and how ironic is that when a world`s poorest country can afford several new built hi-tech fighters Su-30 from Russia and we(my country) are not even able to maintain three “rotting” Mig-29 in a flyable state while politicians are talking about grounding them due to lack of money… 😎 Then how poor is Uganda in real?

they have found oil 🙂

just because the aircraft doesn’t offer top end capabilities doesn’t translate to difficult2maintian. If anything wouldn’t maintenance be easier if components were simpler? And most new fighters are designed to be easier to maintain than the previous generation anyhow (this doesn’t always turn out so). I imagine there should be a significant difference between maintaining JF-17 and say J-7PGs.

well i didn’t mean difficult to maintain (in fact a bird can be easy to maintain but still be a hangar queen because of a massive or lousy logistics footprint).
Simpler components do mean easier maintenance, but it doesn’t actually translate into increased availability.

Coming back to the topic, jf-17 seems to be designed as a fighter which offers certain minimum amount of capabilities as requested by the customer and still be very affordable. Gripen, on the other hand, is the top of the line product the manufacturer can come up with. It is targeted towards customers who can afford an aircraft that has components with a very high MTBF, which are obviously several times more expensive.

The biggest advantage for JF-17 I think is its bang for buck. It isn’t top end but if you can get two for the cost of one F-16C/D or gripen, I’d take the former option.

How about the operating costs when going for two instead of one, two pilots, twice the fuel.

I wonder how maintenance intensive JF-17 is.

If it is really made as simple as its stated to be, (ei airframe and most of the mechanical components being the most affordable and not the latest whiz bang, coupled with whatever best chinese have to offer in avionics) then IMO (i can be very wrong), it is not going to offer much reduced maintenance as compared to the previous generation.

JF-17s are probably considered too expensive to replace J-7s on a one to one basis for the PLAAF. A smaller aircraft, maybe based on the JL-15 would be built en masse in the future.
JF-17 won’t be able to replace JH-7s either.

18-20 million a piece is cheap enough to replace J-7’s on a one to one basis over a period of say, 20 years ?

typhoon rehearsing for RIAT

Come on guys, nobody spot that one ?

http://livefist.blogspot.com/2011/07/column-mmrca-right-choice-for-wrong.html

Having flown both the F/A-18 and the Rafale, I can say that while the former would certainly have met all the IAF requirements competently and economically, the breathtaking performance of the latter leaves one in no doubt that it is a generation-next machine. The Eurofighter Typhoon, by all accounts, is equally impressive.

Very thought provoking article, but the prices being quoted, are they accurate ?

In all seriousness though, I don’t think many people were expecting the aircraft to look so complete and with seemingly impressive attention to detail.

Only the most biased and those with poor understanding of Chinese aviation capabilities were expecting a copy. Hell, you have to know pretty damn little about aviation all together to think you can make a direct copy with some internet photos and a tiny fraction of actual technical data, which is the most China is even remotely likely to have gotten. To suggest China got all the technical data and design data for something as sensitive as the F22/F35 from hacking both vastly overestimates anyone’s cyber warfare capabilities as well as enormously belittles America’s own information security efforts and capabilities.

Oops, I didn’t mean to sound like that, but even if you are able to save a few million dollars by obtaining a few GB’s of data, the money saved can always be used to make indigenous research more potent. Btw the point I actually wanted to make was
a. J-20 is not a rip-off
b. Those who expected it to be had a reason to get shocked.

first, when one considers that the mig21 is still around, chances are that the mig29 will last for some time too…

then, if you take into account the relatively simple, strong and, yet, upgradable frame (with much more space for avionics than the -21 in the first place), add to that the reducing budgets of most air forces around the planet, and you get a fighter that has a good chance to stay around for a long time

not to forget excellent flight performance too 🙂 plus its a looker 🙂

Anyone shed some ligt on this video?

Depending on which youtube link you watch on says its a TU154 and the other an IL76??

Footage was taken out the back of a cargo plane with and F4 Phantom poking its nose closeby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Cp2anHN3U&feature=related

It was an A-50 if i am not mistaken