You mean something like a time bomb!!! Could explain the frequent explosions with no apparent warning or reason (or is that just the ones I’ve met over the years???)

exactly!

That is probably the F-7M. At least it is definitely not another J-8/J-8II in that pic.

It’s carrying a rather heavy loadout. I haven’t even seen a J-7 in that type of camo either; that seems like a very recent camo, a la the J-10.

Thanks for the Janes news, Google.

Richard Fisher reported from the 2002 Zhuhai airshow that a representative of Louyang, the SD-10’s developer, said explicitly that there was no AGAT seekerhead.

The “similarity between the front section of the Chinese missile and that of the Vympel R-77” is a silly statement. The pointy fronts of most Sparrow-sized radar AAMs are pretty similar and the SD-10’s front (and the rest of its body) looks more like the Sparrow or AMRAAM than anything else.

The whole AGAT story came from people speculating about Russian involvement. I’ve never came across any news article that goes beyond “it is believed” to have an AGAT seekerhead or “it is believed” by experts to incorporate Russian blah blah and a Chinese motor blah blah.

The SD-10 is sold as an export and is paired with the FC-1, if it had Russian components they would have used the fact as a marketing tool. It’s basically out in the open as opposed to other Chinese MR AAMs so if had an AGAT seekerhead, there would have been an outright releaseon it.

A lot of things may look similar, but that of course doesn’t imply a copy. There are afterall, a finite number of solutions to the aerodynamics and electronics problems of the world. I don’t find it surprising that most of the designs end up looking the same.

AGAT denies any knowledge of China utilizing their seeker. From tomorrow’s edition of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets.

“Recent press reports on China’s new SD-10 radar-guided air-to-air missile have commented on the similarity between the front section of the Chinese missile and that of the Vympel R-77/RVV-AE (AA-12 ‘Adder’). This has led to suspicions that the seeker of the Chinese missile is based on the Russian weapon’s AGAT 9B-1348 active-radar seeker, or is a customised 9B-1348 variant developed for China by AGAT.

Export contracts have conditions of confidentiality and information can only be released by the agreement of both sides, commented Akopyan. However, the Institute is not working with the Chinese, he said, dismissing the concept that the SD-10 has an AGAT seeker as “hot air” and “a fantasy of reporters”.

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