If looks were cool I would take the Mirage. But if I were to fly the plane, I would take the F-5E. I don’t like birds that require high takeoff and landing speeds.

An Air Force like Thailand or Vietnam in the other hand have few fourth generation fighters and even Taiwain relatively has few fourth generation fighters, that makes the huge fleet of J-8II still highly effective.

Not really. Taiwan has roughly 150 F-16s, 60 Mirage 2000-5s and 124 F-CK-1s. PLAAF J-8II fleet probably only number around the low 300s IMO. It looks to me, the J-8IIs only play a support role to the J-11s and J-10s.

Actually after I made that last post I found a Q-5 picture with six hardpoints that was in PLAAF markings so I guess that takes care of that question.

Thanks for your help in answering my questions.

And you’re right about the four outermost hardpoints being plumbed for tanks.

That leads me to my next question. When you said the bombs were carried on the inner hardpoints did you mean the two that are usually seen with rocket pods or the two mid-wing hardpoints, with the outermost hardpoints (as opposed to the mid-wing hardpoints) carrying tanks.

I don’t know why, but I find this little jet just very interesting.

Let me correct that as in some angles the mid points look like outer points.

The outer point can carry an AA missile, a bomb or a rocket pod.

The middle point can carry a bomb, rocket pod or fuel tank.

The inner point can carry a bomb or rocket pod.

In addition there are four points in the fuselage that can be used to carry a bomb.

The total payload is about 2000kg, so you can’t load all the points in a way to exceed that weight.

Here is an excellent artist representation via CGI.

The search/surveillance radar for the Type 730 may be or all of the three used in conjunction—MA Fregat and Positiv-Mineral ME in the 052B; the Positiv/Mineral ME and the phase arrays used in the 052C and an unidentified radar on the top mast of the 052C.

The -D with the rangefinder is actually a laser rangefinder and target designator. It is likely used for laser guided bombs. This model competes with the JH-7A which both have laser and TV guided weapons.

The two seater is most likely meant for another precision guided weapon, the ones using TV guidance. The second officer is the one aiming and guiding the bomb. In that sense it not only competes with the JH-7A but also with the Su-30MKK.

If the two seater is ever employed for training purposes, the training would be a course in precision TV guided bomb delivery, and the students might later graduate to the JH-7A or Su-30MKK. I wonder if the two seater J-10 might also be employed in the precision strike role.

I think the J-10 with the PL-12/SD-10 missile under the wings is from the FTTC. J-10s in the FTTC has that pattern of camouflage. The ones alleged on the 44th have no patterns on their greys and I believe that all newer J-10s built since then are all blandly painted this way. The missile itself lacks the visual tracking patterns of the SD-10 prototype missile photographed under a J-8II platform.

That project is completely abandoned. Note it has seperate ramjet engines and rocket boosters. Bad design. It was a major mistake in conceptual design as the Moskit and the Kh-31 missiles later showed to the Chinese engineers. The Moskit taught that it was far more space efficient to utilize one chamber as both your rocket booster and your ramjet engine. The chamber is filled with propellant. As the missile shoots off, the propellant burns away, leaving the chamber empty. Once it is empty, the chamber becomes the ramjet combustion chamber.

Any future Chinese supersonic ramjet missile is much more likely to use the Moskit design principle (also used in the Kh-31 Krypton, a missile licensed for production in China),

This is said to be from a serial TV drama whose protagonist is a pilot in the PLAAF. Does anyone what is the title of it? So maybe I can look for it in a Chinese DVD/VCD/video store that sells and rents mandarin soap dramas. It shows a lot of things too like the Su-27s, J-7s, etc,.