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

Lion said:

When there is a demand, nothing is impossible. Not all AF need the sophistication of a J-10 and FC-1 which has powerful radar, BVR and huge payload and AWACS support. All these goodies and new doctrine needs new level of training which cost money and time which thesse small AF can't afford.

Some AF are faces very obsolete enemies who still grind in the era of dogfight. All they need is a fighter with decent radar and agility. Send into skies and pop a few WVR Air to air missiles will get the job done. They don't need powerful ECM suite, radar and difficult IFF to launch BVRAAM to get the job done.

Which is the reason why I believe FC-1 will never do well in market. They targeted the wrong pool of customer. Those who needed FC-1 type of aircraft usually belong to higher tier of economies who can well afford F-16 blk52.

But I am curious why the potential export customer did not opt for JL-9 eagle which is newer , more cost saving since it can act as trainer and covert into fighter jet when neccesary which killed 2 birds with a stone.

Probably the second seat reduced performance for a small fighter like JL-9 compare to single seat J-7G??

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AF like of Cambodia's can't even afford to buy/operate J-7! I am thinking that if they fit J-7 with a more fuel efficient engine, a little more internal fuel to make longer leg. It is still quite a decent fighter.

I find it amazing that the J-7 has developed into such a prolific aircraft. With the J-7G and the JL-9 as the latest version. China should try to sell these aircraft to 3rd world air forces as point defense interceptor. From my understanding, these aircraft are inexpensive to fly and maintain. If anything else they make a good placeholder for air forces that have not made up their minds on a future acquisition.
If the J-7 continues to evolve we may even see a stealth version of it. Just kidding!!!!
I found this picture while surfing the net and it reminded me of the J-7. Enjoy!

I am a regular visitor to scramble.nl china orbat. where there were something like 11 regiments of j7e in plaaf and planaf just a year before, that dropped to 7 units now. 5 regiments and 2 brigades. What is the meaning of that?

I assume the regiments have the same composition as before, no? What of the brigades? Are the 2 brigades holding over 50 j7e each?

Or have the figures before been unrealistically large and now they are simply corrected? Maybe some of the fabled 250 j7 production went for export and not all was taken within plaaf? Or maybe some j7es were converted into j7g? Or is scramble.nl just making stuff up? (i don't believe they are, they've been pretty good and up to date for years) Is there a good explanation out there?

Totoro said:

I am a regular visitor to scramble.nl china orbat. where there were something like 11 regiments of j7e in plaaf and planaf just a year before, that dropped to 7 units now. 5 regiments and 2 brigades. What is the meaning of that?

I assume the regiments have the same composition as before, no? What of the brigades? Are the 2 brigades holding over 50 j7e each?

Or have the figures before been unrealistically large and now they are simply corrected? Maybe some of the fabled 250 j7 production went for export and not all was taken within plaaf? Or maybe some j7es were converted into j7g? Or is scramble.nl just making stuff up? (i don't believe they are, they've been pretty good and up to date for years) Is there a good explanation out there?

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J-7s have really short service life. So, it would not be surprising if some of them have just reached the end of that.

Totoro said:

I am a regular visitor to scramble.nl china orbat. where there were something like 11 regiments of j7e in plaaf and planaf just a year before, that dropped to 7 units now. 5 regiments and 2 brigades. What is the meaning of that?

I assume the regiments have the same composition as before, no? What of the brigades? Are the 2 brigades holding over 50 j7e each?

Or have the figures before been unrealistically large and now they are simply corrected? Maybe some of the fabled 250 j7 production went for export and not all was taken within plaaf? Or maybe some j7es were converted into j7g? Or is scramble.nl just making stuff up? (i don't believe they are, they've been pretty good and up to date for years) Is there a good explanation out there?

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Did Scramble really ever say that there were 11 J-7E regiments? If so, it is obviously an inflated figure. I regard Scramble as highly credible, and cannot believe they made a mistake like that.

I hold two brigades and five regiments in PLAAF (basically the same as Scramble), namely K86U Rugao, K88U Dandong, K9S25T Shoguan, K14S42T Zhangshu, K21S61T Yanji, K33S97T Dazu, and K3S7 Wuhu (which is mixed J-7E/J-7G, Scramble has it as J-7G).

And one regiment in PLANAF, H8S24T Jialai.

