JF-17: a major achievement

[MastanKhan]

mean bird.

You can spin this story any way you like.

Having a handfull Pakistani engineers in CHINA working with hundreds even thousands of chinease at CHENGDU using chinease tools. workshops, simulators does not make this a HUGE MAJOR pakistani success..

As you people wud like to believe.

If you people could to do this WHY go to CHENGDU >???

Hi,

Yes you can---only one design engineer can make the difference---it not the working with chinese tool or msimulators that is important, but the importance lies in what you bring to the table.

The bottomline is that the chinese know it, we know it and we have an aircraft that just came out of our local assembly line---.

Let me ask you---is the death any different from a purley chinese built aircraft or one built with pakistani input---Thankyou---I didnot think so.

We know what we have done and that is all---there is nothing to prove except for a flyable and operative machine that is in full production in a very short time.

 

[Kompromat]

Briefing: Growing Sino-Pakistani defence co-operation alarms India

By Jon Grevatt
02 December 2009


The growing defence relationship between China and Pakistan represents a "serious concern" for India, Defence Minister A K Antony said on 27 November.

Speaking in New Delhi, Antony made reference to the increased number of joint Sino-Pakistan military platforms being developed, the transfer of Chinese military technologies to Islamabad and the role that Chinese companies are playing in developing Pakistan's defence industries.

In comments reported by a Ministry of Defence statement, Antony said: "The increasing nexus between China and Pakistan in the military sphere remains an area of serious concern. We have to carry out continuous appraisals of Chinese military capabilities and shape our responses accordingly. At the same time, we need to be vigilant at all times.

"We have taken several steps for enhancing the capacity-building of our armed forces to meet new and varied challenges. However, we will remain steadfast in our pursuit of regional and global peace."

Antony made his comments less than a week after the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) formally took delivery of its first domestically assembled JF-17 fighter aircraft. The aircraft was developed and built by the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) and China's Aviation Industry Corporation.

The two countries have also collaborated on the production of the Chinese-designed Sword-class (F-22P) frigate at the Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works (KSEW), the Al Khalid main battle tank and an airborne warning and control system aircraft.

 

[gambit]

I would like to add one thing which often is forgoten by the writers and that is ease of maintainence of JF-17 and its modular design i.e. it is possible to replace entire engine at air base instead of taking it to dedicated facilities and avionics packages from various suppliers can be integrated with minimal changes in frame.
It is also the only a/c which can have data link with western and chinese controls and radar stations.

Not certain what you are trying to say here. Is modularity unique to the JF-17? Hardly. For US, even the giants C-5, B-52 or the air refuelers can have engine change-outs in the open flightline. USAF fighter bases often have competitions between squadrons on who can swap out an engine in the shortest time. A round of beer and a cheap trophy are the prizes. We do this for the sheer competitive nature of it.

Here is an example of such competitions...

Weapons troops are not cowboys during Loadeo

Loadeo is the weapons-loading competition taking place here during the 2004 William Tell air-to-air weapons meet.

“Loadeo is a competition made of two loading sets,” said Chief Master Sgt. Jim McMahon, a current Loadeo judge and a 1992 William Tell veteran. “(There is) one static load in which contestants load four AIM-9s and four AIM-120s in a time standard of 24 minutes. The second load is referred to as the ‘flightline load,’ which (comprises) six AIM-120s, two AIM-9s, 940 rounds of 20 mm target practice ammunition and chaff flares in 32 minutes.”

Other competitions are Integrated Combat Turns (ICT)...

VALIDATING AIR FORCE CIVIL ENGINEERING

During the Gulf War, elements of the 823d and 820th RED HORSE Civil Engineering Squadrons (RHCES) and the 7319th RED HORSE Civil Engineering Flight deployed to SWA. These units provided heavy engineering capability for CENTAF by constructing taxiways, parking aprons, munitions areas, integrated combat turn pads, tent cities, and revetments.

This is where a fighter returned to base, the pilot remained with the aircraft and he is refueled and reloaded for another sortie. If there is a need for an aircrew swap, that is figured into the competition as well.

Data gleaned and lessons learned from these events are retained in the event of actual war deployment as far as human limitations goes. It helps commanders plan their operations knowing they have an accurate assessment of their people's capabilities under stressful conditions.

Anyone who is in actual aircraft maintenance will eventually be in one of these events in some direct ways. But this is not possible unless the aircraft is purposely designed to be field maintainable, so it is curious to me as to why anyone would even imply that modularity is a new feature.

 

[PAFAce]

Not certain what you are trying to say here. Is modularity unique to the JF-17? Hardly. For US, even the giants C-5, B-52 or the air refuelers can have engine change-outs in the open flightline. USAF fighter bases often have competitions between squadrons on who can swap out an engine in the shortest time. A round of beer and a cheap trophy are the prizes. We do this for the sheer competitive nature of it.

