

"A great example is [British ejection-seat specialists] Martin Baker," says Anderson. "They sent a group of engineers over and they looked at our cockpit cup design, and they said, 'Well, our seat's not gonna work. It'll be several million dollars and 18 months for us to redesign it. But if you can give us about five more inches of volume - three in length and two in width – it will work.' So guess what we did? We made the cockpit tub a little bigger."




The Chinese JF-17 is a supersonic fighter plane with a price tag the same as the slower Scorpion (AFP/Getty Images)



The Scorpion followed its Farnborough appearance with a demonstration at an exercise in Textron's home state of Kansas, designed to simulate the aftermath of a natural disaster (a major tornado strike) on the region. The jet wasn't used in a fighter role: instead it supplied full-motion video surveillance footage to ground commanders, in a role much like the one carried out today by drones in Afghanistan. Textron wants to enter the Scorpion in the competition the US Air Force will run next year to buy 350 jet trainers to replace its obsolete fleet of T-38s, which have been serving since the 1960s. It also points to additional roles, such as border surveillance, humanitarian assistance and maritime patrol, as jobs the jet can also comfortably carry out.

"Even among the very wealthy countries we're speaking to, everyone is recognising we have to become more economical," Anderson stresses. "No doubt we need high-end fighters: but pilots need to fly, and we can't afford the airplanes we have and to fly the pilots enough to make them combat-sufficient. I think most countries recognise that you don't always need a high-end aircraft.”

 

[mingle]

Still we need twin engine plane to compliment jf17 and F-16 combo

 

[The-Hack]

Anyone who can endorse or have some information about the validity of this news

 

[Gufi]

retirements from the material world to the Himalayas.

that sounds tempting.... why wait for war??

Will have is the key word. Harp about it when it reaches your operating bases. Dont harp on about platforms you do not have.

thank you for the logical posts they were a pleasure to read.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Before we judge JF17 , we really need to understand the core of the Plane , the plane has similar characteristics to the F16 and F16 was mainly created as a defensive plane i.e Protect USA airspace , and gradually it started to get sold to international customers and US itself moved to different platform.

So the base of the JF17 is quite strong

And Pakistan really wanted a replacement for few of it's aging planes such as F7 and Mirage and that was the main objective for the fighter jet. Give us a Upgraded platform with defensive qualities of F16

Now , it has evolved from it's base Model to offer us more in Block 2 Upgrade and that is wonderful to know that he program has matured into something better


Main Objectives:

• True Workhorse , Give Pilot experience to fly Top Brand Fighter Plane

• Allow Pakistan to configure defensive / offensive weapons of our selection

• Improve Performance of Pakistan Airforce from 2025 prespective till first AZM prototype emerges

• Easier to Maintain , and we can always get newer Parts

With Recent BVR testing for JF17 and Activation , the program has attained it's main objectives already , the Block 3 is now icing on cake


The Thunder is a Defensive Weapon , and primarily for Defending National Airspace for Pakistan or for it's customers

Block III - Awaited Upgrade
Block IV - Certainly every one wants one more round of Improvements

Comparing between 1999 and 2018 , Tremendous difference

• Whole F16 Fleet is modernized or 95%
• 100 Fresh , Blood Mint planes Joined Pakistan Airforce and we retired some old planes
• Not to mention 10+ AWACs are part of Early Warning and Advance Radar program
• Multi Tier Ground Protection Units Now active

Majority of Messures of course are all defensive in Nature


And of course we must also acknowledge Arrival of Female Pilots in Pakistan Airforce
So we do need to speed up the Production so more female Pilots also move to fly Thunders as well

The J10B could have been allocated to female pilots we can technical buy it from China as well if we reallly wanted

 

[Arsalan]

Good enough to have truck loads of Indian friends discussing it day-in day-out for over a decade now!

 

[Mav3rick]

what exactly Pakistan got to counter SU-30 MKI and Rafale ?

Prayers.......mostly.

 

[gambit]

With all due respect to posters SU Carrying 12 missiles for an aggressive air encounter in enemy terrain is really a God sent for PAF. It will fly like a brick and light up like a beacon from 200 miles away. Similarly the optimal JFT load out will be 4+2 , any more and it will become too cumbersome. We have Ex AF guys like @gambit and @bilal khan777. Let us see what they have to say about load out of the F 16, JFT and SU3OMKI.
A

Am going to deviate a little bit here...

Combat radius: The maximum distance a warplane can travel from its base of operations, accomplish some objective, and return to its original airfield with minimal reserves.

Many people love to criticize the F-22 and F-35 as flawed regarding combat radius, as in 'too short', whatever that means. The critics either simply do not understand or deliberately mislead the readers that the combat radius is the result of intensive study of what the customer want vs what the design can do.

From looking at the above illustration, we can see that the combat radius of both jets are just fine. And many countries can fit inside the geographical US.

So here are what you guys can do...

1- Take the combat radius of a JF-17 in an air-air configuration and make a circle of that.
2- Take the combat radius of a JF-17 in an air-ground configuration and make a circle of that.
3- Superimpose both circles.
4- Superimpose the circles on a regional map of Pakistan.

Now move the circles anywhere in Pakistan but DO NOT go outside the borders.

If you move the JF-17 closer to the Pakistan-India border...

- How much penetration into India are you seeing -- for each combat configuration?

- Are there any geographical barriers along the way and which will you go, over or around, as fuel now becomes a critical factor?

