What led to the failure of project Azm?

[TheDarkKnight]

Main reason of failure... Once someone placed own self, own ego first instead of the greater good.

Sadly that is like how the entire country is being run.
With an economic meltdown in-front of us, I doubt we will be able to finance such an expensive endeavor anymore- unless Pakistanis are now made to eat grass for a decade.

 

[TheSolution]

Turkey is lucky to have Erdogan in relation to defence industry. He gives full support on the diffence industry.

For why PAC uses Air Force base to make Aerospace Industry is because it is inside Air Force asset. You need to have runway near any Aerospace Industry, it will be expensive to build new runway for just making new Aerospace Industry building. And any way does Pakistan have civilian airport where there are huge land near it that can be used for Aerospace Industry ? As far as I know it is in trouble area in Balkchistan and far away from Pakistan best university.

Aerospace Industry needs to also be set near campus who will provide the man power and inside city that is vibran that will attract people to work there. Even Korean Aerospace gets some difficulty to attrack talents because it is locates in suburb areas ( despite we are talking about South Korea ).

I didn't mean the PAC bro, that's fine.

I meant some research institutes that will likely mostly be civiliians working inside, and even a think tank which is located inside a PAF air base.

Shouldn't these things be located more in a civillian area rather than an air base?

And yes, an airport in Gwadar is about to be finished soon in a few months but security concerns are there.

 

[CivilianSupremacy]

I'm not sure if pakistan even has these sorts of development facilities. as I said the parallel for the JF-17 production is more like India and the Su-30MKI rather than the Tejas, this is despite the fact that the Tejas is using foreign components

Totally Incorrect understanding of things. SU-30MKI is only a licensed manufacturing. India do not own a dime in SU-30. Its a product owned by Russia and india is only permitted to produce it under license.

While PAC is a owner of JF-17 Project along with Chengdu ( 50-50% shares). Pakistan initiated this project and called China. Pakistan paid for JF-17 design and development. While in india's case SU-30 was already designed and developed and india only uses it as a user.

I wonder how come people pass on statements without checking the hard facts on the internet. Pakistan ofcourse has huge development facilities. Tens of thousands of people are employed in such organizations. Many Organizations works under SPD. What Pakistan is lacking is funds also leadership & management issues.

So any parallel if has to be drawn is between JF-17 & Tejas. There's tons of analysis within india on Tejas whether its successful or not, IAF too slow to incorporate it, Indian navy rejected it, production, logistics is another nightmare as it incorporates parts from every country on earth (British, French, Israeli, Russian, American, Indian) - JF-17 is flown by three airforces, Its in service for decades, over 150 produced and latest block III has integrated same weapons as 5th gen J-20. LRAAM & HOBs missile / AESA radar outclass Tejas or any russian tech in IAF.

 

[JamD]

What happened bro you and that professor/PhD lady didn't like it very much when I since 2019 had been saying that Pakistani generals and top leaders are desi uncle minded idiots. And also when I had been saying since 2019 that Bajwa was spineless and I had my suspicions of him being an agent saboteur.

You used to go on n on about the usual Pakistani "idaarey" sacred cow BS.

What happened now? Did they fire you and you escaped to a safe country??

I used to post with Ahmet Pasha username. My profile was cleansed twice under Bajwa regime.

Lol what? You must be confusing me with someone else. I think you are badly mistaken.

 

[MirageBlue]

How much of the Tejas is manufactured in-house?

If anyone knows. Because our JF-17 doesn't have our own radar, engine, etc either and it's only assembled in-house. It's better we be honest with ourselves, India struggled a bit but focused on building an indigenous ecosystem - we are now playing catch-up

Dassault was the consultant and over 500 HAL engineers were trained at Dassault facilities since Dassault's CATIA was selected as the design tool in the 1980s when it was almost brand new.

The PD phase was over in 1990 after which Dassault's role largely ended. Dassault offered the Mirage-2000's FBW FCS (3 channel digital with analog backup) for the Tejas but it was rejected by DRDO and ADA since they wanted state of the art quadruplex FCS with no analog backup. Dassault refused to share it saying that they themselves were developing it for the Rafale.

DRDO/ADA selected the US offer and went to CALSPAN/Marietta for the FCS related work and also had BAe as consultants but in a much smaller role. The ADA/DRDO guys were working on the FCS in the US when the nuclear tests happened and all were kicked out of the US and their computers and data was seized. That basically meant they had to re-do all their work from scratch after coming back to India.

