There is also that one-off 093 with a smooth sail but no hump (and drainage holes different from 093A) suggesting it’s either another variant or one of the original 093 being converted to a test bed for the newer, smooth sail.

Of which 13 serving within Air Force.

Yeah, doctrine definitely was different. US focused on protecting high ocean lanes and chokepoints. Basically, only soviet ocean going ships were its concern. And out of those, good deal of them were ASW with no long range anti-ship missile. And those were few in numbers in 1960s. Subs were carrying most of the anti ship missiles for Soviets. Initiative to create harpoon, going after those surfaced subs was started in late 1960s. But it took a bit longer than thought to actually get a missile in service, a whole decade. In 1979 Harpoon production rate was 20 missiles per month. So one could say that from 1980 onward USN had a meaningful inventory of them for their surface ships. (and some for their aircraft. air launched variant became operational 2 years after ship launched one, first to be integrated on ASW planes.)

In 1970 soviet navy had:
5 modified kashin destroyers with P-15
4 Kynda cruisers with p-5
4 Kresta cruisers with p-5

Compared to that, ocean going subs with missiles in 1970:
34 Echo class with p-5
6 Whiskey with p-5
16 Julliet with p-5
6 Charlie with p70 (first class to be able to fire missiles underwater?)
1 Papa with p70

(most of p-5 were already modernized variants by 1970)

So one can see how USN saw little threat from soviet surface navy in 1960s and even good part of 1970s. It was soviet submarines that were by far the bigger threat, and they wanted the harpoon progenitor to go after those surfaced subs, readying to fire their missiles or at least engaging them after they fired theirs. Of course, by 1980s soviet surface fleet also grew in numbers and greater number of soviet subs could fire their missiles underwater so harpoon really became an anti-ship missile.

While BrahMos is basically Onyx, BrahMos-A is something Russians do not use, an air-launched variant of the missile. Russians basically rely on subsonic kh-35 and short reach supersonic kh-31a for their tactical aircraft. Something like brahmos-a could serve them, as it would bit between those two mentioned missiles and the new heavy kh-32 for their tu-22m. That’s not to say russia NEEDS such a missile. it may very well be they considered it and decided such a “medium” missile is not within their requirements.

So if that is true, then Ruaf will have 48 original plus these 6 plus those “newlybuilt” 12 su27sm/3? Those few developmental ones I’ve heard of, were they used in service? Also, possible accidents may have changed the overall number… still, roughly 66 planes might be what we’re looking at here?

So 287 million dollars per bird? Sounds about right what it should be, with restarting after a long hiatus, with bunch of new tech and systems, for a small batch. With salary differences, similar plane contracted in US would have cost 500+ million per bird.

L15 is too light to be taken seriously for anything other than training roles within PLAAF and PLANAF. That being said, out of the trio of lookalikes (Italian and Russian cousins) L-15 is the one with most redesign effort in the realms of supersonic flight. It’s not only the redesigned rear end for the afterburners but lerx, wings and tails are also of different sweep angle. That may be due to advanced training requirements, but it may also signal the maker of L-15 plans to try and advertise their plane to small and poor countries as some sort of ultra-cheap multirole plane.

FC-1 was a child of Pakistani need and requirements, and Chinese expertise. Basically, Pakistan came to China and asked if they could design such and such plane for them. Then both sides agreed to share the cost of development to some degree. CAC is still making money on ever airframe made, be it for Pakistan or for export (the latter case should bring in more money per airframe). With Pakistan getting to 50% of domestic production for the plane the pakistani sales are not as profitable.

One can only guess that CAC had some engineers with nothing to do and they went and made FC1. Contract was signed in 1999 and first plane flew in 2003. It was designed in the time when most of J10 work was over (J10 flew in 1998) and J20 work didn’t heat up yet. Allegedly, lead designer of both FC1 and J20 is actually the same person. After j10, making FC1 was certainly an easier task. Plus CAC could leveraged some knowledge from tests they did on Super-7 project in 1980s.

What prevents both j10 and fc1 from (serious) export sales is the issue of lack of suitable chinese made engine. It pretty much means J10 has no chance of being sold as long as Russia also offers its Mig-29 to any prospective buyer. And it means only the poorest china aligned countries’ air forces will get the FC-1, as ones with at least a little money will also be eyeing the Mig-29, which will mean russia can, again, choose not to sell the engine. (potentially recent case of Bangladesh contest, though alignment with india and previously existing ecosystem for older mig29 also played a big role)

Even though we keep reading news about domestic engine being tried on FC-1, to date we haven’t seen a single image. On the other hand, J10 was seen with domestic engine, so one can perhaps assume that j10 actually has bigger chances of being exported in large numbers in the near future.