Maybe it’s just a French documentary that happens to be showing the Rafale being shown in CCTV. I mean it is a TV channel, they can show anything they have. It’s not all 24 hours just Chinese news you know.

If they decide to go two engine in a J-10 config, then put the FC-1’s canted lateral intakes. you would get the same visual effect as the Rafale.

But in this instance, I think this is just a science documentary that happens to involve the Rafale in the first place. The wing design is very Rafale here.

Let’s assume the article is true and let’s go through the points one by one.

1.) JH-7 with electronic scanning radar. What we have seen with the newer JH-7s is that they are equipped with slotted mechanical planar arrays. You can conclude some things from it.

a.) The author confused slotted mechanical planar arrays with phase arrays.
b.) The JH-7s may be carring a navigation or survelliance pod with phase array and datalink. This is similar to the Kupol M400 pod we saw in MAKS2003 show.
c.) A selected number of JH-7s may be fitted with phase arrays to serve as command aircraft.
d.) Phase or slotted array, the JL-10A radar on the newer JH-7 (or JH-7A) seems to be big and powerful enough to serve as command aircraft.

2.) J-7E. It appears to me that this type is equipped with a datalink, which goes far into compensating for its small radar. PLAAF appears to recognize the value of networking.

3.) SU-27s with datalink and active guided missile. They seem to have compatible datalinks with the rest of the PLAAF. Here you see a special localization feature for the Chinese SU-27s. It does not look like the J-7E can launch active homing missile, so it must be the SU-27s. Are they upgraded to shoot this? Circumstantial indication that the SU-27s are not your standard type.

4.) J-8II with SEAD. So the J-8IIs can actually fire Kh-31P/YJ-91s eh? I asked Hui Tong for more reference on this as it was noted in his website, and he seems as clueless as I am. Frankly I have seen reports and mentions of this capability, but cannot confirm it or get more solid details from it. For a J-8II to perform SEAD missions, some things have to be done:

a.) My impression is that Type 1471 radar has been primarily an air superiority radar, without air to ground roles, except for some bombs and rockets. If the J-8II has SEAD capabiltiy, then this changes on what we believe the Type 1471 to be, making it more of a multirole radar with some air to ground modes. You must have an RWR that works with this.

b.) The Zhuk-8II is quite capable of using the Kh-31P. This may be the first circumstantial evidence that indeed some J-8IIs could have installed this radar.

c.) The JL-10A radar, is also capable of using the Kh-31P or YJ-91. Although fitted on the JH-7, the size of this radar is close enough to fit on the J-8II though. Both Zhuk and JL-10A upgrades on the J-8II can multiply the J-8II’s functionality, making it adaptable to more roles instead of just interceptor.

5.) Here is another thing I want to consider that even if the actual event may have taken place, the names of the planes may have been changed for classified purposes. Somehow, the article seems more plausible to me if the JH-7 doing vectoring are replaced by SU-30MK2s with Kupol pods, and the J-8IIs doing SEAD there are replaced by JH-7s instead.

650 kg is jsut too much, why can’t they reduce it, I guess the weight just not comes from antenna but also from the power supply transformer and cooling mechanism. Why there is a mechanical scan for one of the axis ?

Yes most possibly from the transformer and the cooling mechanism. Phase arrays get tremendously hot compared to mechanical slotted arrays; cooling is a major issue. Active arrays are going to be even hotter.

As for the mechanical scan, the thing about electronic scanning is that the more the beam bends to the side and away from the center bore, the greater the interence you need to steer the beam, and that weakens the beam, creates more variances on the frequency, modulation, beam strength and such. Those variances makes it harder to get the target info.

I’ll make it simpler with an analogy. If you notice in very old tVs the center tends to be brighter, the image more correct and sharper than than in the corners of the picture, where there is some loss in brightness, where there is some blurriness and distortion. The bigger the TV screen, the more you see this. Same thing with a radio beam, the more you bend to the side, and the longer the ranges, you will get more loss in “brightness”, you get more distortion and “blurriness”.

Therefore, you give it a little help by giving the antenna some mechanical movement so that the beam does not need to be bent so much.

J-10 is just “semi-official” now and for some time already.

The latest news is that the J-10 might get a small model display in this coming Zhuhai. No live plane or even big mockup. You might want to go to the Minsk instead for something bigger.

I think the J-10 pic leaks finally paid off. It’s some sort of guerilla marketing from CAC that could possibly entice a customer, which will inevitably come up in high level talks with Chinese officials.

This shot really floors. A real breakthrough shot too.

I think the Tejas can be marketable, either with the GE F404-IN20 engine or the Kaveri engine. Since the avionics uses open standard buses, I think the plane can be adapted to a radar of the customer’s choice that also compatible with these standards.

The latest news on the J-10, now “Vigorous Dragon”, is there is an interest to export it (“F-10”). The F-10 will be priced at $25 million, and an upgraded version with phase array and TVC will fetch $29 million. Pakistan and North Korea has expressed an interest, Pakistan getting an agreement in principel, but NK got turned down because that will mean giving the plane away, and Kim already got too much freebies. I think prospective clients may include Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Iran, though that the last would be politically touchy.

I like to get more confirmation on the J-10/F-10 export move, but if it does, it leads me to believe that budget boy FC-1 may not be enough and countries, whether poor or uprising, that are still looking for some respectable capability, though one that they could afford.

I don’t think you can fit a radar like that in a Mig-29’s nose, if you could, Mig-29 would be a kick ass multirole fighter, almost unmatched.

I won’t hold that out completely. There is obviously a gap in Phazotron’s lineup. They got a Sokol for the big side, and a Kopyo-F for the small side, leaving something in the middle, a phase array radar just under 700mm in diameter. This product may remain undisclosed for some reason or another. A few years ago. when it was rumor-reported that Russia offered Sokol radars for China for the J-10 as the “Zhuk-10PD”, this radar, which I should just call “Sokol-X” for now may be related to this. My guess “Sokol-X” remains a paper project because it is unlikely to find buyers for now, since the MiG-29 upgrade market hasn’t been exactly what Phazotron had hoped for and the Chinese market failed to bite. But if there is a good possibility, or a revival in the MiG-29 upgrade market, development funds may be appropriated for it. If the need ever arises, it won’t take long to do this radar, since you can easily rely on the experience and the parts bin of the Sokol and the Kopyo-F radars.