Featured Project Azm: Pakistan's Ambitious Quest to Develop 5th Generation Military Technologies.

[Big_bud]

What you truly need is a working economy and the private sector participating in developing such tech. No military does it's own R&D and produces the top line equipment as they are always under a budget. They rather pay advanced organizations who create jobs and have a talent pool, to come up with newer and newer tech. Take a look at the US, India, Turkey, France, etc.

Your statement has the answer in it. Armed forces of a country can't make that happen. They can't magically fix the country, spawn new politicians, produce business men of enough acumen, develop country's industries and spawn highly educated people too so that they can achieve military goals for them.

Every country has learnt from each other and has reverse engineered stuff from counter parts. Blue prints have been sold and bought. Secrets have been stolen. I do think Pakistan's army would try to accelerate this process by any means necessary and won't afford to have a PR disaster like Tejas! They will either play it safe and leave it to Chinese to build them a plan. Or they will pull some james bond shit to get where they need to.

 

[IblinI]

Pac signed for wingloong 2 tot.

Can this be the first pic of wingloong 2 in Pakistan?

 

[JamD]

But why not? Treat Azm as a highly specialized, high-end R&D group (in terms of Pakistan's current capabilities). Set the target of medium weight JF-17 NG. Create small, enabled teams of capable engineers to work on various aspects. Try to replicate Kelly Johnson's success.

Apologies for the thread jump, I did not want to discuss Azm on the JF17 blk3 thread.

To your comment:
Create small, enabled teams of capable engineers to work on various aspects - totally agreed, that this should be done.

What is then the stumbling block? HR, infrastructure, and redtape.
1. HR
Fact: AvRID hires people on one-year renewable contracts.
What AvRID engineers have told me: People join AvRID is a temporary place to work at while they get more secure jobs at AWC etc. As a result there are people constantly coming in and going out.
Majority of the people that AvRID has been able to hire are fresh undergrads with little to no experience. The number of people with Master's degrees is small, and PhDs are a handful. I am not claiming degrees are everything, but I am claiming that 5 PhDs leading a team of 80 undergrads will not get you Azm. Undergrads can do great work, don't get me wrong. But they need direction. What people at AvRID say is the opposite of that. I am not sure what the impediment to hiring more qualified people is. Maybe they can't afford to or don't want to pay enough, or they don't want people that will question PAF babas too much - I don't know, might be a combination of both. There are certainly many Pakistani PhDs that are very capable and willing. Here's a recent ad for hiring at AvRID (not even looking for PhD's, why?):

I know how few PhDs are currently at AvRID. In this day and age, you need many many PhDs because there's research and work experience that you simply will not get with an army of undergrads that keep coming in and leaving.

2. Infrastructure
Lockmart is one of the biggest aerospace companies in the world and has access to an amazing variety of engineering infrastructure. AvRID does not. The poor guys at AvRID haven't even done a single wind tunnel test till today because they don't have access to it - everything is compartmentalized in Pakistan, you know this. Only now are they preparing for their first wind tunnel tests.

3. Redtape
The windtunnel thing brings us nicely to redtape. You think PAC does not have access to wind tunnels? Of course they do. But AvRID (like most organizations and departments in Pakistan) is a black box which has no inflow or outflow.

So yes, Kelly Johnsons points are well taken in some regards. But Kelly Johnson didn't have deal with a workforce made of inexperienced undergrads that keep coming and going. Kelly Johnson had a lot of engineering infrastructure at his disposal that AvRID does not. Kelly Johnson was the boss of his own department and wasn't cut down to size or fired because he was threatening the supremacy of PAF babas.

 

[JamD]

Again, sorry for the threadjump.

Fully agreed.
If you ask me, I honestly feel that Azm is winding down to some extent. The energy and momentum which characterized the early days during Sohail Aman's tenure is not visible now, specially with the current chief. Now, obviously, I have no insider knowledge or any concrete evidence to corroborate this.
However, I am going by what has essentially been the norm in Pakistan. High profile projects are never institutionalized - they just serve to further an individual's own goals and objectives. Now there is no evidence to suggest that this has been the case in the PAF with Azm, but can the PAF be expected to be any different than the nation which it belongs to?
This is turning out to be more of a philosophical question.

Funny you should say that. When Azm started, this is exactly what I was afraid of. I actually know the entire story of Azm now, and unfortunately, it is as you fear. A story of personalities with little to no institutional buy-in. This is probably the reason AvRID is hiring people on annual contracts because they are not even sure of their own existence in the long term.

Anyhow, going by what we can assess - the Azm MALE UAV project turned out to be an anti-climax for a majority of people here on PDF who were probably expecting a system to bypass the Reaper/Global Hawk/Anka/Raptor/etc.

