In comparison to Russian ground maintenance equipment for the Flanker family such as the Sukhoi Su-30, Chinese claim that its indigenously developed ground maintenance equipment of JF-17 offers significant advantages to the current Russian one on the market, and the PLAAF has already begun to replace Russian ground maintenance equipment for the Flanker family such as the Sukhoi Su-30 for the following reasons:
Like its western counterparts, the Chinese ground maintenance equipment is not limited to serve a single type of aircraft, instead, it is designed to service a wide range of aircraft, including both civilian and military. In comparison, most Russian ground maintenance equipment for the Flanker family such as the Sukhoi Su-30 are purposely built and can only serve the aircraft in the Flanker family.
The Chinese ground maintenance equipment utilizes solid state electronics, and has better reliability.
The Chinese ground maintenance equipment is based on the commercial off-the-shelf products that greatly reduced the logistic problems due to its commonality with similar commercial equipment available while meeting the military standards at the same time.
Due to the adoptation of the commercial off-the-shelf products, the Chinese ground maintenance equipment is cheaper to purchase, and more importantly, cheaper to operate than the specially design Russian ones, which have unit price from at least half a million to more than a million United States dollars.
The Chinese ground maintenance equipment adopts the multi-tasks workstation priniciple of similar American systems, and thus much fewer equipment is needed like the American systems. In comparison, most Russian ground maintenance equipment offered for export for the Flanker family such as the Sukhoi Su-30 is single tasked, thus forcing the buyers to spend more money on puchasing every type in order to meet the complete maintenance requirements.
Due to its similar design that follows western systems, the Chinese ground maintenance equipment is compact and can be deployed by air like its western counterparts. In contrast, the Russian ground maintenance equipment for Flanker family such as the Sukhoi Su-30 is bulky and can only be transported on land since it can not fit inside cargo airplanes.
The Chinese ground maintenance equipment is versatile like similar western systems in that it can either be truck mounted to increase mobility, or trailer mounted to reduce cost. In contrast, the current Russian ground maintenance equipment on the market for the Flanker family such as the Sukhoi Su-30 only comes in truck mounted form (as of 2006).
In stead of being built by a single production complex associated with the aircraft manufacturer like the ground maintenance equipment of the Flanker family, the complete set of the Chinese ground maintenance equipment is developed by different manufacturers of the similar equipment used for commercial airplanes, so that buyers would have wider choice of suppliers, and would not have pay higher prices because they would not to be locked into the deal forced up on them by the aircraft manufacturer. The purchasers of the Chinese ground maintenance equipment therefore are open to purchase western components should they choose to, when there are better deals to be found.
More importantly, since most of the Chinese ground maintenance equipment is for civilian use, there is far less likelihood of being embargoed like the Russian ground maintenance equipment for the Flanker family such as the Sukhoi Su-30, which is purely for military use.
The civilian usage of the the multi-tasked Chinese ground maintenance equipment also means that the equipment can be better utilized for civilian aircraft and thus reducing the cost of operation like similar western systems. In contrast, not only is the Russian counterpart limited to military aircraft, it is also only limited to a single family of military aircraft because many of the single tasked Russian ground maintenance equipment purposely built for Flanker family such as the Sukhoi Su-30 can only be used for Flankers.
Like similar western systems of modular design, the Chinese ground maintenance equipment also has the option of modular design so that when newer subsystems become available, they can be readily incorporated into the system by replacing the older ones on the racks.
The ability to undertake short take-offs and landings is also incorporated in the aircraft.
Not to mention the most visible change, the DSI (divergent supersonic intake).
The first 50 JF-17s entering Pakistan Air Force (PAF) service will only incorporate Chinese avionics and weapon systems. Subsequent upgrades will be made on PAF JF-17s every five years, planned additions include infra-red search & track (IRST), in-flight refueling (IFR) and possibly engine change from the Russian RD-93 to Chinese WS-13. [1], [2]
Beyond the initial 50 PAF JF-17s, the remaining 100-150 may be equipped with European avionics and radars. Pakistan had begun negotiations with British and Italian defence firms over potential avionics and ECM/EW systems for JF-17. In fact, one of the radar options for JF-17 is the Italian Grifo S7 [3].
[edit] Weaponry
All weapon systems are designed to be compatible with both Western systems (ie. supporting MIL-STD-1760 data bus), Russian and Chinese systems as well.
[edit] Air-to-air weaponry
The JF-17 is primarily an export-oriented fighter, thus can be built according a customer's specifications and use a variety of Chinese, Western, South African & Russian munitions.
These include air-to-air Beyond Visual Range missiles (BVRs).
There is Great chance China will develop its own engine a better one than the Russian i hope..