The Q-5, J-7, J-8 and older PLAAF aircraft

S

stibyssip

New Member
Jeff Head said:
Really?


j6_01.jpg

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I just do not see it as either the prettiest, or that graceful...but that just me. To each his own.

I'm a child of the 1950s and loved the F-8 Crusader and the Mig-21 matchup through the 1960s. But for me, now getting later into my fifties, this is by far the prettiest and most graceful fighter ever built by man.


yf23-01.jpg

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But that's just me.
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the yf-23 was a real stunner, but i admit that the old j-6 has a certain timeless appeal that some classic cars have.

images1172042_J_6_12.jpg
porsche-confirms-the-resurrection-of-giant-killer-550-spyder-37454_1.jpg

the yf-23 is undeniably futuristic and sleek, but there is a peculiar precariousness about the j-6 which like many examples of ww2 aircraft, emphasizes the excitment, danger, and daredevil spirit of aviation.
 

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Miragedriver

Miragedriver

Brigadier
This may open up the door to modernizing older 3rd generation aircraft. However I see, a crisis is in store for manned aviation against the backdrop of rising prices and increasing requirements for training of pilots. The number of countries that can afford modern piloted aircraft will inevitably decline. Sooner or later, this number will coincide with the number of countries-manufacturers. As a result, aviation producers will have to choose from either internal markets or a very narrow circle of several potential customers who will be able to afford to have and upgrade a fleet of "fourth" and "fifth" generation fighters.

This can go in a couple of directions:
1) We will see a decline in the total number of aircraft air forces poses and in the number of aircraft manufactures.

2) More of an increase in the un-manned aircraft air force

3) Many developing nations designing and producing their own combat aircraft, such as Korea with the AT-50, India and the Tejas, Pakistan and the JF-17, etc……

4) Zero airframe reconstruction of 3rd generation aircraft with modern equipment (Israel and the Kfir C12). Thereby providing number.

Any thoughts?
 
Equation

Equation

Lieutenant General
Miragedriver said:
This may open up the door to modernizing older 3rd generation aircraft. However I see, a crisis is in store for manned aviation against the backdrop of rising prices and increasing requirements for training of pilots. The number of countries that can afford modern piloted aircraft will inevitably decline. Sooner or later, this number will coincide with the number of countries-manufacturers. As a result, aviation producers will have to choose from either internal markets or a very narrow circle of several potential customers who will be able to afford to have and upgrade a fleet of "fourth" and "fifth" generation fighters.

This can go in a couple of directions:
1) We will see a decline in the total number of aircraft air forces poses and in the number of aircraft manufactures.

2) More of an increase in the un-manned aircraft air force

3) Many developing nations designing and producing their own combat aircraft, such as Korea with the AT-50, India and the Tejas, Pakistan and the JF-17, etc……

4) Zero airframe reconstruction of 3rd generation aircraft with modern equipment (Israel and the Kfir C12). Thereby providing number.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I think it would be all 4 of the cases. It depends on that particular countries needs and what are their immediate threat.
 
Costas 240GD

Costas 240GD

Junior Member
Deino

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
While I was just "surfing" the net I noticed this one .... brilliant and to admit even I did not notice at first what aircrfat he used as a basis for this "what-if" ! :D:D:D:D

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Deino
 

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T

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
i am fully aware i've talked about this before but i'm hoping maybe someone has some new info. just how is it possible that so many J7II regiments are still active? According to Scramble, those are all planes produced roughly between 1980 and 1986. (give or take a year)

Either those planes have been flying something like 100 hours per year since then (for a total per j7 pilots of i guess 75 hours, not more) or those planes are engineered in a totally different fashion from basic mig-21, having many more hours in their airframes compared to basic mig21, or the usually accepted figures about j7 regiments and years of production are flat out wrong.

as far i could find, basic mig21 was to have 2400 hours. of course that can be extended, like indians did with theirs to get them to 3400 hours. They tried to get them to 4000 hours but it reportedly proved impossible (within their budget). While i could accept the redesigned j7e/g variants to also have a longer life airframe from the get go, it doesn't seem plausible J7II model would have had anything like that redesigned from the original mig-21 plans.

right now i'm leaning towards those J7II regiments being really third-rate regiments for occasional air policing, but not really doing much flying or much exercising. With no more than 100 hours per plane one could still keep that whole fleet in the air, i guess, and that seems like the easiest explanation. Question would be: why do that? Why keep so many pilots as third rate pilots without proper training? If one wants to save money, wouldn't it be more cost effective to just cut all those regiments and do it years ago?

