Zhuk and Kopyo for the PLAAF are for two different planes, and two different issues.

In the case of the J-8II, I think its because a viable domestic alternative has become available. There is need to favor the local boy in order to promulgate local development resources. If Western know how was learned and adapted into the Type 1471 unit, it probably is not bad. I heard the radar is capable of multiple targeting and look down engagement. I do think the Zhuk still gives more versatility over the Type 1471 in terms of air to ground engagement, with SAR and a wider range of air to surface weapons it can bank on.

One reason I suspect is the limited number of R-77s, which are reserved for the Flankers and especially the MKKs. If the Zhuk equipped J-8IIs will only be using R-27s, it won’t be any better than using PL-11s, which the local radar will support.

1 million is not bad for a radar actually. 100 million can be used to upgrade 100 J-8IIs, and 100 upgraded J-8IIs packing R-77s and Kh-31s will have more tactical value than 3 SU-30MKKs for the same price.

Beats me. What is the ultimate fate of the Zhuk-J-8II deal? I don’t know. For all you know, small numbers of Zhemchug may still be being imported for a small number of J-8II (J-8H?) that can serve along side the J-8F (with the SD-10 capable radar). It is possible that the Zhuk-8 program was dropped in favor of the Zhemchug, and small numbers could have been imported. SIPRI has listed about 11 units as of the end of 2002.

On the J-10, its a different issue. I think it may not be politically tenable to have both engine and radar being Russian, and that only one or the other is allowed to be imported. You’re already paying about maybe 3 mil for the AL-31FN engine (which is not bad a figure). Which makes me think that if the J-10 finally has the WS-10 (which can also lower its cost by the way), it may seriously look into using Zhuks or Sokols, moving the cost savings from one end and apply it on the other. This can create a strike J-10 that is compatible with Russian munitions, which the PLAAF now appears to have tons of them (2000 Kh-29Ts alone).

On the FC-1, if the RD-93 is being made in China and it seems like it, the engine costs would be much cheaper. Which opens up cost savings to buy a better radar. If the PLAAF FC-1 is budged at 12 million dollar fly a way cost, a Super Komar at 1 million for it isn’t going to seem that expensive. Note taht the PLAAF as a multirole requirement, and is perhaps looking for a Q-5 Fantan replacement. Interesting that the FC-1 has about the same size, weight, and thrust, as a Fantan.

I think they can do that with the Type 1471 radar, which is said to have multiple targeting capability, and with SD-10s.

Originally posted by flex297
Right.. But they do not impress me that much as Singaporeans do, I suppose many US dollars were pumped into Taiwanese Armed Forces, but not sure about Singapore..

You may like to read this:

You’d be mad to test the Singapore fortress
By Anthony Paul

SINGAPORE has a poorly kept military secret, if the city’s taxi drivers, who often double as driving-seat generals, are to be believed. A visitor taking a taxi from Changi Airport will sometimes be told the inside story.

About three minutes past the ‘Welcome to Singapore’ sign and tree cover, the road suddenly becomes a perfectly straight stretch of several kilometres. In the median strip to your right, low shrubs in large pots have replaced the trees.

If war threatens, you’re told, Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) personnel will descend and drag those pots clear.

The squads will simultaneously topple palm trees lining the road and dismantle a parallel line of lamp-posts. Within minutes, Changi will have an additional runway for SAF jets.

Foreign Policy magazine’s annual globalisation index recently named Singapore Asia’s most globalised country – the most open to visitors, trade and capital flow. But this openness obscures another of the city-state’s distinctions – Singapore is one of the world’s best-prepared fortresses.

Defence spending per capita compares with such places as Israel and Kuwait. Sudden mobilisations periodically prove Singapore’s claim that at the press of a button, the SAF can field more than a quarter of a million men within hours. As British defence specialist Tim Huxley has written in Defending The Lion City, Singapore is ‘probably the most densely defended state in the world’.

Why so much defence for such a small state?