I was actually quite pleased with their MALE. But that's probably because my expectations were realistic lol.

The idea of an 'Aviation City' to be a hub of Pakistan's aerospace industry (in a highly secure and restricted zone such as Kamra) was a dream at best. You don't build centers of excellence in isolation and in such a paranoid/security centric environment.

That should be on every chowk in every strat org.

As for the human resource question - I agree that there has been no massive hiring. Having known some of the human resource already working there, I have to sadly say that they do not represent the best minds of the country who are worthy of working on such a critical national project. Hiring procedures are ancient and ripe with old-world biases and pathetic sarkari preferences. Even if they do manage to get Azm off the drawing board and onto the flight lines, I doubt that it will be something out of this world.

Lol agreed because I know many people there. There are a handful of talented people on the verge of leaving and a sea of opportunists waiting for security clearances for other places to come in. I don't want to come off as shokha but some of the worst engineers I knew are now at AvRID. On the other hand I do know 2 or 3 geniunely talented people at AvRID too.

 

[sal29]

Apologies for the thread jump, I did not want to discuss Azm on the JF17 blk3 thread.

To your comment:
Create small, enabled teams of capable engineers to work on various aspects - totally agreed, that this should be done.

What is then the stumbling block? HR, infrastructure, and redtape.
1. HR
Fact: AvRID hires people on one-year renewable contracts.
What AvRID engineers have told me: People join AvRID is a temporary place to work at while they get more secure jobs at AWC etc. As a result there are people constantly coming in and going out.
Majority of the people that AvRID has been able to hire are fresh undergrads with little to no experience. The number of people with Master's degrees is small, and PhDs are a handful. I am not claiming degrees are everything, but I am claiming that 5 PhDs leading a team of 80 undergrads will not get you Azm. Undergrads can do great work, don't get me wrong. But they need direction. What people at AvRID say is the opposite of that. I am not sure what the impediment to hiring more qualified people is. Maybe they can't afford to or don't want to pay enough, or they don't want people that will question PAF babas too much - I don't know, might be a combination of both. There are certainly many Pakistani PhDs that are very capable and willing. Here's a recent ad for hiring at AvRID (not even looking for PhD's, why?):
View attachment 773542
I know how few PhDs are currently at AvRID. In this day and age, you need many many PhDs because there's research and work experience that you simply will not get with an army of undergrads that keep coming in and leaving.

2. Infrastructure
Lockmart is one of the biggest aerospace companies in the world and has access to an amazing variety of engineering infrastructure. AvRID does not. The poor guys at AvRID haven't even done a single wind tunnel test till today because they don't have access to it - everything is compartmentalized in Pakistan, you know this. Only now are they preparing for their first wind tunnel tests.

3. Redtape
The windtunnel thing brings us nicely to redtape. You think PAC does not have access to wind tunnels? Of course they do. But AvRID (like most organizations and departments in Pakistan) is a black box which has no inflow or outflow.

So yes, Kelly Johnsons points are well taken in some regards. But Kelly Johnson didn't have deal with a workforce made of inexperienced undergrads that keep coming and going. Kelly Johnson had a lot of engineering infrastructure at his disposal that AvRID does not. Kelly Johnson was the boss of his own department and wasn't cut down to size or fired because he was threatening the supremacy of PAF babas.

I do not agree with your assumption that you need more PhDs. Unless you are doing pure research and the intention is churn out few research papers then sure PhDs would be ideal. But for R&D you need a mix within a team. For example for materials you need PhDs to come up new materials as these aerospace materials are heavy regulated and are not available for export. But to produce them you need engineers (i dont care much about the degrees) who have experience in the industry and know best practices. Similarly for example for Avionics you need experienced hardware and emb-software engineers/architects/developers but also mathematician's, physicist who have actually worked or have knowledge of this domain. You cannot hire a theoretical physicist with dual PhDs and expect he will build an AESA radar for you. You need a team with mix of capabilities that can deliver you a product. You also need to hire engineers who can sort out how it will be produced, tester who have experience in testing complex products. This is not as straight forward as hiring PhDs I am afraid.

