Next week we’ll have the MiG-31 for the PLAAF again?

The United Kingdom purchased the most aircraft, 66, while Saudia Arabia is second, with 50.

Somehow agitprop articles like this always have their numbers wrong at one place or the other. Iran has gotten 64 Herks, and including the rumoured detachment of USAF Herks for ELINT missions along the Soviet border, they were actually the largest non-US Herk operator.

Aluminium doesn’t weld well. Steel does.

The Dutch are actually very much involved in the European space program (Noordwijk is one if it’s main centres), and one of the surviving branches of Fokker builds parts for Ariane rockets. Fokker went bancrupt because it couldn’t repay the investments it made on developing the Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 soon enough. In hindsight, a short-term loan would have saved it and made it a healthy manufacturer again.

Ironically, it is the demise of Fokker which has helped Embraer the success it is now. The F70/F100 were direct competitors to the Emb135/145 series, and one can argue that Embraer has filled the hole in the market left vacant by Fokker.

I only suggested that the Chinese took the IDEA of avionics spine from the later blocks F-16s.
And it doesn’t mean that it’s a copy, it was just for comparision.

A-4F/H/M/N have avionics spines, the F-105D T-stick II variant, various MiG-21 models (combined with fuel)… All well before the F-16 came up with the hump.

Don’t think they are JL-9s. First of all, those ‘refuelling probes’ look an awful lot like the everyday JJ-7 pitot tube. Also, i don’t think the nose extends far enough forward under the tarp to be the JL-9s solid nose: i think it’s the regular JJ-7’s nose intake.

The underfuselage strakes are interesting though. I guess these are development aircraft for the JL-9 (FCS? Aero trials?). Two JJ-5s next to them and a large, posh hangar in the background suggests the same: those JJ-5s still make excellent and cheap chaseplanes and easy-to-modify testsbeds. I’m pretty positive it’s not an operational training unit of any kind: that hangar is far too nicely-built and ornamented (just look at the blue tiles) for an operational training unit, especially when you compare it with known operational PLAAF hangars.

Also, i wouldn’t expect two types of trainers in one training unit to be parked side-by-side as closely as they are on this pic. My take: it’s a Guizhou pic.

Of this, probably about 130 are J-8Is, which is the type with the round inlet nose and looks like a Ye-152. 20-30 were sold to Iraq, some were lost in the Iran-Iraq airwar and the remainder in the GW1.

Where did you get this from? It’s total rubbish that any went to Iraq.