One obvious response is the island’s strategic position, on the main route for vast East Asia-Europe sea traffic.

But another compelling reason is this unusual state’s ambition.

Within 10 years, says Asian Demographics, a marketing consultancy, the republic can expect to be Asia’s second-richest nation, with a gross domestic product per capita of US$35,020 (S$58,900). (Other forecasts for year 2013: Japan, US$38,987; Hong Kong, US$29,902; Australia, US$22,961; Malaysia, US$5,394.)

To sustain the growth rate needed, Singapore must continue attracting investment and skilled immigrants. Unfortunately, Singapore is ‘a fine place in a lousy neighbourhood’, said a former DBS Bank economist. ‘Though there are no immediate threats, being seen to be able to defend ourselves against any bully is important to investors.’

Threat perceptions in Singapore include Malaysia, Indonesia and, lately, terrorists. Further complicating defence issues are those two larger neighbours’ Chinese minorities. They tend to look upon predominantly Chinese Singapore as an ultimate refuge.

When mobs began rampaging through Indonesia’s Chinese communities in 1998, Singapore feared it might become the destination for literally hundreds of thousands of Sino-Indonesians. The threat failed to materialise, but not before the SAF began extensive preparations to ward off any unacceptably large influx.

Meantime, Singapore continues its up-and-down relationship with Malaysia, which supplies close to half the island’s water. Singapore’s resultant sensitivity about water security is evident in a passage in From Third World To First, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs.

In a blunt conversation with then Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, Mr Lee noted that Malaysia had guaranteed Singapore’s water supply. But if that guarantee were ever breached in ‘a random act of madness’, he told Dr Mahathir, ‘we would have to go in, forcibly if need be, to restore the water flow’.

Prospects of such an armed conflict are extremely remote. But this past weekend, war caught my attention – dramatic TV reports from Iraq and a Sunday Times article on Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean’s concept of ‘the new type of soldier needed by the ‘third-generation SAF’ ‘.

Later in the morning, I visited the Fort Canning bunker. In the fort commander’s conference room, I watched wax images of British generals re-enacting Singapore’s 1942 surrender to the Japanese as the island ran out of water and fuel.

I asked myself: For all Singapore’s chutzpah, what really would be the SAF’s chances if war came?

Though clearly impressed by the SAF, author Huxley judges it to be largely a citizen force, ‘dependent for its personnel on essentially acquiescent rather than enthusiastic conscripts and reservists’. The fact that they have never been battle-tested, says Mr Huxley, leaves us with the question: Are SAF personnel really warriors – or just bureaucrats in uniform?

We won’t really know until there really is a war.

But as a former war correspondent (Indochina, the Soviet-Afghan war), I take note of what may already be observed:

Motivation in combat: The slogan of the US Military Academy at West Point is ‘Duty, Honour, Country’. The word sequence, with ‘duty’ first, wasn’t chosen idly. Surveys during the Vietnam war showed the main source of battlefield courage was not so much the official propaganda (‘save the world from communism’) or even patriotism. It was duty to closest comrades, beginning with the squad and platoon.

SAF reserve units are more tightly bonded than any I have seen. I know of one Beach Road IT company whose ethnically mixed staff were in the same university sports team and are today the core of their reserve unit.

What I saw in Vietnam leaves me with no doubt that duty to comrades who are also their close friends will make their unit more than formidable under fire.

Combat history: Happily brief. But it may be worth noting in the SAF’s only combat to date – the storming of a hijacked airliner at Changi in 1991 – its well-trained commandos shot dead all four Pakistani terrorists within 30 seconds of entering the passenger cabin.
If I were someone looking for a serious fight with Singapore, I’d ponder the two points above. The SAF gives the impression that it would indeed be madness to test its preparedness.

Originally posted by saf2000
if the above report is to be believed than fc-1 has already gone supersonic.
Is it not unusaul for a protoype to go supersonic so soon after 1st flight?

No it’s not. The X-35 did it within a week of its first flight.