Modularity was a very important part of the original specifications provided by the PAF. The circumstances for the PAF were unique, unlike the Americans, the Pakistanis never really know where the next technology will come from. China, USA, Europe? It's always up in the air. That is all that was trying to be said.

As for maintenance crew contests, I believe we conduct those as well. They are not as glamorous as the pilots' displays, hence you rarely ever hear about them on the tube. If I am not mistaken, the F-16 crews come out on top more often than not. Partly credit to American engineers such as yourself, I would say.

 

[MastanKhan]

Hi,

The modular design in case of JF 17---the plane is not designed around the engine---as I believe that most fighter aircraft are---( I stand corrected )the design allows it to have different engines in the smiliar range installed with little or minimal modifications.

 

[MZUBAIR]

mean bird.

You can spin this story any way you like.

Having a handfull Pakistani engineers in CHINA working with hundreds even thousands of chinease at CHENGDU using chinease tools. workshops, simulators does not make this a HUGE MAJOR pakistani success..

As you people wud like to believe.

If you people could to do this WHY go to CHENGDU >???

Ofcourse, we lack in AC manufacturing.....but yes we are learning.
China is helping us thats really respectable, otherwise we wouldnt be able to develop even a trainer air craft.
No more Comments...,.....If u r happy now.

 

[TaimiKhan]

In reply to Batman

The part i found laughable was below

The PAF is the only air force in the world to successfully take on the challenge of designing and developing a fighter aircraft.

Wat do you mean by this statement ??????????/

The ony air force in the world

Check out the different encyclopedias related to air power and see if any of the air forces had designed or manufactured an aircraft for itself. The aircraft would be made by a company and bought by the airforce of a country, but in this case PAF was itself involved in the design phase and now the manufacturing facility is in the airbase of PAF, where PAF employees are running the production lines, employees working on PAF salary. So this becomes a unique thing that PAF has been in this thing from the start to the end, which no airforce has done so far.

 

[Storm Force]

in reply to taimi khan which no airforce has done so far.

The JF17 is a and will be a great boost to PAF a point that i have noted in my earlier post in this very thread

But coments like the above just don,t make sense

The chinease have built the PAF a fighter to the specifications/ requirements of the pakistani airforce... We say Pakistani engineers where invovled, AND it had to be developed at Chengdu because pakistan does not have the facilities..

ALL OF THIS IS FINE " i agree"

But how does this make this unique in the world ???

Its no different to the mki project that russia did for india. or indeed the new PAK FA project.

its cettainl;y not a home grown fighter like china numerous projects or irans SHFAQUE project or Taiwans or South Koreas T50 project or indeed the much earlier projects of israel with the nesher ..

 

[mean_bird]

mean bird.

You can spin this story any way you like.

Having a handfull Pakistani engineers in CHINA working with hundreds even thousands of chinease at CHENGDU using chinease tools. workshops, simulators does not make this a HUGE MAJOR pakistani success..

As you people wud like to believe.

If you people could to do this WHY go to CHENGDU >???

You are the one spinning the story.

The question you asked, that was "laughable" to you, is that what makes PAF unique. If you look in a dictionary, the definition of unique is something not being done by others. It has got nothing to do with the words huge, major or even success.

So, the answer is whether they are a handful of engineers or lots of them, the fact remains no other airforce is doing this and that is what makes it unique. Similarly, PAC is headed by PAF officials so that makes it another unique thing that an airforce is involved in the manufacturing of the planes.

And no, no one is saying Pakistan designed the entire thing or that its better than the F-22. Only you are making up that.

 

[Storm Force]

no body mentioned F22 certainly not me

 

[TaimiKhan]

in reply to taimi khan which no airforce has done so far.

The JF17 is a and will be a great boost to PAF a point that i have noted in my earlier post in this very thread

But coments like the above just don,t make sense

The chinease have built the PAF a fighter to the specifications/ requirements of the pakistani airforce... We say Pakistani engineers where invovled, AND it had to be developed at Chengdu because pakistan does not have the facilities..

ALL OF THIS IS FINE " i agree"

But how does this make this unique in the world ???

Its no different to the mki project that russia did for india. or indeed the new PAK FA project.

its cettainl;y not a home grown fighter like china numerous projects or irans SHFAQUE project or Taiwans or South Koreas T50 project or indeed the much earlier projects of israel with the nesher ..