Radar was supposed to be developed with Ericsson's PS-05A as the baseline. Ericsson refused to share ToT and they departed soon after and the Indian LRDE lab took up the MMR radar on it's own. Eventually they developed the antenna, actuators, back end signal processing, etc. but it failed to meet the mark. Finally the MMR's antenna was used, but the signal processing back end was taken from the Israeli Elta 2032.

As of today, India has an indigenous AESA flying on the Netra AEW&C successfully since several years. It has led to the Uttam AESA fire control radar which has cleared trials and is slated to be used on the Tejas Mk1A from the 40th fighter onwards.

Engine was the Kaveri that eventually was tested on a Il-78 in Russia but did not meet the afterburning thrust goal. It was able to meet the required dry thrust. Metallurgy is a science and an art and that is where tremendous amounts of money is required to be invested, which unfortunately was never done in the case of the Kaveri. The total money invested in the Kaveri is a fraction of what GE/Safran/RR spend on a new engine development program, despite the fact that they have all the facilities.

Composites was a big success and is almost entirely indigenous with even the carbon fiber pre-preg sourced in India now.

Basically the Tejas program laid the foundation for every single area of combat fighter development in India, from lightning test facilities, to iron rigs, to wind tunnels, to CFD solvers, to manufacturing to RCS measurement facilities..you name it, it has been done for the Tejas program, which is why the Tejas Mk2, TEDBF and AMCA can even be taken on.

 

[Faceless]

Dassault was the consultant and over 500 HAL engineers were trained at Dassault facilities since Dassault's CATIA was selected as the design tool in the 1980s when it was almost brand new.

The PD phase was over in 1990 after which Dassault's role largely ended. Dassault offered the Mirage-2000's FBW FCS (3 channel digital with analog backup) for the Tejas but it was rejected by DRDO and ADA since they wanted state of the art quadruplex FCS with no analog backup. Dassault refused to share it saying that they themselves were developing it for the Rafale.

DRDO/ADA selected the US offer and went to CALSPAN/Marietta for the FCS related work and also had BAe as consultants but in a much smaller role. The ADA/DRDO guys were working on the FCS in the US when the nuclear tests happened and all were kicked out of the US and their computers and data was seized. That basically meant they had to re-do all their work from scratch after coming back to India.

Radar was supposed to be developed with Ericsson's PS-05A as the baseline. Ericsson refused to share ToT and they departed soon after and the Indian LRDE lab took up the MMR radar on it's own. Eventually they developed the antenna, actuators, back end signal processing, etc. but it failed to meet the mark. Finally the MMR's antenna was used, but the signal processing back end was taken from the Israeli Elta 2032.

As of today, India has an indigenous AESA flying on the Netra AEW&C successfully since several years. It has led to the Uttam AESA fire control radar which has cleared trials and is slated to be used on the Tejas Mk1A from the 40th fighter onwards.

Engine was the Kaveri that eventually was tested on a Il-78 in Russia but did not meet the afterburning thrust goal. It was able to meet the required dry thrust. Metallurgy is a science and an art and that is where tremendous amounts of money is required to be invested, which unfortunately was never done in the case of the Kaveri. The total money invested in the Kaveri is a fraction of what GE/Safran/RR spend on a new engine development program, despite the fact that they have all the facilities.

Composites was a big success and is almost entirely indigenous with even the carbon fiber pre-preg sourced in India now.

Basically the Tejas program laid the foundation for every single area of combat fighter development in India, from lightning test facilities, to iron rigs, to wind tunnels, to CFD solvers, to manufacturing to RCS measurement facilities..you name it, it has been done for the Tejas program, which is why the Tejas Mk2, TEDBF and AMCA can even be taken on.

To further expand upon this post, think of Dassault's help this way, you bought a proprietary CAD software from someone (dassault) and that someone then taught you on how to use that CAD software, anything you create using that CAD software is your own creation. (Imagine Google claiming ownership of all apps created using Android studio)


Again going by the previous example using someone (Boeing's) else's research lab to create a new product by yourself doesn't mean that they (Boeing) made that. It's like saying Edison invented the induction motor because Tesla used his factory.

 

[ziaulislam]

Something to think about:
Once JF-17 Block 3 numbers are produced most of PAC AMF is going to be idle. It is a huge setup and the PAF really really wants it not to sit idle in a couple of years.

A few people (including the airchief at that time) thought the solution to this problem (being a solution to the future fighter problem too) was to develop our own FGFA. I am sorry to say this but these folks were out of touch with reality. There was this other person too that still believes (or at least tells everyone that he does) that FGFA was a realistic goal for PAF.