I also personally think AvRID developing Azm electronic systems at least is a folly. Pakistani private sector should be engaged for that as Private sector can hire the competent people which unfortunately government run organization simply cannot mostly because most competent and experienced people will not like to join scale of BPS18

 

[JamD]

I do not agree with your assumption that you need more PhDs. Unless you are doing pure research and the intention is churn out few research papers then sure PhDs would be ideal. But for R&D you need a mix within a team. For example for materials you need PhDs to come up new materials as these aerospace materials are heavy regulated and are not available for export. But to produce them you need engineers (i dont care much about the degrees) who have experience in the industry and know best practices. Similarly for example for Avionics you need experienced hardware and emb-software engineers/architects/developers but also mathematician's, physicist who have actually worked or have knowledge of this domain. You cannot hire a theoretical physicist with dual PhDs and expect he will build an AESA radar for you. You need a team with mix of capabilities that can deliver you a product. You also need to hire engineers who can sort out how it will be produced, tester who have experience in testing complex products. This is not as straight forward as hiring few PhDs I am afraid.

All of your points are well taken and I am not disagreeing with anything you said. But the point I was making was a little more nuanced.

1. There are 5 PhDs for 10 Masters and 80 undergrads. Does this ratio seem right to you? It doesn't seem right to me when I compare this to the likes of Raytheon and LockMart.
2. PhDs are not only for writing papers. PhDs are for doing R&D, which is EXACTLY what Azm is supposed to be. The R&D departments of all major aerospace companies are majority PhDs, not majority undergrads. They don't write papers that often, they do research and development.
3. Undergrads with experience are great. These are the kinds of people you are talking about in your post. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, where we don't have an aerospace industry there is no place to gain experience. So what you have are almost entirely UN-experienced undergrads. To guide these totally unexperienced undergrads you need direction that can be provided by experienced PhDs that are more appreciative of how R&D works, have WAY more technical knowledge, and often times have a lot of practical, real-world experience.
4. The majority of the undergrads at AvRID leave because they are only there for short-term employment while they wait for other opportunities. It's massive the amount of people coming and going. You don't build institutions like that.

 

[CriticalThought]

I do not agree with your assumption that you need more PhDs. Unless you are doing pure research and the intention is churn out few research papers then sure PhDs would be ideal. But for R&D you need a mix within a team. For example for materials you need PhDs to come up new materials as these aerospace materials are heavy regulated and are not available for export. But to produce them you need engineers (i dont care much about the degrees) who have experience in the industry and know best practices. Similarly for example for Avionics you need experienced hardware and emb-software engineers/architects/developers but also mathematician's, physicist who have actually worked or have knowledge of this domain. You cannot hire a theoretical physicist with dual PhDs and expect he will build an AESA radar for you. You need a team with mix of capabilities that can deliver you a product. You also need to hire engineers who can sort out how it will be produced, tester who have experience in testing complex products. This is not as straight forward as hiring PhDs I am afraid.

I also personally think AvRID developing Azm electronic systems at least is a folly. Pakistani private sector should be engaged for that as Private sector can hire the competent people which unfortunately government run organization simply cannot mostly because most competent and experienced people will not like to join scale of BPS18

It really depends on PAF being invested into Azm - top to bottom. What @JamD and @S A L M A N. seem to be implying is that there is a lack of will.

I can share my own knowledge of other strategic projects. Various aspects are headed by PhDs who employ all sorts of subordinates - from undergrads to masters to PhD students. The going is slow, but as we can see, they have produced results. I have a suspicion that JF-17 already contains the result of such endeavors.

Another very interesting development is this:

https://www.arabianbusiness.com/capital-markets/461802-uaes-mubadala-said-to-eye-20bn-us-ipo-for-chipmaker-business

Did anyone have any idea that UAE owns a semi-conductor business? So, the partnership on Azm can come from unlikely sources. I still have hope.

 

[Marker]

IMO AvRID is a head office, where things about project AZM are being coordinated, monitored and controlled. Therefore large inductions are not visible. Secrecy is also maintained.

Conceptual research and future development may be happening not in AvRID HQ, but somewhere else under competent and highly qualified leadership.

However, the Ad @JamD displayed in his post reveal some info about AvRID being involved in micro starter turbo jet engines.

We can safely infer that some sort of missiles and/or drones R&D is in progress.

 

[Bilal.]

It really depends on PAF being invested into Azm - top to bottom. What @JamD and @S A L M A N. seem to be implying is that there is a lack of will.

I can share my own knowledge of other strategic projects. Various aspects are headed by PhDs who employ all sorts of subordinates - from undergrads to masters to PhD students. The going is slow, but as we can see, they have produced results. I have a suspicion that JF-17 already contains the result of such endeavors.

Another very interesting development is this:

https://www.arabianbusiness.com/capital-markets/461802-uaes-mubadala-said-to-eye-20bn-us-ipo-for-chipmaker-business

Did anyone have any idea that UAE owns a semi-conductor business? So, the partnership on Azm can come from unlikely sources. I still have hope.

