Adeos, thats how fighter aircrafts evolve, the PAF CAS has already said the JF-17 hard points would be raised to 9 from current 7, plus many other new technologies would be added also....
Last I read, he stated somewhere that "work was progressing well to increase number of hardpoints from 7 to 9". Has anybody saved the link to that news report?
Something interesting about F-16's hardpoints is that when they added the "chin" hardpoints to the air intake for carrying targeting pods, they had to increase the size of the horizontal tail "stabilators" to offset the extra weight of the hardpoints. I think the JF-17 designers will have to do something similar.
JF-17... future variants would be likely more bigger, better & deadlier.
Sure they will make it better and deadlier, but that does not mean they will make it bigger. You can't just increase the size of a fighter so easily, you have to re-design it. You can stretch it and make a two-seater but that won't make it much bigger. Look at Gripen and F-16. Gripen NG wasn't made bigger, Saab just modified the internal structure and moved the landing gear housings to allow larger fuel tanks. F-16 was never made bigger except in the Mitsubishi F-2, but even though that looks a lot like F-16, it is a whole new aeroplane. It is also a huge amount more expensive than F-16.
Muse, the more hard points the better it is for the aircraft either in CAS or A2A engagements. In a CAS role it will definitely help as more pay load can be delivered, but in A2A mode its also essential, because BVR is the future, but for the time being the Kill rate of a BVR missile is very low, so more hard points will mean more A2A missiles capability, resulting is more launches at one given or multiple targets. Ideally, if 2 BVR missiles are launched at one aircraft, JF-17 having 9 hard points making it carry 4 BVR missiles, then it can engage 2 targets with 4 missiles, result would be increase in chances to hit the target more.
Plus other weapons combination can also be planned as per mission or doctrine requirements.
Of course more hardpoints are better, but for more hardpoints you need a larger, more expensive fighter. JF-17 is designed to be small and low-cost, why change this? Twin engines are more powerful than single engine, but that doesn't mean the JF needs to be modified for two engines, does it?
The point is that if the JF really needed more than 7 hardpoints, it would have been designed from the start with more than 7 hardpoints. Right now it seems to me that they are just adding two more under the air intakes so that it can carry jammer/targeting pods.
You make a good point with the BVR AAMs. But if the kill probability is so low, the fighters will be in heat-seeking SR AAM range in no time. When that happens, what use are those extra 2 heavy BVR AAMs? They are just 360 kg of dead weight that the pilot would probably rather jettison.
If the mission requires more weapons, then more fighters will be sent to do the job anyway.
I agree that the JF could use more hardpoints, but I disagree that it is a huge problem which must be fixed immediately. Bear in mind, the fighter was designed for a BVR combat role - if it needed extra hardpoints for carrying such missiles, they would have added them.
The extra two hardpoints being added will probably just be for EW/targeting/FLIR pods and the like, that's all the aircraft really needs.
, russian engines are already there. So don't think any other viable option is left.
I want to know how many in one year.