To develop an aircraft is a herculean task. Remember Pakistan did NOT develop the JF-17, it only manufactures it. It takes a LOT of expertise in engineering and a tonne of huge facilities to develop and certify an aircraft. Its a ridiculously expensive and labour intensive process that no way Pakistan could afford for the JF-17 or any other aircraft.

Then, the design of an aircraft - especially a modern aircraft - is so utterly complex and multidimensional that it takes thousands of experts to even begin a design. Remember, I am only talking about design - not development, which is when you do structural tests and certifications and what not.

Now what did PAF have? A handful of PhDs in aerodynamics and structures maybe. And just because these people have PhDs does not mean that they are the right people. These are PAF officers with PhDs that have gotten PhDs at some points during their careers. Their "real-world" experience is aircraft maintenance of PAF fighters and their overhaul and teaching students at CAE Risalpur. This does NOT qualify them to design and build aircraft. A PhD at lockheed martin who has worked his entire life on F-16s and F-18s design and development is not the same as some PAF PhD teaching undergraduate classes at CAE. What industry do we have to train the workforce for an aircraft program???

So what was Azm? It was a conceptual design. This means that its shape was being finalized with some very very basic ideas of subsystems. Since you can do CFD with computers and dont need much investment or skill, that's all AvRID was doing. CFD and CFD and CFD. And that's all we saw. It looks cool in pictures and videos and the forum was impressed. I told you guys last year that they hadn't done a single wind tunnel test.

And obviously an aircraft is not just aerodynamics. It's structures, it's fuel systems, it's hydraulics, its radars, its ECM, its sensors, its sensor fusion, its electronics, its power electronics, its materials, its composites, its manufacturing design, the list is huge. You need subject matter experts on hundreds of fields and then they need to have teams of their own. Not some PAF Babus with inflated egos because they have PhDs and the sum of their experience is teaching undergraduate courses in Pakistan.

I have seen Azm. I have seen what Azm is right now. Very closely. It would not be too inaccurate to liken it to the Agha Waqar waterkit story. People who were either evil or delusional or both were taking a naive nation on a ride.


If you want to see how you build a fighter aircraft look at Turkish Aerospace. Look how many years they spent developing facilities. Worked on actual aircraft programs like the F-16, A-400M, C-130, S-70. They developed huge facilities for certification. They integrated themselves into international supply chains. PAC Kamra is a joke in front of Turkish Aerospace. PAC Kamra has no relationships with the world and has to smuggle (for lack of a better word) half their inputs. TA spent decades developing skills and manpower in a SUSTAINABLE manner - that is they always had the next 2 or 3 projects lined up for their engineers to work on. They went from strength to strength. They started with Hurkus. We just bought Saab Safari and have done an abysmal amount of work on it considering the time weve had it for. They then worked on Hurjet. We had the K8 and just did nothing with it. Now they are working on TFX and we had the shitshow that was Azm. You can almost make a one-to-one comparison on what to do and what not to do.

Anyway, this rant is long enough already. It's just that "afsos hota hai yaar" - because I'm here picking up the pieces of the practical joke on Pakistan that was Azm.



Guess what the latest thinking is? Remember that issue with the AMF going dormant? Now they are trying by hook and crook to get the TFX to use AMF in some capacity. The good thing about this interaction of PAC and TA is that PAF will realize how outdated they are and how their hubris doesn't align at all with their capacity. I hope PAC gets it what it wants. I don't want it to lose the last chance they have to catch up with the real world.

I said way before the best solution was to join turkey..turkey wasn't big enough to say no(like China will to any ToT) and wasn't small enough to fail(like Pakistan)

That boat may have been sailed

Anyway all of this is moat point when Pakistan is in default

 

[Erieye]

Dassault was the consultant and over 500 HAL engineers were trained at Dassault facilities since Dassault's CATIA was selected as the design tool in the 1980s when it was almost brand new.

The PD phase was over in 1990 after which Dassault's role largely ended. Dassault offered the Mirage-2000's FBW FCS (3 channel digital with analog backup) for the Tejas but it was rejected by DRDO and ADA since they wanted state of the art quadruplex FCS with no analog backup. Dassault refused to share it saying that they themselves were developing it for the Rafale.

DRDO/ADA selected the US offer and went to CALSPAN/Marietta for the FCS related work and also had BAe as consultants but in a much smaller role. The ADA/DRDO guys were working on the FCS in the US when the nuclear tests happened and all were kicked out of the US and their computers and data was seized. That basically meant they had to re-do all their work from scratch after coming back to India.

