Bilal Khan 777
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The only reason why PAF is still continuing to use the Mirages and the limitation of JF17 that can be judged from all the development threads comes down to this:
Historically ground attack aircraft would fly very low to the ground keeping visual contact had their wings mounted on top of the fuselage. Examples JH7, Tornado, Jaguar.
France on the other hand produced Mirage 3 with ground hugging capabilities using a low delta wing configuration which till today is a trademark achievement.
USA had retractable wings so that the F14 could be used for low level flight as well as high level.
This could be the only reason why JF-17 is not yet up to the PAF standards, may be increased wing area of JF-17 block 3 could be addressing this along with higher speed and more powerful engine.
It's not a limitation. The advent of SSM relieves the AF of deep strike using A/C only. The issue is numbers. Pilots need to be trained, and pilots need to keep fit. To do that, you need aircraft. Mirage lives on to fill the role, to ensure that we have the pilots and they are fit.