The only remaining explanation i can think of is that plaaf does intend to have all those regiments up and running as full time and fully trained regiments - once they get new planes. maybe there was a lack of money during the last 5-15 years but maybe they think it's cheaper in the long run to keep the pilots and infrastructure going, even if it's just half of flight hours per year as many as they'd want to, then to retire all those regiments, lay off the ground crews and pilots, and then go with re-starting all those regiments anew in another decade or so...
 
Miragedriver

Miragedriver

Brigadier
Totoro said:
i am fully aware i've talked about this before but i'm hoping maybe someone has some new info. just how is it possible that so many J7II regiments are still active? According to Scramble, those are all planes produced roughly between 1980 and 1986. (give or take a year)

Either those planes have been flying something like 100 hours per year since then (for a total per j7 pilots of i guess 75 hours, not more) or those planes are engineered in a totally different fashion from basic mig-21, having many more hours in their airframes compared to basic mig21, or the usually accepted figures about j7 regiments and years of production are flat out wrong.

as far i could find, basic mig21 was to have 2400 hours. of course that can be extended, like indians did with theirs to get them to 3400 hours. They tried to get them to 4000 hours but it reportedly proved impossible (within their budget). While i could accept the redesigned j7e/g variants to also have a longer life airframe from the get go, it doesn't seem plausible J7II model would have had anything like that redesigned from the original mig-21 plans.

right now i'm leaning towards those J7II regiments being really third-rate regiments for occasional air policing, but not really doing much flying or much exercising. With no more than 100 hours per plane one could still keep that whole fleet in the air, i guess, and that seems like the easiest explanation. Question would be: why do that? Why keep so many pilots as third rate pilots without proper training? If one wants to save money, wouldn't it be more cost effective to just cut all those regiments and do it years ago?

The only remaining explanation i can think of is that plaaf does intend to have all those regiments up and running as full time and fully trained regiments - once they get new planes. maybe there was a lack of money during the last 5-15 years but maybe they think it's cheaper in the long run to keep the pilots and infrastructure going, even if it's just half of flight hours per year as many as they'd want to, then to retire all those regiments, lay off the ground crews and pilots, and then go with re-starting all those regiments anew in another decade or so...
Click to expand...

Just my thoughts, but it could be that:

a) The PLAAF has so much infrastructure in place around the J-7 that it will take a long time to eliminate it completely as they transition over to the J-10 and J-11;

b) The J-7s manufactured in the late 1990 and early 2000s were constructed with better machinery and construction techniques which improved overall life of the airframe;

c) The J-7 is cheap to build and cheap to maintain and thereby provides an inexpensive combat aircraft that can provide pilots with an acceptable number of flight hours.

Interesting that the FTC-2000/JL-9 is currently being manufactured and utilized as a naval trainer. There has even been a heavily modified version (FTC-2000G) with curved LEX and additional hard points. I don’t think the PLAAF is done with the J-7 yet, but its days are defiantly numbered.
 
thunderchief

thunderchief

Senior Member
Totoro said:
Question would be: why do that? Why keep so many pilots as third rate pilots without proper training? If one wants to save money, wouldn't it be more cost effective to just cut all those regiments and do it years ago?
Click to expand...

J-7 was mainstay of PLAAF until something like 10 years ago when Flankers and J-10s started to show up in numbers. Therefore you have a lot of older pilots and technicians trained to operate on J-7s . A lot of them are not really material for J-10 or J-11, or in other words in would not be cost effective to retrain them for those newer types (average pilots, few years until retirement etc... ) . On the other hand, you cannot just dump people on the street, it would be disastrous for force moral. Therefore, they are gradually retiring both planes and personnel. As far as I know, PLAAF doesn't train any new (young) J-7 pilots.
 
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