As you might know, a total of 263 J-7E were produced 1993-2002. At that time, J-7’s were apparently built in regimental lots of 36, so that would be to 7x36 – corresponding to my 7 regiments – plus 11 pre-series, which went to FTTC (0001 is known to have been FTTC’s 72263, then went to K30S89T Dalian-Zhoushuizi as 40713, and is now probably in K88U).

They also built 34 J-7EH, which went first to H4S12T Luqiao, and then, when that regiment converted to J-10AH, to H8S24T.

As you might also know, J-7 brigades have 38 planes each (I guess 32 one-seaters and 6 twin-seaters).

it doesn't make sense many j7e would be retired as the oldes one are only going to be 20 next year. whereas there are still a few hundred earlier j7 planes in service that date from first half of 1980s. if anything, first the older planes would be retired.

if brigades have 38 planes each, out of which 32 are j7e and 6 are training jj7, that's 64 planes right there. then we have 5 or five and half more regiments (plaaf and planaf combined) regiments, as far as i know, have less planes. they have 24 j7s and 4 training jj7s. at best maybe they have 28 combat j7 and then some training jj7s.

but even in that case - we're looking at 5.5 times 28 = 154. plus 64 from the two brigades. that is 218 planes. Yes, there are bound to be some in agressor squadron. also some should be in FTTC. Also some might've been lost to attrition. But still, 45 planes difference from total of 263 produced since 1993? It doesn't compute. Not unless at least one whole regiment was converted to j7g, which is a piece of news that sometimes pops up.

and that is the best case scenario. worse case scenario is if regiments hold 24 combat j7e and 4 training jj7 then we are looking at a total of 196 planes in those 5-6 regiments and 2 brigades. now we are almost 70 planes short. were there then two regiments worth of j7e modernized and refurbished as j7g?

which one is it? or is there a third solution?

This was the ready information I had.

As you point out, it does not make sense to retire J-7E's when much older versions remain in service (some J-7A reportedly are still in service with the former Lanzhou MRAF Training Base at Jiuquan!). It has been evident that whenever a J-7E (or J-7G) regiment converts to J-10 or J-11, the planes are passed down to a fighter regiment flying older versions.

The argument really hinges on how many J-7E's are in a regiment. If it was assumed that J-7E regiments have the same establishment as J-8 regiments, i.e. 28 single- and 4 twin-seaters, the calculus would look very different. I shall try to see if it is possible to get a better grip on the problem by looking at Google Earth.

The agressor squadrons belong to FTTC. It looks as if there are four at Cangzhou and seven at Gucheng. Strangely, the test regiment at Dingxin only has J-7H and K, no J-7E.

i tried getting more info from GE now but airfields with E and G models mostly feature older images. I did manage to find 3 airfbases with recent images. One was the planaf base with j7eh - it had 24 roofed hangars. Nothing else was visible on the base. another was recently formed plaaf brigade with j7e. it had 28 parked j7e at one part of the base and another 5 on the completely other part of the base. it was hard to tell if the five were j7e or jj7. Last one was a regular j7g regiment which had 24 parked planes on one part of the base and again five (5! not 4 or 6) j7 looking planes on the other end of the airbase.

I also ran into an airbase supposedly housing j7e, according to scramble, but a quite recent image from 2012 showed a completely deserted airbase.

Of course, feel free to doublecheck my findings, if possible.

I started doing the same, and found it a bit disappointing, too.

But a good one was of Jiujiang-Mahuiling (29 28 37 N 115 48 06 E), dated 17.10.09, where 31 are counted, all but possibly four being J-7E - recognisable in good quality images by having the double-delta wing (J-7G has it too).

This unit, which was 14S41T, is now 86U at Rugao.

The 24 shelters you mention at Jialai are for H8S22T's J-11BH/BHS. I have seen many pictures of these, but the only GE image I see is very old, 16.02.05, and at that time, of course, there were no J-11. May I enquire how you managed to see imagery of the shelters?

i really didn't do anything special. my GE just showed me images from 2004 and 2010, both with shelters, when i adjusted the image date slider.

But if those shelters are for J11bh, where are the J7eh? why aren't any other planes visible? and what planes were shelters originally constructed for, as there is an image from 2003 where one can see shelters actually being built.

Also, can we now assume that j7 regiment holds 24 combat planes and 4-6 trainer jj7s? And that brigades hold 32 combat planes + 4 to 6 jj7s? Or do we need to inspect more than these 3 airbases to make such conclusions?