Radar was supposed to be developed with Ericsson's PS-05A as the baseline. Ericsson refused to share ToT and they departed soon after and the Indian LRDE lab took up the MMR radar on it's own. Eventually they developed the antenna, actuators, back end signal processing, etc. but it failed to meet the mark. Finally the MMR's antenna was used, but the signal processing back end was taken from the Israeli Elta 2032.

As of today, India has an indigenous AESA flying on the Netra AEW&C successfully since several years. It has led to the Uttam AESA fire control radar which has cleared trials and is slated to be used on the Tejas Mk1A from the 40th fighter onwards.

Engine was the Kaveri that eventually was tested on a Il-78 in Russia but did not meet the afterburning thrust goal. It was able to meet the required dry thrust. Metallurgy is a science and an art and that is where tremendous amounts of money is required to be invested, which unfortunately was never done in the case of the Kaveri. The total money invested in the Kaveri is a fraction of what GE/Safran/RR spend on a new engine development program, despite the fact that they have all the facilities.

Composites was a big success and is almost entirely indigenous with even the carbon fiber pre-preg sourced in India now.

Basically the Tejas program laid the foundation for every single area of combat fighter development in India, from lightning test facilities, to iron rigs, to wind tunnels, to CFD solvers, to manufacturing to RCS measurement facilities..you name it, it has been done for the Tejas program, which is why the Tejas Mk2, TEDBF and AMCA can even be taken on.

Although it may have taken a while, ultimately you are far ahead of Pakistan now, so it was still a success overall. Very big success.

 

[hyperman]

While PAC is a owner of JF-17 Project along with Chengdu ( 50-50% shares).

Imma be honest, you really need to stop blowing smoke up your own ***. China designed the jet, China designed the radar, China designed the avionics, and now china designed the engine that is replacing the RD-93. its 50-50 in the same way in a class project where one kid does all the work and at the end both put their name on it. China developed it for export with Pakistan in mind, as a cheap replacement for J-7s and then transferred the production line to Pakistan for local production.

 

[CivilianSupremacy]

Imma be honest, you really need to stop blowing smoke up your own ***. China designed the jet, China designed the radar, China designed the avionics, and now china designed the engine that is replacing the RD-93. its 50-50 in the same way in a class project where one kid does all the work and at the end both put their name on it. China developed it for export with Pakistan in mind, as a cheap replacement for J-7s and then transferred the production line to Pakistan for local production.

LMAO! Your rant means nothing. China did that, china did this.. Ofcourse it did and we know that but look at the facts. Pak initiated project, Pak paid for design & development and Pak is co-owner of the project.

Youtube is product of whom ? Do you even remember the name of guy who developed it. Everyone will say and rightly that youtube is product of Google. (even though google never developed it, neither it paid for its initial development) Projects are always known from ownership. First time I am seeing a strange kind of intellect which is comparing SU-30 (already developed product, owned by some other country, allowed for license production) to a completely new designed project (JF-17, which is owned by the country itself and it paid for design & development).

How hard it is to grasp basic concepts ? You need to throw your bias out of the window to grasp these basic facts.

 

[Corax]

Imma be honest, you really need to stop blowing smoke up your own ***. China designed the jet, China designed the radar, China designed the avionics, and now china designed the engine that is replacing the RD-93. its 50-50 in the same way in a class project where one kid does all the work and at the end both put their name on it. China developed it for export with Pakistan in mind, as a cheap replacement for J-7s and then transferred the production line to Pakistan for local production.

Are you retarded? No one is saying the PAF developed 50% of the JF-17, not even the PAF. Ownership and development are two completely different things. I've been telling you this from the start, the PAF asked Chengdu to design and develop an aircraft based on their requirements. It was 50/50 funded by Chengdu and Pakistan. I don't how old you are, either very old and senile, or very young and pubescent, but in the few exchanges with you it seems you have a comprehension issue.

 

[Sliver]

Are you retarded? No one is saying the PAF developed 50% of the JF-17, not even the PAF. Ownership and development are two completely different things. I've been telling you this from the start, the PAF asked Chengdu to design and develop an aircraft based on their requirements. It was 50/50 funded by Chengdu and Pakistan. I don't how old you are, either very old and senile, or very young and pubescent, but in the few exchanges with you it seems you have a comprehension issue.

