You can feel about that if you want, its not the aircraft's fault, which is fine as it is. The fault is in the poor marketing of the aircraft and the general Pakistani mentality of doing the bare minimum. And to set the record straight, the JF-17 was used in the Operation Swift Retort, along with Mirages and F-16s in both AG roles as well as providing top cover. The only person who initially hinted that the kills were from JF-17 was a retired PAF officer, not the best source of information. Even then, plenty of people were skeptical of the claim including another retired PAF officer and people on this forum even. Anyways, that is not the aircrafts fault. F-16s happened to get both kills, and regardless, PAF came on top.
The part where the marketing fails is in the promotion of the aircraft, that includes taking the aircraft to more than just 1 show per year, materials that PAF/PAC puts out (second rate brochures with terrible layouts and even fake pictures of the aircraft, almost no pictures or videos of smart munitions being carried or released so show off its capabilities. Heck you can even find Dassault's very well done documentaries on Rafale, Tiger and even their aircraft carrier and nuclear subs on Amazon Prime Video. Thats marketing 101. Here however we have people trying to photoshop out serial numbers as if thats some state secret.
Take the most recent Dubai Airshow, what did we see of the JF-17 except an outdated and crappy pamphlet to show case our most expensive and sophisticated weapon system? A misspelled banner? Which btw is not the first time that has happened. Says a lot if you cant even get the spelling right, how will you assure customers about your quality control. The other thing that has ALWAYS irked me is that everyone ever interviewed about the JF-17 in the last 10 years, without fail, always mentions how "cheap" the aircraft is. Get that word out of your vocabulary. A $30MM jet is not cheap by any standard and that is also not a quality to describe anything you are selling, unless its to a kabariya.
Finally, though people have been talking about the failure to produce a 2-seat version early on for some time, and I agree it was a big oversight, its not insurmountable. If Lockheed can come to an event with a flight simulator to show off the capabilities of its 40 year old fighter that almost everyone in the world already knows about, why don't we have the ability to take one with us every time we go to a huge exhibit like Dubai or Paris Airshow or even one in China. I can bet people would be lining up to see the simulator and trying to get a few minutes of virtual flight time in it. That would be completely acceptable in lieu of having a twin-seater jet there and a lot less expensive as well.
I hope PAC/PAF takes note of the glaring errors they have been making so far. It takes the same amount of money to design and print a shitty looking pamphlet as it does a nice looking one. Every picture of the JF-17 should be of a fully loaded aircraft with different weapons it can carry for the different roles, including A-A, A-G (with REK, LGBs, LDP), ASMs, and ARMs. Also every picture should display the refueling probe. These are pretty simple and common sense things. Pick up any aviation magazine and you will see how the competition displays its products. Even LIFT trainers showcase more capabilities in a single picture than we do with our jet.
Also, if you are going to display models, show a cutaway with a mockup AESA radar instead. We have seen plenty of simple models by now over the last 10 years and as has everyone else. Need to up the game here guys.
