JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread

Munir said:

It has all to do with costs and results. PLAAF is moving from huge numbers of lots of different aircraft to some less but a lot better quality. But we also know that it will expand its power. I think there will be room cause JF17 is a good plane all inhouse and extremely cheap. It an do pretty much everything in defending homeland. It is almost comparable with J10 but 1/3 of the costs. Surely it has less room to evolve or less ordnance/range but do you need that if you have enough with IFR, good sensors/links, 4 BVR and 2 WVR? If they need something though then you can go towards J10,J11,FC20 and J20. The numbers China still needs to produce it will become handy. It was not handy cause there is no chinese engine and the fact that their priority is first medium and high tech. We can discuss it over and over again but to my knowledge the JF17 has a role and China can use that in the future (+2 years).

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Couldn't agree more!

JF-17/FC-1 is a good platform, good for its price and value. With good radar/sensors package and EW, it is as good as any fighter. So if number is a priority, JF-17/FC-1 is a excellent fighter because China/Pakistan can produce more.

And you raise an excellent point, China's priority right now is high tech, it wants to "tech up" as quickly as possible, that means, to shift the resource allocation from "producing more" to "developing higher tech". Its not because China can't afford to produce 2000 JF-17/FC-1 fleet like USA with F-16 back in 80s, but 2000 JF-17/FC-1 would cost $30 billion dollars, more than half of the PLA annual budget. If F-22 cost $65 billion to develop, and the current estimate of J-20 program cost is 1/5 of F-22's cost, then J-20 cost $13 billion, then $30 billion dollar can more than fund 2 such projects.

Once China has a good foundation - being able to design, and manufacture its own high performance engine completely, then it will be able to shift its focus on back to "producing more", and bringing down the cost.

Going higher tech gives one options, you can always go lower tech and produce more any time you choose; where as if you focus on purely numbers at the cost of going higher tech, then you will stagnant technologically. I think China has learn that lesson for far too long, so now shifting its focusing on quality and technology instead of pure number. Its already reducing the size of its fighter fleet, and also personnel.

While there is still large number of J-7 (700+) and J-8 (400+) in PLAAF's fleet, but these aging fighters are going to get phase out soon. Perhaps, in the future they could fill these with JF-17?

For Pakistan, I don't think there is anything to worry about, Pakistan is going to get J-10/FC-20 sooner or later, and possibly J-20 later on.

bingo said:

I don't know why China wants to a be replica of USA in every sense. Are you guys really that impressed by USA?

To be fair, USA is pretty good. But it has its own imperfections.

For your own good, you need to "BE YOURSELF".

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The quickest and most risk free way to improve yourself is to learn and emulate someone who is better than you.

Ask yourself, why do you learn math at school?? You can always choose "to be yourself" and "rediscover" all the fundamental math theorems by yourself, but chances are, it will take you too long to rediscover it all in your own life time. That's why we go to school to learn. Its the shortest path to improve oneself.

Also, I don't think China is trying to be "replica" of USA in anyway, quite contrary. China is almost exact opposite of USA in every way possible (political system, social structure, religion, philosophy, history.....etc etc), it will take too long to explain...plus we are getting quite off-topic here.

Asymptote: good and interesting reply. Wanted to add a little that by investing in the high tech China not only is able to counter latest threats but it is using its R&D to maximum. All the technologies are also used to cross testing. JF17 had LERX. You see them back on J20. JF17 had DSI (simple layout). You saw that then on FC20 (more complex) and now on stealth J20 (a la f22 but with DSI). On the other hand the radar of J10 is used to get that in JF17. Same goes for other opponents like MAWS, IFR etc. If they had gone with JF17 they had a basic plane with basic capabilities right now. By taking a better plane (J10 when they had J10 and JF17, now taking J20 when they have J11, J10, JF17) as major project they move faster ahead then if they had gone with other options. You see that there is a lot of focus now on J20 and naval J11. Knowing China there is even more then this. And indeed with JF17 improving fast with technologies from FC20 and maybe eve J20 it will become a very interesting plane that will suit PLAAF.

Asymptote said:

The quickest and most risk free way to improve yourself is to learn and emulate someone who is better than you.

Ask yourself, why do you learn math at school?? You can always choose "to be yourself" and "rediscover" all the fundamental math theorems by yourself, but chances are, it will take you too long to rediscover it all in your own life time. That's why we go to school to learn. Its the shortest path to improve oneself.

Also, I don't think China is trying to be "replica" of USA in anyway, quite contrary. China is almost exact opposite of USA in every way possible (political system, social structure, religion, philosophy, history.....etc etc), it will take too long to explain...plus we are getting quite off-topic here.

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Good to know

Atleast you agree, it's futile to learn unproven mathematics by rote. Or so you imply.

USA is imperfect .... and definitely not worth creating an exact replica of.

A mix of JF-17, J-10, Su-30MKK and J-20 deserves to considered in it's own right.

Munir said:

Asymptote: good and interesting reply. Wanted to add a little that by investing in the high tech China not only is able to counter latest threats but it is using its R&D to maximum. All the technologies are also used to cross testing. JF17 had LERX. You see them back on J20. JF17 had DSI (simple layout). You saw that then on FC20 (more complex) and now on stealth J20 (a la f22 but with DSI). On the other hand the radar of J10 is used to get that in JF17. Same goes for other opponents like MAWS, IFR etc. If they had gone with JF17 they had a basic plane with basic capabilities right now. By taking a better plane (J10 when they had J10 and JF17, now taking J20 when they have J11, J10, JF17) as major project they move faster ahead then if they had gone with other options. You see that there is a lot of focus now on J20 and naval J11. Knowing China there is even more then this. And indeed with JF17 improving fast with technologies from FC20 and maybe eve J20 it will become a very interesting plane that will suit PLAAF.

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There is a huge difference between a variable DSI and a fixed DSI, I hope you realize that. And if as you say JF-17 is almost as good as J-10 at 1/3 the cost, then PLAAF has no reason to buy J-10s or J-11s at all. I can tell you J-10 is definitely not 3 times the cost of JF-17. But as with all else in PLAAF, we wait and see.

tphuang...what do you think about the JF-17 stealth-optimization rumour?

I think nothing radical. J20 is real the stealth asset. The rest will me made lower RCS but even that comes with limits like external stores or room for sensors/fuel etc.

There just isn't enough space on the JF-17 for internal weapons bay. We could, at best, hope for a cocoon implementation like the one used on the stealth super hornet.

I have always wondered why more designs do not use the semi-recessed AAM carriage method as seen on the likes of the Tornado, Typhoon and F15.

I think if you are serious about RCS minimization on a non-fifth gen fighter, semi-recessed AAMs would be the single biggest improvement you can make aside from maybe hiding the engine blades if they are not already shielded.

You can spend a lot of time, money and effort making a plane's RCS tiny clean, but as soon as you start strapping weapons and pylons on, a lot of they work goes right down the drain.

The JF17's MLG position means semi-recessed weapons are not possible without repositioning the MLG to retract into the wings, but even then the main fuselage shape is too rounded.

Unless you can work semi-recessed carriage into a design, I don't think trying to make it more 'stealthy' is worth the effort and cost.

The JF17 was always meant to be cheap but effective. You are never going to beat J10s or Eurocanards with it, and it was never meant to compete with those kinds of planes (maybe with the exception of the Gripen), trying would only make the plane a lot more expensive for a little improvement in combat configuration.

If the PAF cannot afford J10s and want something better, fair enough, but I would not be spending money trying to get a stealthy JF17 when I could get J10s for probably a similar cost at a similar date if I were them.

Looks like a PL-12 launch-rail ??!!