Just as mean bird said, i myself don't understand what you are trying to tell us. No one says that it has been made us, but PAF officials from the specifications stage, to design stage, testing stage & now manufacturing stage have been involved in all, which is not the case in the ones you just quoted. Is IAF manufacturing the Su-30MKI or is HAL involved at this stage ?? Same case with others too, they all give specifications, the manufacturer makes it, the airforce officials test it, problems are sorted out and then order for more is given to the manufacturer. But in JF-17 case, the user itself is the manufacturer too, that makes it unique. IAF, Korean Airforce, Taiwan Airforce, Russian Airforce, USAF or anyone else, don't manufacture them at their own bases in factories setup by their airforces. But PAF is doing that, that is something not seen before. Hope you now get the point. We have no intention calling it indigenous fighter, it is jointly produced, but PAF has a good amount of role in it as you do know well what kind of fighter aircrafts China used to bring out and after PAF involvement what kind of aircraft JF-17 became.

 

[Sapper]

so it is curious to me as to why anyone would even imply that modularity is a new feature.

Dear Gambit,
Your insight is always very informative and precise, but in this case i think you misunderstood the point raise by BATMAN.

We are not talking about modularity in maintenance and ease of weapons loading etc ... instead we are talking about the decoupling of aircraft design with the engine, avionics, weapons and data-links etc. Consider the example of F16s vs JF17.

F16 has been possibly the most successful fighter aircraft ever developed for USAF. But even after 30 years of service only two engine platforms have been integrated with it, PW-F100 and GE-F110, and even the integration of GE engine required major modification to engine inlet design. Only 3 radar systems have been integrated so far (as far as my knowledge), APG66, APG68 and APG80, all of which were "specifically" designed for F16 and nothing else. Only a single ejection seat is supported. So on and so forth...

(Hypothetical scenario only)
Now consider that a country has 100 F16s in service with PW-F100 engines ... and suddenly Lockheed Martin goes under, all of those F16s will soon be rendered useless. Weapons embargo scenario is more likely and that too will result in castrating the fleet of those beautiful beautiful fighting machines. Small things, like refusal to sell spare parts for radar or ejection seat will also result in adverse consequences. Who know this better than PAF.

On the other hand, JF17 was designed keeping in mind the customization capabilities of Mirages, and thus may be slightly modified to accept any RD33, F404, M88, EJ200 class engines with a bit of modifications on engines as well. Radars are also interchangeable, so are the data-links, avionics and crew preservation equipment. This is an intended as an insurance policy to keep the fleet airworthy even if some parts supplier goes under, or in case of another weapons embargo.

(Hypothetical scenario only)
Now consider if another Russian-American clash takes place a decade from now and we decide to take American side (as we have done in the past), Russia will immediately cut off all engine exports and spares, giving a severe blow to the 250 or so airworthy JF17s in operation. Rather than retiring the fleet or cannibalizing for spares, PAF will either integrate US engines or buy from European manufacturers to keep the fleet in operation without having adverse consequences.

Keeping F16s air worth is not a concern for USAF, they have all the money, manpower and industrial base to keep spares flowing for their war-machines. USA can rely on vertical integration, we cannot. On the other hand, we rely on imports of certain high tech stuff, for which we have to design everything keeping horizontal integration in mind. Its like Apple vs IBM compatible, apple used vertical integration and thus could not be customized, while an IBM user can swap one ram for another, one VGA card for another, one sound card for another and can keep his machine running longer.

I hope you understand.
NOTE: I am not implying that JF17 is better than F16, F16 is a far far far better fighter and i really love it.

Regards,
Sapper

 

[gambit]

Dear Gambit,
Your insight is always very informative and precise, but in this case i think you misunderstood the point raise by BATMAN.

We are not talking about modularity in maintenance and ease of weapons loading etc ... instead we are talking about the decoupling of aircraft design with the engine, avionics, weapons and data-links etc. Consider the example of F16s vs JF17.

F16 has been possibly the most successful fighter aircraft ever developed for USAF. But even after 30 years of service only two engine platforms have been integrated with it, PW-F100 and GE-F110, and even the integration of GE engine required major modification to engine inlet design. Only 3 radar systems have been integrated so far (as far as my knowledge), APG66, APG68 and APG80, all of which were "specifically" designed for F16 and nothing else. Only a single ejection seat is supported. So on and so forth...

(Hypothetical scenario only)
Now consider that a country has 100 F16s in service with PW-F100 engines ... and suddenly Lockheed Martin goes under, all of those F16s will soon be rendered useless. Weapons embargo scenario is more likely and that too will result in castrating the fleet of those beautiful beautiful fighting machines. Small things, like refusal to sell spare parts for radar or ejection seat will also result in adverse consequences. Who know this better than PAF.

On the other hand, JF17 was designed keeping in mind the customization capabilities of Mirages, and thus may be slightly modified to accept any RD33, F404, M88, EJ200 class engines with a bit of modifications on engines as well. Radars are also interchangeable, so are the data-links, avionics and crew preservation equipment. This is an intended as an insurance policy to keep the fleet airworthy even if some parts supplier goes under, or in case of another weapons embargo.