Originally posted by flex297
To me that is a sign of effort to stay independent from one source, as the US got very tied relationship with the main enemy, Turkey. I hope the Greeks will give up US equipment in the future completely, along with other Euro-region nations.

Seems to me more like a sign to let people counterbid each other, in order to extract the best terms, prices and conditions.

SU-33 is too big for Gorshkov. Either you get the MiG-29K, or choose a likesized fighter. The closest other option is the navalized Rafale or go for Sea Harriers.

The selection of the MiG-29K is the survival of the company, but it does not mean anything about the life of the MiG-29s in RuAF service. RuAF simply does not have the money to upgrade them, no matter how you look at it.

Originally posted by vikasrehman
According to the following report about zhuhai airshow
http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/om/200103/om61.htm
Provision has been reported for incorporation of Russia’s UOMZ Shch-3UM-1 or Rafael’s DASH helmet-mounted sights in the J-7E/F-7MGs’ weapons systems, in conjunction with either Vympel’s R-73E (AA-11 “Archer”), or Rafael’s Python 3 close-combat AAM, produced in China as the PL-8.

Does this mean whereas it can carry 4 R-73, it can only carry 2 pl-8s?

You got that right.

As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen a picture of the J-7E or the J-7H (the classic delta wing J-7 fitted with the PL-8 capable JL-7A radar—upgraded from J-7Bs) ever fit the PL-8 on the outboard pylons.

This does not eliminate the possibility that the PL-5E itself may be set up for using with helmet sights. The same seeker system could be used on all three missile types, PL-5E, PL-8, PL-9, with only the bodies being different. I won’t be surprised if they didn’t consider putting the same seeker into the PL-7 body, but that would already be redundant.

Originally posted by ohadbx
How many targets could this Zhuk track simultaneously?
I know the N001VE could track 2, and the export version (designated N001?) only 1.
lol, they really need to catch up with the west. american radars can track up to 10-12 targets now, maybe more right?

Export version? What export version? The N001VE was from the beginning, designed for export. It can track and engage 2 targets, while tracking and scanning 10 other targets simultaneously.

It’s only the basic N001 that could track one target, through single track while scan. If you’re equipped only with a SARH missile, you can only single track while scan and single target engage since the entire antenna and its power output has to be used to illuminate a single target.

As for American radars, the APG-68 V9 on the Block 52 plus still only tracks and engages 2 targets simultaneously from what I’ve seen, so its still not far behind. The APG-67 and its Taiwanese derivant, the Golden Dragon 53, also does 2 targets engage and 10 targets on TWS mode. It’s the French who seems to be masters of multiple targeting, with the RDY doing 4 targets simultaneously, and the RBE (is that what it’s called?) on the Rafale doing 6 to 8 targets while TWSing 24 targets.

I think the Americans are more conservative because they seem to be going for accuracy and reliability of their scanning as opposed to trying as many targets at once. This does not distract from the achievements of the French, who in my personal and biased opinion, makes the best fighter radars in Europe.

The Zhuks on general (from the smaller ME to the Flanker sized MSE) seems to all do 4 targets on engagement and 20 targets on TWS—the main differences of this family are their size, power output and range. Kind of like a shoe with different sizes.

The N001VE seems to have good range though. With improved digital signal processors, their range is upped from 100km for a 5m2 RCS target to 135. It is still hampered with an old style twist Cassegrain antenna (a kind of antenna shaped more like a reflector telescope) than a slotted planar array; the latter design can handle multiple targets better, though not as good as electronically scanning arrays. But that’s a different matter. The Zhuks all got slotted planar arrays.

Heck, even the oldish Chinese jets are using planars now, from the lowly J-7 and the J-8II to the JH-7 fighter bomber, so it’s quite odd that their top of the line, the SU-30MKK still comes with a Cassegrain. Nonetheless that will be remedied soon, as the next order of SU-30MKKs are likely to come with planar arrayed Zhuk-MSEs.