JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

PeoplesPoster said:

Whats the point of buying a "low cost fighter" when your just going to lose them in any foreseeable conflict?

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Its not a Final Fantasy video game where level 10 JF-17 will always lose to level 15 Su-30MKI.

Jet Fighters are tools, just like rifles. Imagine a dozen guys with 50 year old H&K G-3 rifles (still operated by many countries) going up against a dozen guys packing brand new H&K G-36's. Do you think the G-36 operators will just kill everyone on the other side 12-0? In actuality, the result will probably be very mixed. The rifle will make a much smaller difference than tactics, positioning, numbers, body armor, training, terrain, support, etc...

Regardless of possible MRCA or T-50 acquisitions, the bulk of InAF for next 15 years will be Mig-21's, Su-30's, Mig-29's and Mirage 2000's. The JF-17 can certainly mix it up with all those fighters. It is not obsolete compared to them.

Why will US operate F-16's well into 2025? Because they don't need F-22 for everyone. Similarly, PAF does not need a next generation fighter for entire InAF. JF-17 can defend against most of it. It can always be upgraded later to give it more edge, if Pakistan somehow gets the cash. But Pakistan is financially in a very difficult position.

So it is totally worth it for PAF to get it, and to keep it low-cost.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

Whether a third world nation has one squadron of high end fighters or ten squadrons of low end fighters, it stands no chance against a modern air force such as the USAF or PLAAF.

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Quite wrong.
If a third world nation has ten squadrons of low end fighters with well trained pilots, the USAF or PLAAF would seriously reconsider attacking them. Of course USAF or PLAAF would win, but they would suffer serious enough losses. 3:1 or 4:1 kill ratios would be possible, and that would hurt USAF morale a lot more than their enemy's.

The thing is, people tend to always think of the dominant performance in the gulf wars or the six day war... but the losing pilots there had horrible training and the air forces were poorly maintained. A country with good training seldom gets attacked. Look at what happened in Vietnam.

Of course something like stealth or one side not having BVR weapons can make a significant difference. But if both sides have BVR weapons and neither has stealth, technology is no longer the dominant factor. Tactics, numbers, training, maintenance, that's what decides victory. Look at any war in history.

rhino123 said:

Of course if the FC-1 is to face a more superior fighter (T-50, Su-30 or even the F16, etc), it would have little chance of survival.

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Wrong, see rifle analogy above.

Munir said:

To me the main question remains... Is it worth to add a more powerful engine cause it is defined as a cheap fighter?

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Agreed 100%

Lion said:

Garbage??? If profit is everything, PLA will have sold everything Iran wants..

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The only reason they stopped selling to Iran is because they got the US to agree to stop selling to Taiwan (US has changed their mind now obviously). That would reduce chance of expensive war with Taiwan, and would be profitable. Profit is everything.

Lion said:

Let me ask you again. You all admit Pakistan has no experience changing jet engines and Pakistan has no facilities doing that.

If CAC refuse to do it. How is Pakistan going to do about it?

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flyboy2008 said:

Since you now admit Pakistan cannot change the engine on it's own, will you retract your original claims?

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Although changing engines on JF-17 is an expensive and silly idea and Pakistan would not want to do it, it could still be done. I don't know why you think Pakistan cannot do it. What exactly makes think that? Just because they have never done it before? Has China made a stealth fighter before? Does that mean they can never make one? And how did US go to moon if they had never done it before?

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

Londo Molari said:

Although changing engines on JF-17 is an expensive and silly idea and Pakistan would not want to do it, it could still be done. I don't know why you think Pakistan cannot do it. What exactly makes think that? Just because they have never done it before? Has China made a stealth fighter before? Does that mean they can never make one? And how did US go to moon if they had never done it before?

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Londo, using your logic, since you and I never built a jet fighter before, does that mean we too can build a jet fighter from scratch?

Of course not.

China has decades of experience in building jet planes, and reconfiguring it to suit their needs.

Look at India. They failed with their LCA because they do not have enough experience.

So I ask you, what kind of experience does Pakistan have that you can justifiably say they can reconfigure the JF17 with a western engine independently from CAC/China?

The answer is, they have no such experience, and that means that if they attempt to try, most likely they will fail. Yet your compatriots are making asinine assumptions that Pakistan can do whatever they want and desire as if such things require only willpower and desire!

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

Guys, just ignore people who wish to discuss what Pakistan can or can not do. They might as well open another thread to discuss technological capabilities of Pakistan.

If we engage in more back-and-forth point scoring, we would be doing what happened to the last JF-17 / FC1 thread and that would very well satisfy flame-warrior-on-the-lose.

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

I wouldn't put engine swap with the same level of difficulty as building a plane from scratch. Granted a lot of modifications will need to be made and time consuming.

And the point that CAC wouldn't do engine swap is kind of moot. JF-17 is increasing likely for export only isn't it? So this means it has to meet the requirements of foreign partner as they have the obligation to, given the partner provides the fund. The only thing that could prevent CAC from doing so is unwillingness of Western countries to sell engines.