(Hypothetical scenario only)
Now consider if another Russian-American clash takes place a decade from now and we decide to take American side (as we have done in the past), Russia will immediately cut off all engine exports and spares, giving a severe blow to the 250 or so airworthy JF17s in operation. Rather than retiring the fleet or cannibalizing for spares, PAF will either integrate US engines or buy from European manufacturers to keep the fleet in operation without having adverse consequences.

Keeping F16s air worth is not a concern for USAF, they have all the money, manpower and industrial base to keep spares flowing for their war-machines. USA can rely on vertical integration, we cannot. On the other hand, we rely on imports of certain high tech stuff, for which we have to design everything keeping horizontal integration in mind. Its like Apple vs IBM compatible, apple used vertical integration and thus could not be customized, while an IBM user can swap one ram for another, one VGA card for another, one sound card for another and can keep his machine running longer.

I hope you understand.
NOTE: I am not implying that JF17 is better than F16, F16 is a far far far better fighter and i really love it.

Regards,
Sapper

Ah...Then the correct words should be 'interoperability' and 'interchangeability'.

Now...If this is the goal of the JF-17 program, and it remains to be seen if the program is successful, then I wish Pakistan good fortune in this endeavor. The advantages are obvious in terms of platform flexibility but as it is with platforms that are purposely designed to adapt to different internal reconfigurations, overall performance will be sacrificed. You are reorganizing priorities from a performance foundation to a survival one. Basically...You are doing your best to ensure the survival of the platform against as much potential logistical shortages as possible.

Take the engine, for example, no matter how much emphasis you tell your suppliers about minimum thrust ratings, there are no guarantees that all of them will comply, mostly due to differences in technical competency issues among the competitors for your money. Quality control is another issue. Lacking financial incentives, one or more suppliers may not be so eager to adhere to your demands since they know there are others to take their place AND that there are other buyers for their goods. Everyone knows this. The result is that to ensure the survival of the aircraft, you must compromise certain performance criteria to compensate just in case an engine supplier for some reason can no longer support you and you have to install an inferior engine.

Local command logistics is another issue. Do you wish to have the parts for these multiple engines at the local level? Or would you place that responsibility higher up and have one base assigned with only one engine from one supplier and another base stocked only with engines from another supplier? No matter what, you must have sufficient parts stock somewhere to repair all the engines available for your fleet. When MacDill AFB transitioned from the analog F-16 to the digital avionics ones, I was mightly glad I have nothing to do with the warehouses other than to go there and pick up my parts. Analog avionics test stations were no good for the digital 'boxes' installed in the new aircrafts. But we suffered through the change.

Training is another issue. Different engine manufacturors naturally will have different design philosophies. Not all plumbing for the fuel delivery system will be at exactly the same locations on the engine body. Your maintainers will have to adjust and that mean the most experienced maintainers will be the most valuable for they possess what is called 'institutional memory'. They will know all the quirks on how to calibrate, remove and replace each engine from each manufacturor. Not everything valuable are recorded in tech manuals.The USAF call them 'technical orders' or TOs. Pay your senior maintainers well to retain their services for as long as possible so they can pass on their knowledge. It is usually the mid-level NCOs, the guys with about 8-12 yrs in service who are the most experienced. More senior and they get into the management side. This issue gets more complicated if your sources are from different countries.

The philosophy behind the JF-17 is not bad but actually is a good option for when you are trying to develop an indigenous aviation program and support national defense at the same time. Pakistan just need to accept the risks and compromises.

 

[Sinnerman108]

Hi.. Mr. Muradk sir. Is this statement true ?

I can safely assume YES

Look at Mig21, Look at first F-7 that PAF got, and loot at the design of the current F-7.

You will understand the feedback and design collboration.

 

[desiman]

Just as mean bird said, i myself don't understand what you are trying to tell us. No one says that it has been made us, but PAF officials from the specifications stage, to design stage, testing stage & now manufacturing stage have been involved in all, which is not the case in the ones you just quoted. Is IAF manufacturing the Su-30MKI or is HAL involved at this stage ?? Same case with others too, they all give specifications, the manufacturer makes it, the airforce officials test it, problems are sorted out and then order for more is given to the manufacturer. But in JF-17 case, the user itself is the manufacturer too, that makes it unique. IAF, Korean Airforce, Taiwan Airforce, Russian Airforce, USAF or anyone else, don't manufacture them at their own bases in factories setup by their airforces. But PAF is doing that, that is something not seen before. Hope you now get the point. We have no intention calling it indigenous fighter, it is jointly produced, but PAF has a good amount of role in it as you do know well what kind of fighter aircrafts China used to bring out and after PAF involvement what kind of aircraft JF-17 became.

Your comments about HAL and the MKI show that you have no knowledge about the MKI, so please check your sources before you comment