- If you fly an air-air configuration deep into India's airspace, what is your justification? Is it to prevent opposition air from engaging your ground forces?

- If you fly an air-ground configuration deep into India's airspace, what kind of ground targets are you going after? At several hundreds km deep, is it an airfield or a weapons depot? An airfield is an imminent -- not immediate -- threat to your ground forces. A weapon depot is a delayed threat.

- If you fly an air-air configuration from center of Pakistan, you are essentially flying a deterrent and/or patrol mission.

- If you fly an air-ground configuration from center of Pakistan, does that mean you are expecting enemy ground forces that deep inside home soil?

- Do you have air refueling capability? With air refueling, you can launch from the relative safety of home soil and still penetrate deep into India's airspace.

- It is not likely that the US will fight an enemy on home soil, so our air war doctrines will be different from Pakistan as it is clear that for Pakistan, the potential for ground combat on home soil is very real. What can the JF-17 do in this case?

All these questions falls under mission planning and here is where you can credibly critique the JF-17's loadout flexibility.

 

[I FLY HIGH]

Moron comparing jft with rafael, su35 etc.
Jft belongs to the light weight fighter and being compared with heavies. Lull the bashira type of comparison.

In an event of war , just send a letter of IAF that dont send the sorties with SU35, Rafale, etc becasue we only have a cheerful fighters which are not meant to take on your fighters.

 

[CriticalThought]

Hey b@st@rd whom are you calling ' Mr. wirh no manners' eh? Go talk to your dad like that. Now get lost.

@WebMaster @The Eagle I want to call your attention to the state of this forum. It is a jungle where certain people act like animals and the only way to deal with them is to treat them like the animals they truly are. And then you have biased moderators like @araz and @Joe Shearer who dole out positive and negative ratings based on personal prejudices. I am now openly calling out the administration of this forum to ask a simple question. If your forum cannot guarantee respectful behavior towards knowledgeable posters and you have clueless people like @araz and @Chak Bamu overseeing discussions, then you can expect knowledgeable posters to leave for good. I can tell t

Hey b@st@rd whom are you calling ' Mr. wirh no manners' eh? Go talk to your dad like that. Now get lost.

@WebMaster @The Eagle I want to call your attention to the state of this forum. It is a jungle where certain people act like animals and the only way to deal with them is to treat them like the animals they truly are. And then you have biased moderators like @araz and @Joe Shearer who dole out positive and negative ratings based on personal prejudices. Case in point my post quoted above. I am now openly calling out the administration of this forum to ask a simple question. If your forum cannot guarantee respectful behavior towards knowledgeable posters and you have clueless people like @araz and @Chak Bamu overseeing discussions, then you can expect knowledgeable posters to leave for good. I can tell you this forum was an absolute cesspool of effluence back in October 2016 when I joined. Over time, the discussion has matured only to be destroyed by animals like @!eon

Given that you have no interest in defending me, I WILL look after myself. My advise to you is to look after the forum.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Am going to deviate a little bit here...

Combat radius: The maximum distance a warplane can travel from its base of operations, accomplish some objective, and return to its original airfield with minimal reserves.

Many people love to criticize the F-22 and F-35 as flawed regarding combat radius, as in 'too short', whatever that means. The critics either simply do not understand or deliberately mislead the readers that the combat radius is the result of intensive study of what the customer want vs what the design can do.

From looking at the above illustration, we can see that the combat radius of both jets are just fine. And many countries can fit inside the geographical US.

So here are what you guys can do...

1- Take the combat radius of a JF-17 in an air-air configuration and make a circle of that.
2- Take the combat radius of a JF-17 in an air-ground configuration and make a circle of that.
3- Superimpose both circles.
4- Superimpose the circles on a regional map of Pakistan.

Now move the circles anywhere in Pakistan but DO NOT go outside the borders.

If you move the JF-17 closer to the Pakistan-India border...

- How much penetration into India are you seeing -- for each combat configuration?

- Are there any geographical barriers along the way and which will you go, over or around, as fuel now becomes a critical factor?

- If you fly an air-air configuration deep into India's airspace, what is your justification? Is it to prevent opposition air from engaging your ground forces?

- If you fly an air-ground configuration deep into India's airspace, what kind of ground targets are you going after? At several hundreds km deep, is it an airfield or a weapons depot? An airfield is an imminent -- not immediate -- threat to your ground forces. A weapon depot is a delayed threat.

- If you fly an air-air configuration from center of Pakistan, you are essentially flying a deterrent and/or patrol mission.

- If you fly an air-ground configuration from center of Pakistan, does that mean you are expecting enemy ground forces that deep inside home soil?

- Do you have air refueling capability? With air refueling, you can launch from the relative safety of home soil and still penetrate deep into India's airspace.

- It is not likely that the US will fight an enemy on home soil, so our air war doctrines will be different from Pakistan as it is clear that for Pakistan, the potential for ground combat on home soil is very real. What can the JF-17 do in this case?

All these questions falls under mission planning and here is where you can credibly critique the JF-17's loadout flexibility.

• Since Pakistan have plenty of Missiles at our disposal , the Thunders might not even be needed to fly into India

• The moment our Missile Program Matured to cover all of India the Airforce Jet race was effectively finished

• Now if Indians want to commit a suicide by taking on China/Pakistan they can complicate their own existance

• Pakistan is not wide as USA map so thunder is more then enough for our need

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

But would be nice to see BlockIII hit the skies, the planes play a vital role and that is to keep trouble makers out