Ahmet Pasha
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It is sad to read people post that PAC does not make anything that is geared towards exports by another PDFer on this thread. When even if we sell 6 Azm aircraft we could pay off so much debt. We could make so much money from our own industry. But people for some reason just don't want to pay attention to this.This is a very real threat. I hope there are some programs in place for this. Small aviation engines shouldn't be out of reach of PAC's capabilities at all.
Dude I wish I had a Tamgha e Imtiaz to give to you. Write these thoughts in form of a research paper and send them on to AirHQ or GHQ or somewhere. I believe people like us will have to become vocal to drive progress in our industry or we will keep ending up with the Frankensteins HIT and POF produces.I usually don't post in these kinds of threads as the threads get too long and its hard to keep up with all the discussions going on. As an engineer by profession I thought I would give my 2 cents.
Regarding a new clean sheet stealth fighter design I think it is too ambitious for PAF due to budget and technical expertise constraints. Now PAF can come with a concept design but taking a project from concept design to design verification to development to prototyping and then to industrialization takes a lot of time and a ton of money which we don't have. Also look at it this way as well if (that is a big if) even we are able mass produce this fighter indigenously it will be too expensive as we won't have many buyers. All the militarizes that have budgets to buy these kinds of expensive planes in numbers have their own programs. The only deep pockets that are left who could potentially buy this plan is the middle east and I doubt they would buy it either as they have access to western tech and they prefer it. I don't think it makes sense to take this route. The best approach I think would be to have a joint venture with other countries so that it can be mass produced. We should try to have an assembly line here not just for the manufacturing and assembly of frame but for subsystems as well and possibly design and manufacture few critical subsystems especially avionics + parts of the frame itself to become cohesively attached to the supply chain.
Having said that I think Project Azm should focus more on
- SAM systems (Area denial with layered approach) missiles, communication and radar systems
- Smart munitions
- Autonomous and Semi autonomous Stealth Drones both MALE and HALE and creating integration between drones and fighter jets
- Drone Swarms or loitering munitions
- EM warfare suites
- High bandwidth communication equipment
Compared to a full fledged fighter jets they are less costly both in terms of R&D and industrialization and in any future war they will be big deciding factor.
Now to achieve this what is most important is a change of mind set of PAF and military in general. They should start investing in private sector in Pakistan with a guaranteed funding (there are always conditions attached e.g profit cannot be taken in certain scenarios) for R&D as employees cannot be retained without it (currently its ... you invest in R&D + industrialization and if we like it we might buy it. I am telling from personal experience of developing and finally deploying some machines for Army related to artillery and tank maintenance). We are facing a multi dimensional problem in R&D sector of Pakistan. We have low quality engineering graduates, we maybe able to field like 1500 max good graduates combined in field of electronics, mechanical, embedded systems, software, materials (almost non existent), physics and we also have a brain drain problem as a lot of them leave Pakistan. This can be changed by investing in local companies as they can retain and train some of these good caliber graduates which would help us ten fold in the long run.
The local companies also have to become more inter-connected and start sharing IP as its the collaboration that helps make an exceptional product. We also need to start importing (with help of R&D budget) test equipment both in electronics as well as material testing.
Now coming towards industrialization. Currently Pakistan does not have any industrial base for high tech equipment manufacturing. Its even hard to find a vendor which can do SMD placement on PCB. Getting a plastic mold from design to manufacturing is a big hassle. I know Kamra has some capabilities but they are for their own use and cannot be used by private sector. We can find most machines from abroad China, Japan etc so that is not going to be a problem if funding is there and I think it should be done by the Universities also as then there will be a teaching component to it with industry having unhindered access to that equipment. What we should focus on is the coming revolution in part manufacturing i.e composites and 3d printing. In the next 10+ years most composite will be 3d printed (along with other processes to make it a finished product) and we wont have access to that specific technology which can mass produce composite part or 3d printed metal parts. This technology is not that difficult to develop compared to a jet engine and it is going to be vital for us in the coming decade. Unfortunately its a big hassle to even import 200$ 3d printer so manufacturing these kinds machines locally is just a dream for now.
I don't know if there is any collaboration going on in Pakistan with like minded individuals with technical expertise as well as with money and connections to make this happen but I hope we do.
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