Any pics of the new cockpit?

Not really concrete proof, but this what Usman Shabir (Pakdef admin) had to say about the deal:

http://www.pakdef.info/forum/showthread.php?t=5716&page=3

Now that the story has hit the mainstream media I can tell you guys a bit more about it. The story was actually suppose to come out two or three days later in PakObserver but I guess Kamran Khan couldn’t let go the chance of another exclusive story. The Letter of Intent (or what ever the precise term for that document is) was signed few months ago when CAS visited Sweden. The memo of the deal was than sent to President Musharaf for approval and this was several weeks ago. The CAS is now suppose to visit Sweden within couple of days and sign on the dotted line – the advance party has already left approximately two-three days ago. This is the good news that CAS was promising to the nation and like all good things in life it came a bit late

I remember reading a few years back that during the 80s the Americans offered Pakistan the A-7 if Pakistan would cancel its nuclear program. However, since i never saw any proof of this offer other than one line statements, i always doubted its accuracy. If there is a picture of an A-7 in PAF colours, then it could mean that the offer actually was made.

Interesting, I didn’t even know the Attacker was exported. You do learn something new everyday 🙂 Were they happy with its performance?

They served for about 5 years before being replaced by Sabres. There’s very little written about the Attacker in PAF service since it only served for such a short time. I did find the following quote about Attackers in PAF service:

“Although the Attacker performed reasonably well in RPAF service, it suffered from a number of technical problems, the most serious of which involved the undercarriage, and several aircraft were lost in landing accidents.”

Wonder if the Indian Airforce would buy a M3K’ed instead of the M2K currently offered. I.e. all the avionics, engine upgrades etc that were ment for the 4K

There wasn’t that any difference in engine between the Mirage 2000 and 4000. The 4000 only ever got the M53-5 (it never got the M53-P2 that laters Mirage 2000s got). The M4K program never got far along enough to develop its own avionics, it pretty much just used avionics from the M2K program e.g the prototype 4000 used the same RDM radar as the 2000.

PAF started with Supermarine Attacker in June 1951.

Can anyone ID this cockpit? Don’t think I’ve seen it before.

Try to fit simultaneously 2 Storm Shadows and 3 external fuel tanks in a Typhoon
without getting in the way of the landing gear and you’ll learn that the Rafale is
the plane for those that want “long range” stand-off attack capability.
If you’re exclusively into A2A then the plane you need is the Typhoon.
If you want a multirole that can fire any weapon imaginable and don’t care much
about range, then the Typhoon is also your plane.

According to the weapons chart on Eurofighter’s official page, you can fit 2 Storm Shadows and 3 external tanks on a Typhoon. Go to the following page and take a look at the Air Interdiction configuration:

http://www.eurofighter.com/Typhoon/SwingRole/

It gives the Typhoons’ load out for this role as:

2 x Storm Shadow
2 x Alarm
4 x AMRAAM
2 x ASRAAM
2 x 1500 litre fuel tank
1 x 1000 litre fuel tank

Looks like it goes one better than the Rafale in that it also carries Alarm for SEAD.