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

Making changes to accommodate a new Engine is NOT impossible..... But it will cost time and money. You can't do a plug and play job.

Whether Pakistan can or cannot do it on her own.... well.... take that to another thread please.... Thank you...

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

Really, this thread is being seriously derailed. I've read pages and pages of basically nothing informative about the JF-17 and thought to myself, "Who cares?"

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

This is a warning, if this penis contest continues, I will be deleting posts.

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

Reading from a number of the abovementioned posts, I find that the main question boils down to one very simple point,

"Pakistan's capability in aerospace industry, whether she could phase in a foreign engine other than what CAC is offering."

Rather than arguing this point till the cows come home, why don't we simply look at it in this two scenario,

Assuming that Pakistan had the capability (afterall, they did built ballistic missiles, nuclear missiles and stuff like that in the past,) and frankly speaking, none of us actually know the current capability of Pakistan all that well (remember the time in the 60s when no one believe that China could field a nuclear bomb? And remember in the 70s when no one believe that China had the means of delivering the nuclear warhead?), now lets come back to the first scenario, assuming that Pakistan had the capability to upgrade or modify JF-17 to field a western engine, what would be the implication.

Note that this is a join venture between China and Pakistan, as long as there is nothing in the contract saying that Pakistan couldn't do their own modification, I feel that Pakistan could go ahead to do whatever they feel like it. However when it boils down to the $$$ sense, does it make any sense to do it? Not that Chinese engines are the best options they could have, but certainly the Chinese's engine are good enough for the cost of the plane.

Now lets go to scenario 2,

Lets assume that Pakistan do not have the capability to do the modification and required the assistance from CAC or China or any third party. We have to again look into the contract between Pakistan and China. Do Pakistan had the right to ask third party member to do the modification for them? If the answer is no (under the lawful contract), then there really is no one else to go to but China.

And when they go to China, things might be a bit more complicated, cost might increase, there is the question of bottleneck whereby western nation might not want to sell their engine to China.

Lets take a step back, if the contract between Pakistan and China didn't spec that Pakistan needed to go through China to modify their plane for the insertion of a western engine, we have to look into two aspects now;

Aspect 1:

Who would Pakistan most likely approach? Which nation could provide the engine that Pakistan might be interested and was still within the cost that Pakistan wanted.

Aspect 2:

Even if Pakistan was to select an engine from the western source, could airframe modification really fit into the cost frame. What about the time needed for this modification.

Lets also look back to this scenario. Remember that China might not be in good terms with every nations. Even when Pakistan had full right to sent their aircraft to a third party for upgrade and modification of the aircraft and this third nation is not in good term with China, do you think that China would not protest?

We are talking about politics and international relationship now... and this is a touchy issue. Pakistan (although is a fully independent nation) is an ally to China, and I do not think Pakistan or China would want to sour that relationship over a single fighter program, which by itself is sufficient and capable.

So the main question now is not just whether Pakistan could modify the plane by herself, but it actually boils down to the following,

1) Cost (was it worth doing it or not?)
2) Timeframe of getting the aircraft done.
3) Politics (Pakistan and China's relationship)
4) Third party's relationship with both China and Pakistan
5) Logistic and identification of supply hurdle.

Point number 5 is quite interesting actually. Remember that China and Pakistan are close ally, and so if Pakistan is using Chinese engines, I could predict that there is very little hurdle for maintenance and overhaul issues. And they could get the engines in abundance as long as they are willing to pay for it. However for western engines... such might not be the case. Unless Pakistan could actually find a country whereby they share the same relationship with China... even so... China is just beside Pakistan, sending her planes for overhaul or getting engine in from China is faster and cheaper. If it is a third western country, getting the engine in is going to be quite a long wait... plus if they wanted to send their aircraft to that said country for overhauling and stuff like that, I can imagine the logistical hurdle.

So instead of killing each other over whether Pakistan had the capability to do modication or not... the main question is actually, whether it is worth doing it or not.

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

Okay, so I left Rhino's post in there because it is a relatively long and well thought of posts. Posts I deleted either just continue the same arguments arguing for their side or questioning my warning. The point is this. My goal is to not allow one side to win over the other. It is to allow good flowing discussion and meaning discussion about JF-17. There is no reason to bring India into this or use this to promote any side. Let's just talk about news regarding to JF-17.

Re: JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread 2009

This is my last post for a long time.

TP obviously you are a part of the "penis contest". You did not say it, but you just showed that you think you are the one.

I merely commented on Rhino's post and pointed out that Pakistanis do not consider Russia a reliable enough supplier. There was no India, Western Engine, or China in that post. Why did you delete that post? Munir protested and if you took it personally then that is fine, we find moderators like that on other forums, but why delete post like mine which had nothing objectionalble. Or is it that you can not stand people discussing alternate engine for JF17?