The WatcherPakistan to get 75 F-16s and 8 C-130s
Pakistan to get 75 F-16s and 8 C-130s
Written by PakRev.com
Saturday, 03 September 2005
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Air Force Deputy Chief of Air Staff (Operations) Air Vice Marshal Shahzad Chaudhry has said that Pakistan is engaged in talks with US to get 75 F-16 aircrafts.
Addressing a press briefing at Air headquarters Chaklala on Thursday, he said, Pakistan is holding talks with US on cooperation in defence sector and is hopeful to acquire 75 F-16 jets from US”.
Air Vice Marshal Shahzad noted that US would give two F-16s to Pakistan free of charge and these jets would be acquired in December.
Eight C-130 planes will also be acquired from US soon, he maintained.
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules, a four-engine turboprop aircraft, is the main tactical air transport aircraft of the United States and United Kingdom military forces. Capable of landing and taking off from short, rough dirt runways, it is a personnel and cargo hauler and is used in a wide variety of other roles, such as gunships, weather watchers, tankers, firefighters and aerial ambulances.
Air Vice Marshal Shahzad said that JF-17 thunder, which was manufactured with cooperation of China, would be included in Pak Air Force fleet by 2007.
About Air Force exercises, he observed that Hi-Mark 05 exercises would be started from 4th of September and would continue throughout the month.
These will be practical exercises, in which all jets of Air Force will participate and we will fully try to save them (aircrafts) from damage, he maintained.
He said President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would also inspect these exercises.
Air Vice Marshal Shahzad noted that Pakistan Air Force has been integrated with air defence, radar, and other sophisticated systems.
The integration of such defence systems were not notified to press before.
Hi-Mark 05 will enhance the capability of Pakistan Air Force, he said.
He went on to say that Pakistan wants peace and stability in the region but we want to make ourselves fortify in every aspect.
To a question, Air Vice Marshal Shahzad said that Pakistan Air Force would also initiate joint exercises with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey.
He said that no airbase of Pakistan Air Force was in US control.
US forces have quit Jacobabad airbase, he added.
The WatcherPAF starts for biggest exercises
PAF starts for biggest exercises
Written by PakRev.com
Saturday, 03 September 2005
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Air Force’s month-long strategic exercise, High Mark-05, will kickoff today (Sunday).
The exercise, the biggest in country’s military history, is to focus on sharply developing strategies to operate and conduct air operations in the hilly areas of North and Kashmir.
The extensive exercises are preceded by extensive tri-service war-game titled, Tempest-1, focused on the employment concepts of air power.
PAF will be conducting High Mark 05 with 180 Mirages, 60 A-5, 32 F-16s, 55 F7PG, 155F7MP, 15 FT7MP, 20 C-130 Allocates, Puma, MI17 and Cobra helicopters. Aim 9P, Aim9L, Magic R550, Air Dragon, PL-7, PL5, BL755 Exocet, CBU10, CBU 12, Maverick and Snake eye missiles will be the systems at the disposals of the two forces.
However, Wonder Thunder Jet JF-17 will not participate in the exercises as it still awaits avionics and missile systems to be mounted on it though the airborne subsystems have been fitted on it.
President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will also witness the drills to be participated by the Pakistan Army and Navy as well.
PAF is called one of the best airforces in the world. Every pilot gets one of the most flying hours to make the pilot the best one, compare to its rival IAF, where pilots gets half of the flying hours than PAF.
The PAF alone would bear the entire budgetary expense of the exercise that will involve all major bases including Risalpur, Kamara, Peshawar, Chaklala, Mianwali, Mushaf, Rafiqui, Samungli, Mehran and Masroor.
The transport and helicopter fleets would be exposed to the same operational engagement as the fighter aircraft.
The PAF aircrafts will fly a large quantum of operational sorties.
Two operations headquarters will be set up on undisclosed bases from where two air forces will engage in full fledge war involving ground troops, army aviation and strategic forces.
Upgraded avionics and Air Defence Sensors on aircraft and ground-based radars are meshed into the greater fabric of air operations.
Two opposing forces Blueland and Foxland would clash in the exercises.
Blue Forces will be lean, agile, and equipped with modern, state-of-the-art air defence equipment and fighters mounted with strategic weapon systems.
The Fox Forces having the number edge in aircraft’s will be in an offensive mode warranting the Blue Forces to first secure vital assets including the major bases, runways, bridges and strategic locations.
The Fox Forces and Blue Forces are strategically important the thing comes in the mind is IAF versus PAF, where IAF(in this exercise Fox Forces) has an edge over number of aircrafts, and PAF(Blue Forces) will have modern equipment. This is because PAF needs to get qualitive edge, as today IAF gets an edge over both qualitive(modern-state-of-art-weapons) and quatitative edge(means numbers of aircrafts.)
