Air Force Question Thread

[niaz]

How much would needed to be invested if Pakistan decided to make a completely indigenous aircraft?

Also, what aspects of the plane do we have complete indigenous capabilities, and which aspects of the plane (ie. Engine making/designing) do we need advances in?

It is possible that Pakistan could design aircraft frame ‘ab initio’ with proper software. But this will only be on paper. We don’t have technology to manufacture aircraft engines. Therefore Pakistan won’t be able to design and build a complete aircraft in flying condition.

It is estimated that an all metal aircraft frame uses about 20% Titanium. Additionally, in modern military aircrafts a large percentage of “Composites’ are also used as these are lighter and tougher than metal, though far more difficult to repair. Don’t think we have metallurgy skills to forge Titanium and /or Composites.

Indian LCA is still waiting for a suitable power plant and JF-17 wouldn’t have been to fly without the Russian engines. Even Swedish Grippen uses US made engines.

As a rough guess, it would cost at least $500-million in R&D (with manpower cost at Pakistani levels) for a brand new design to come to fruition. However, even a country like Israel had to give up on ‘Lavi’ as being too costly to produce on its own. Europeans form a consortium (pooling of resources) of 2 to 3 countries and it takes 10 years in R&D before an aircraft finally emerges. Rotary aircraft is even more complex to design and build.

Most companies that started aircraft manufacture were initially car manufacturing firms.
So far Pakistan has not yet made a car or a truck of it own design. I mean manufacturing all parts of the car including the body and the engines from scratch. We don’t make engine for Al Khalid either. These come from Ukraine.

Co-production with China is a great enough achievement for a country such as Pakistan which is short on cash as well as technical manpower. It is much cheaper to buy an aircraft in complete knocked down condition and assemble it locally. We should start with manufacturing spare part parts before we can even start to think of complete manufacture of an aircraft or a helicopter from scratch.

 

[pg7]

What was meant by air shield air chief was referring to

 

[razgriz19]

how can u tell the difference between mi-8 and mi17?!

 

[Imran Khan]

difrent between them is

larger TV3-117MT engines

rotors

transmission development

large door

armor plates around the cockpit area and engines

Eight have a loading ramp in place of the usual clamshell doors

fuselage improvements for heavier loads

The designation Mi-17 is for export; Russian armed forces call it Mi-8MT. The Mi-17 can be recognized because it has the tail rotor on the port side instead of the starboard side, and dust shields in front of the engine intakes. Engine cowls are shorter than on the TV2 powered Mi-8, not extending as far over the cockpit, and an opening for bleed-valve outlet is present forward of the exhaust.

 

[Donatello]

Hello everyone!

Since we cannot refrain from dragging ourselves into India vs Pakistan talk in every thread, i am starting this thread for a simple question. I request you to please refrain from posting useless remarks.

The question is that i read in the Sunday Dawn news (last page), an interview with the ACM Rao Qamar that Pakistan is planning on getting 14 extra BLK 52 f-16s on top of 18 already on order. Then he says that after june, Turkish Aerospace Industries will upgrade our existing f-16s. But he says all remaining F-16s to be upgraded to blk 52......what does he mean by that? I mean can we plug in the An/APG 66 with newer APG 68??? Also wouldn't that require structural changes? Because i am of the impression that the existing 32 f-16s will get the MLUs only in Turkey

Please elaborate on that, if possible, check the Sunday March 28th 2010 Dawn news, last page.

 

[jagjitnatt]

I too am skeptical about the report because upgrading A/B variants to C/D requires structural changes which are not feasible. It would be better to buy a new F16 than to upgrade an existing one.

I don't think A/B variants would be upgraded. They are reaching their end of life soon. It would be wise to replace them with newer block 52 F16s

 

[zagahaga]

no not blk 52 but 40 standards .... and upgradeing them is much better than to buy them..... our f 16 areknown world wide for takeing care of them soo i really dont think there a problem

 

[jagjitnatt]

no not blk 52 but 40 standards .... and upgradeing them is much better than to buy them..... our f 16 areknown world wide for takeing care of them soo i really dont think there a problem

even block 40 are C/D airframes. The last A/B variant was block 20. Although it has a few features of block 52 but they are too restricted by their frames.

I still believe upgrading would be waste of money specially in 2010. They will have to be replaced in this decade itself

 

[Rain]

I my opinion if APG 68 is integrated in A/B along with other MLUs it will be worthy of its bucks

 

[Luftwaffe]

Rain APG 68 is in F-16 C block 25/30 APG 68(V)1 is integrated in block 40/42

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

100% block C/D level , MLU , avionics and capability sure there will be 4-5% difference but that will be trivial

Going up from A/B standards to 95% Block C/D level with enhanced avionics and radars should be sufficient defensive upgrade for Pakistan Airfroce

 

[Myth_buster_1]

People should do a research on PAF MLU M3 upgrades and then talk before pretending to be ACMs. MLU M3 has as much important systems as block 52+ but not 100% the same and also PAF may opt for MLU M4/5 for newly inducted block 15 which has very few flying hours clocked in them.

 

[Donatello]

People should do a research on PAF MLU M3 upgrades and then talk before pretending to be ACMs. MLU M3 has as much important systems as block 52+ but not 100% the same and also PAF may opt for MLU M4/5 for newly inducted block 15 which has very few flying hours clocked in them.

As i said it would be better if you could read Dawns news Sunday paper, March 28th. The Air Chiel Marshal clearly states it.


As for those who think it would not be worthy, the money is being paid by the US government most probably under the coalition support fund.

 

[Luftwaffe]

penumbra..whether its a coalition support fund or not its not free we've done things for them we deserve to get those funds but everything in our inventory has been paid for by PAF nothing comes free to me there is no such thing as free from us of a.

jagjitnatt...a decade of service is far too good if these airframes can give us service of 10 years that i consider a miracle.

 

[Donatello]

penumbra..whether its a coalition support fund or not its not free we've done things for them we deserve to get those funds but everything in our inventory has been paid for by PAF nothing comes free to me there is no such thing as free from us of a.

jagjitnatt...a decade of service is far too good if these airframes can give us service of 10 years that i consider a miracle.

I was referring to an earlier post where they said we should not be wasting our money on our older f-16. Thats what i exactly meant, we deserve upgrades for the jets which we paid for by ourselves. Americans, if they cannot give us weapons free of cost, then at least they can help us upgrade them free of cost for what we have done for them.