I believe that you, as well as a few others here, are candy-coating the fully capabilities and performance of these fighters. As Pakistanis, anything F-16 will make us happy but I believe we were better off without these planes as they will turn into nightmares in 5-6 years. Before you shoot me down, please allow me to explain.
1. For Gods sake, the planes have been so belittled that apparently, flying (you know, that thing that planes are meant to do) from one country to another is seen as a major achievement of some sort. If it is indeed true that the planes have only 3,000 hours left on them, they will be expended in 5-6 years time and we'll see a maintenance nightmare.
2. You say that this procurement is "surely a good deal", but in the very next paragraph you insist that IF the plane gets a new radar, new weapons capabilities, a new cockpit and a new engine, then it's an asset... So you're practically looking for a "new" plane of some sort? The only logical overhaul which can provide all that is an MLU, and I don't think these will be MLU'ed anytime soon since we're still in the process of upgrading our current fleet.
3. And yes, just so it's clear, these planes have not gone through the MLU.
4. The very thing that this plane is meant for - "
Air
Defence
Fighter" - it cannot do better than our current fleet because the ADFs are equipped with the APG-66 (as opposed to the APG-68 of the F-16AM/BM or the APG-68v9 of the Blk 52). The APG-66 has a SUBSTANITALLY lesser range than the other 2 radars mentioned, it is more susceptible to the new forms of complex EW that our enemies employ and can be jammed realitively easier.
5. Sure, it can be equipped with AIM-120, but it cannot make better use of that missile since it can only see hardly 80 km infront of it. The F-16AM/BM and it's APG 68 radar can scan for nearly 130 km. On that note, the AIM-120 C-5 which Pakistan possesses has a range of 105 km... meaning that these ADF F-16's cannot take full advantage of that missile range
and our pilots have to further risk their lives to move closer to the enemy in a BVR scenario in order to launch the missile. I understand that some BVR capability is better than nothing... but that sort of mentality is not gonna get us anywhere when our adversary has 200+ SU-30's literally 'mini-awacs' radars.
6. Atleast 3 Jordanian F-16's have crashed in the last 2 years if I'm not mistaken. And one of those was in in January of this year.
I would love to believe that this was a great aquisition for us, but until these planes go through MLU, they will trouble us.