Global Foundries was bought by Mubadala. Don’t know if a US based semiconductor manufacturer can be useful for our defence chip needs.

Chinese SMIC or Hua Hong Grace would be more suitable or better still if we get our own 90nm fab which doesn’t cost billions anymore.

 

[CriticalThought]

Global Foundries was bought by Mubadala. Don’t know if a US based semiconductor manufacturer can be useful for our defence chip needs.

I am just pointing out how technological capability can be found in the unlikeliest of places. It may be in the US, but it is privately owned up till now. Do we have a list of offices and their locations?

 

[Bilal.]

I am just pointing out how technological capability can be found in the unlikeliest of places. It may be in the US, but it is privately owned up till now. Do we have a list of offices and their locations?

It’s not only US based but US origin tech. It was spun off of AMD and later bought by Mubadala which is just an investment firm not a tech company. All it’s fab capabilities are in US as far as I know. So quite off limits for our defence semiconductor needs.

 

[CriticalThought]

It’s not only US based but US origin tech. It was spun off of AMD and later bought by Mubadala. All it’s fab capabilities are in US as far as I know. So quite off limits for our defence semiconductor needs.

On the face of it, I'll have to agree. But it opens up a lot of possibilities. Let's leave it at that.

 

[Bilal.]

On the face of it, I'll have to agree. But it opens up a lot of possibilities. Let's leave it at that.

The real possibilities I see is Chinese slowly becoming a player not just in Fab play but also core fab equipment manufacturing. We can potential build a complete 90nm fab purely from equipments and software sourced from China provided we are willing to invest a couple of million dollars. Which I would say is well worth it.

 

[sal29]

All of your points are well taken and I am not disagreeing with anything you said. But the point I was making was a little more nuanced.

1. There are 5 PhDs for 10 Masters and 80 undergrads. Does this ratio seem right to you? It doesn't seem right to me when I compare this to the likes of Raytheon and LockMart.

To be honest I don't really care whether they are PhDs or Masters or Bachelors or nothing. You can hire 80 PhDs with no experience in the industry or product development and the output will be nothing. It does not mean you do not need PhDs, you do need them because if you want a very specific knowledge of a particular domain the most eligible candidate would probably have a PhD. But usually you do not need many. You gave example of Raytheon and Lockhead Martin and it is true that they have a lot PhDs but they are not hired because they have PhDs, they are hired because they have vast practical knowledge of a specific domain.

2. PhDs are not only for writing papers. PhDs are for doing R&D, which is EXACTLY what Azm is supposed to be. The R&D departments of all major aerospace companies are majority PhDs, not majority undergrads. They don't write papers that often, they do research and development.

In Pakistan the PhDs do theoretical research in academia and do not have any practical experience of any industry what so ever (most probably because there is no industry in Pakistan which actively employs PhDs in technical domain). As you have to hire them locally they are not the ideal candidates to begin with. Not many PhDs or engineers with the requisite experience will be willing to come to Pakistan to get hired in AvRid. That is where private sector shine as they can offer a package depending upon the candidate rather than painting everyone with the same brush.

3. Undergrads with experience are great. These are the kinds of people you are talking about in your post. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, where we don't have an aerospace industry there is no place to gain experience. So what you have are almost entirely UN-experienced undergrads. To guide these totally unexperienced undergrads you need direction that can be provided by experienced PhDs that are more appreciative of how R&D works, have WAY more technical knowledge, and often times have a lot of practical, real-world experience.

Unexperienced PhDS are not going to guide what so ever other unexperienced fresh graduates. The only way you solve this issue is hiring experienced people and actually listening to them on technical as well as management level. The degrees don't help here what so ever.

4. The majority of the undergrads at AvRID leave because they are only there for short-term employment while they wait for other opportunities. It's massive the amount of people coming and going. You don't build institutions like that.

You are absolutely right. I don't think AvRID with its government scale structure and baboo mentality can build something complex on limited time scale (given ample time and money and resources you might get an output). You need to adhere to modern way of working and hiring principles to achieve that. Providing funding and even creating semi-private institutions through AvRID funding which don't have governmental red tape can achieve it.

 

[CriticalThought]

The real possibilities I see is Chinese slowly becoming a player not just in Fab play but also core fab equipment manufacturing. We can potential build a complete 90nm fab purely from equipments and software sourced from China provided we are willing to invest a couple of million dollars. Which I would say is well worth it.

Money talks and if you are willing to pay good dime you can always go to ASML. That is where China got its latest fab as well, although they are now doing their own research as well.

But don't discount the gulf. If you knew what I know, you wouldn't Unfortunately, revealing what I know leads to revealing names. And that is something I do not want to do under any circumstances.