Sir,
According to Airforce people, we can not invest on an Engine we can not upgrade within its physical dimentions. WS series engine is so far not ready and I believe has some kind of set backs due to which some RD93+ like RD33MK version displayed as model in Zhuhai airshow might be the upgrade. The PAF person said, the time for WS engine incorporation has come and gone on JF-17s. We are happy with current Engine. May be Chinese mature the Engine in a couple of years but by then we'll be operating the russian Engine in numbers. The joint license manufacturing of RD93 did not materialize with China and Russia because Chinese are very much concerned with the JD10s engine. It is also expected to be russian AL-31FN for coming years.
I also asked about the thrust to weight ratio. Instead i asked, isnt JF-17 under powered ? The asnwer was it is certainly not the case, thrust to weight ratios is a general ratio which does not takes into account, the aircraft's design. JF-17s do not bleed energies as much as Delta platforms do, or for that matter J-10s and Mirrages. J-10 needs much higher thrust to maintain a turn at given altitude and recover from a near still situation while JF-17s can manage such situations in the available thrust easily so in field, JF-17s not just match turn rates but are also economical. While more thrust is handy in loadouts, JF-17s fare well with any compition in all situations. Current engine is very responsive and thats another reason why the current thrust to weight ratios are excellent.
I used to think of Weight to Thrust ratio as literal terms without paying attention to design. I am very thankful to a PAF engineer who made me understand the concept in a very nice way. Here is my version of it.
Basicaly, its like you turn hard and climb, aircarft is loosing energy. Lets say you have a 25000lbs thrust in hand but the engine is not very responsive. Now while you are engaging AB or setting it to higher thrust, the low response engine is slowly changing gears for settling at your thrust rating, you have lost enough energy to now go a few steps higher thrust after the engine settles to compesative speed and maintain turn. This all happens in a sec or two but your higher thrust Engine's response time actually made you apply more thrust each time. This is called energy Bleed to engine Response ratio.
Now if you have a 18300lbs thrust engine with quicker response, you turn and climb along with instant setting of higher thrust and engine responds near instantly (no engine responds instantly) then before your rate of climb could decline or your speed drop enough to compensate with a little higher setting, you have completed the turn or are sustaining the turn energy bleed with much less hectic thrust changes to throttle and aircaft is climbing as desired.
2 things come to play. Pilot experience with energies and given aircraft's energy bleeds ratio to engine response and aircrafts own aerodynamics.
RD-93 in service with PAF are impressive according to pilots and engineers and while they would welcome a new within same dimention upgrade, I doubt they'll go for Chinese Engine. May be FC1 could have a Chinese Engine. To me its logical, while RD93 can be upgraded to RD33MK or some RD93MK, PAF MAY BE can not bring an all new Engine and return the RD93 engine to russia or scrap the earlier engines. It all comes down to spending power, which we do not have.
Even though PAF personal did not say they will not bring in WS engine but the logic i think speaks for itself.
The hard points might not be increased as I recall asking. INstead JF-17s are using dual launching rails for AAMs and AGMs. When i asked if we might see more hard points in any version, answer was JF-17s with its current hard points is optamised with wing area and flight performance so there is a possibility to add chin mounted HPs for PODs and electronics but not for any other purpose.
IMHO if PAF decides to add more hard points, it might needs to increase wing area. Lifting LERX have taken up a lot of space on wings if you notice so that version with enlarge wings might need a new engine to compensate drag and that means bigger fuselage, means NOT JF-17s. I doubt PAF will go with such complexity.
Brothers I am sorry for not uploading videos. Inshallah in coming days when my presentations would be over, I will definately share with you the videos and some info on drone and a possible candidate to arm UAVs with. Also inshallah upload pictures of Singapore Airshow.