Two operations headquarters will be set up on undisclosed bases from where two air forces will engage in full fledge war involving ground troops, army aviation and strategic forces.
Northern Air Command Peshawar, Central Air Command Sargodha and Southern Air Command Masroor will be dedicating their squadrons to form Blue and Fox Forces.
This exercise will help PAF to prepear for the worst, also it will help PAF to start the full scale war in matter of hours and support its ground forces if it needs to.
The WatcherUS offers frigates, and Orion aircraft gets recieved
Written by PakRev.com
Thursday, 01 September 2005
ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: The US has offered Perry-class frigates for sale to Pakistan, disclosed Chief of the Naval Staff Shahid Karimullah here on Wednesday. He said the offer of sale “has been made by the US Navy” to the Pakistan Navy, adding that the price of the frigates will be negotiated once the US Congress gives its approval, the sale can no way be blocked knowing the Isreal support is also with Pakistan.
The Chief of the Naval Staff was talking to newsmen after launching ceremony of a book ‘SEA PHOENIX – A True Submarine Story’ by Rear Admiral (retd) Zahir Shah.
Named after an American naval hero, Oliver Hazard Perry, the frigates were designed by the US in the 1970s as general-purpose escort vessels. Although some Perry-class vessels are slated to remain in US service for years, many others are being de-commissioned and transferred to other countries where the same are being modernized.
Frigates are anti-submarine warfare combatants that are mainly used for escort missions.
The naval chief said Pakistan was also acquiring four F-22p frigates from China. He said three of these frigates will be built in China and the fourth in Pakistan. These frigates will form part of the Pakistan Navy’s fleet by 2013. He said since the delivery of the first Chinese frigate was to take some three years, a good stop-gap arrangement could be made by acquiring some Perry-class frigates, which are said to be better than F-22p frigates getting acquired by PN through China and making them indeginiously. The first frigate is said to be built in China, and all the others will be made in Pakistan through transfer of technology which also acquired by Pakistan when inking F-22p frigates
He said talks to acquire frigates from the United Kingdom were over as the price demanded by the UK was not acceptable to Pakistan. Now the UK has sold the same to Chile. Those Type-23 Frigates were also good, but the Perry class in no way can be considered as a low qualtive frigate.
He said the Pakistan Navy, which was currently weak in terms of units, will emerge as a balanced and powerful force. Drawing a comparison with India, he said the Eastern neighbour had 21 submarines as compared to 5 of Pakistan.
He said no government in the past had concentrated on strengthening the Pakistan Navy. He gave the credit to President Pervez Musharraf for his support to the Navy. He, however, said the recovery will take some time as it could not be done overnight. Pakistan is doing its best to make strengthen its navy, the current cruise missile made by Pakistan, is also being configured to be launched by existing frigates, which wil give PN a significant power to defend Pakistan’s coastlines.
Answering a question, he said at some stage Pakistan will have to develop its own nuclear submarine as no country was ready to provide the same to Islamabad. This was typically questioned because India is developing its own nuclear submarine by help from Russia.
Admiral Shahid Karimullah said Pakistan Navy had received eight P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft free of cost from the United States, but the price of upgrading and repairing of those aircraft was taken from military aid that was given to Pakistan.
He said he US Navy had signed the transfer document making the aircraft a property of the Pakistan government. With the induction of eight P-3Cs, the Navy’s existing fleet of P-3Cs will grow to 10 aircraft. The two P-3Cs already with the Navy were at present undergoing overhaul in Pakistan with US assistance and were expected to be operational by the end of this year.
P-3C Orion is a long-range maritime patrol aircraft with an endurance of about 18 hours. It can carry Harpoon missiles. The eight aircraft now being inducted would be fitted with modern avionics and mission systems by Lockheed Martin, the manufacturers of P-3C Orion. The expenses of modification of aircraft avionics systems will be met mostly from the US military aid.
The naval chief termed the aircraft acquisition a significant achievement. They would augment Pakistan Navy’s capability to actively monitor its areas of interest at sea and add a new dimension to the offensive punch of the Naval fleet, he said.
Admiral Karimullah said provision of these aircraft was indicative of strong Pakistan-US relations and hoped that the defence cooperation between the navies of the two countries would further increase in times to come.
Answering a question, he said the first aircraft will be delivered to Pakistan in December followed by another in January-February 2006. This process will take time, but aircrafts will be delivered one by one.
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A very detailed article about the current situation of PN.
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