Pakistan owns 50% of JF program
but that ownership has not translated to development knowledge and technical expertise to develop in hose projects of the same kind - let alone the next gen
PAC could have developed the wind tunnels or the radar or anything of value (even if its a small item) to begin with and atleast in that area, become self sufficient.
all of the development of the aircraft took place in China with PAF getting to fly the prototype.

this is like paying to build a car to your specs and having the authority to test drive.
the production line was transferred along with the blue prints.

now this should have been the beginning of learning/tweaking and improving in-house expertise by slowly replacing some Chinese/imported sub-systems with completely in-house units. has that happened?

 

[Corax]

Pakistan owns 50% of JF program
but that ownership has not translated to development knowledge and technical expertise to develop in hour projects of the same kind - let alone the next gen
PAC could have developed the wind tunnels or the radar or anything of value (even if its a small item) to being with and atleast in that area, become self sufficient.
all of the development of the aircraft took place in China with PAF getting to fly the prototype.

this is like paying to build a car to your specs and having the authority to test drive.
the production line was transferred along with the blue prints.

now this should have been the beginning of learning/tweaking and improving in-house expertise by slowly replacing some Chinese/imported sub-systems with completely in-house units. has that happened?

Yes, that is exactly the problem with this model, and why Pakistan can't develop a fifth gen aircraft by itself. But then again, neither can Turkey or india without foreign assistance. So what's your point?

 

[Sliver]

Yes, that is exactly the problem with this model, and why Pakistan can't develop a fifth gen aircraft by itself. But then again, neither can Turkey or india without foreign assistance. So what's your point?

Not sure if you can box Pakistan's current state with Turkey or even India (although turkey is much, much further ahead of India).


but here are your own words:

I won't spoon-feed you but suffice to say the JF-17 was a joint development programme with Chengdu,

Yes, the development work was done in China, but that doesn't mean much, it doesn't take away from the fact that it was primarily designed for the PAF's needs.

Although most of the development work was done in india, the FCS was actually being developed in the US with Lockheed Martin using the F-16XL, but due to their nuclear tests and subsequent sanctions, the indians were kicked out and they had to carry on by themselves.

the difference here - being pointed out to you (and you already know this as well - as evidenced by your own words above) is that:
- PAC and Pakistan should did not get involved in JF-17 with China (and since you brought turkey/India, comparing to India's involvement in development work)
- this has not created much of a base for taking any learnings further - at best you can figure out better operations management of a production line (unless PAC has some serious joint development efforts under its belt)

. But then again, neither can Turkey or india without foreign assistance. So what's your point?

- Turkey is pretty far ahead of India so not even comparing that here

all need assistance maybe - but how much assistance do each of these countries need (given that you were comparing the 3 countries) - Pakistan is certainly in need of more assistance.

the good news, however is that you have one country that can seriously help you out (china) while that amount of support isnt available to either turkey and much less to India

the not so good news is, Pakistan needs to invest a lot more time and effort to gain the expertise

 

[hyperman]

Yes, that is exactly the problem with this model, and why Pakistan can't develop a fifth gen aircraft by itself. But then again, neither can Turkey or india without foreign assistance. So what's your point?

Some of you here really are completely deluded. Pakistan is not in the same conversation as India or Turkey. Turkey actually has an extensive history of developing aircraft subcomponents whether its composite parts for Airbus or building subcomponents for GE. It License produces the F110 engine in Turkey for the F-16. It was part of the F-35 program, building out parts for the body of the aircraft(as part of a global supply chain) which were then transferred to the US for assembly. It builds its own air to air missiles, its own AESA radar, and avionics. WTF has Pakistan built on its own with regards to aerospace? Do you have your own engine development project? no. Do you have your own radar development project? no. EOTS sensors? no. and sort of avionics development like litening PODS? no. Did Pakistan build its own air to air missiles? no. Then WTF did you actually build on your own without the Chinese? 50-50 partnership my ***. I don't mean to disrespect the country, btw, but some of you people here on the thread trying to make it seem like the JF-17 partnership project was like some Eurofighter or Tornado partnership development the way the UK and Germany build those platforms is comical.

Like do you people look in the mirror at all? Pakistan is broke, the most it does license produce Chinese weapons. It neither has the technological capacity nor the money to build projects of this nature. Its GDP is lower than Israel's, hell its lower than Bangladesh's GDP, lol, get a grip. Understand your own shortcomings and weaknesses.

This sort of stuff about building 5th gen fighters, or really a capability to build any 4th gen fighter, is about as deluded as those dumb Indians talking about SUPA POWAR 2020 which they can't seem to build enough toilets to shit in.