Golden_ArrowRumors of Russia being poor are overblown. Russia still has some of the best scientific minds in the world, and the best in many categories. 60 years of education does not go to waste so easily. Russian military tech is still some of the most sturdiest pieces of work you’ll ever come across.
With Indian money chipping in as well, PAK-FA will be okay. A suitable successor to the MKI.
Golden_ArrowTaiwan cannot win a convential war of defence. There are two options:
1. Nukes
2. US help
Failing these two, Taiwan has little chance if PRC attacks. As people have aid before, PRC will not attack unless it is prepared to spend anything and lose any number of assets to gain victory. An attack without total victory will be the end of the Chinese Communist Party. Besides, given that the Commies in PRC have never hesitated to kill millions of their own in the past “for greater good,” they will not hesitate to wipe out Taiwan if their invasion efforts falter.
Golden_ArrowAFAIK, some 14 people including officers lost their commission after the dry dock sinking in 2002.
Indian forces punish wrongdoers, not promote them like our western neighbor 😉
Golden_ArrowJust keeping people honest…
http://strategypage.com/dls/articles/20054102046.asp
India Rules the Waves
by James Dunnigan
April 10, 2005India plans to have two aircraft carriers, both equipped with modern fighter-bombers and anti-submarine helicopters, in service by 2012. The first carrier, entering service in 2008, is a refurbished, 40,000 ton carrier from Russia. This one will cost $1.5 billion, but will provide India with a lot of technology it will use to build another, 37,000 ton, carrier. This one will enter service in 2012 and will cost about $800 million. India will operate navalized MiG-29 fighters on both carriers. These aircraft will have the most modern electronics and missiles. With these two carriers, India will dominate the Indian Ocean and the southwest Pacific. The total coast of this new carrier aviation capability will run close to $5 billion, once the cost of escorts, training, support ships, and shore facilities, are included. When these two carriers are in service, the only Navy in the world that could threaten Indian domination of the Indian Ocean is the American fleet. But even here, this would only apply when Indian carriers were outside the range of their land based warplanes. 😎
BTW, people wondering about the quality of “rusting” Russian ships need only look that the fact that their navy is going for super crappy Chinese ones as their next great surface ship hope. :diablo:
Beisdes, there can be few answers to 1000 BrahMos Mk-1s 😎
Golden_ArrowActually its a special missile. It carries the aircraft.
Golden_ArrowMohammedAli,
It is not a case of things suiting my needs. All I’m saying is that it would be possible for people with basic military aviation knowledge to use the statistical figures released by PAF and try to see if they add up with other public claims. Flying hours, serviceability, aircraft hours etc are all related and they must tally up.
Golden_ArrowTo people who are asking for breakdown of figures such as ratio of flight hr per capita!!! do u guys seriously think anyone here will have those numbers. Pakistan is not as open a society as the West.
If PAF is open enough to publish total hours, why is it difficult to think of individual hours? Is it that hard for people to estimate the number of planes or pilots in PAF?
As far as remarks about crashes are concerned, I dont see any reason for PAF not to be jubilent about its figures.
I agree. The numbers are very good, if accurate. Nearly half a year without aerial accidents is remarkable. But if what you are saying above is true, namely that Pakistan is very secretive, how can one be sure that PAF is reporting all its accidents? Doesn’t your site contain attrition info that came out much later?
The point is that you cannot have it both ways – by assuming that not everything is publicly available when it is easily inferable while simultaneously projecting one or two public stats that make you look good.
I think just last year when war seemed imminent between India and Pakistan, PAF had 97% fleet readiness (as reported by Alan in an AFM issue).
Actually, it was in 2002, not 2004. Alan Warnes noted that PAF claimed it had 98% serviceability. It is a claim. No more. No less.
Other than that, if there are comparisons with other countries, anyone with a little sense would realize that it is something called PR and is very common in every country in one fashion or another.
Quite often PR involves hiding inconvenient facts and hyping what is good.
Someone mentioned PAF F-16s not flying for five years … well i certainly have not come across any such references, but its not a top secret that around 92-93, it was cruch time for PAF as the spare stock had dwindled since Pakistan could not procure spares from the US anymore. Therefore, it took PAF some time to figure out how to acquire those spares on a commercial basis. By 1996, the Brown amendment was enforced which bought some relief to the F-16 fleet.
Sq.Ldr.Sameen Mazhar said he had 500 hours logged on the Viper in about 8 years in the 90s. Unless PAF has more than 1 pilot per cockpit, this automatically means that PAF F-16s flew 500 hours in 8 years. If you take 30 minutes per sortie, that is just 125 sorties per year or little over 10 per month. It does appear that the birds were grounded for years, doesn’t it? Surely if you had spares available, you’d want your top of the line fighters to be used for much more than 60 odd hours a month? OTOH, if PAF’s claims of more than 200 hrs per pilot is true and PAF has only 1 pilot per cockpit, then the F-16s were probably grounded for a minimum duration of 5 years, given Sq.Ldr.Mazhar’s categorical statement.
The bottomline here is that while every airforce only publicizes stats that it wants to, people with basic knowledge of military aviation can do the math and infer the rest of the stuff. Is that so hard to believe?
Golden_ArrowTo the troll – I do not read your posts and have no desire to respond to them. I usually do not respond to trolls.
Spare yourself the effort of responding to my posts for I will not read them.
Golden_ArrowPAF had grounded its F-16s for about half of the decade of 1990s. A top PAF pilot had flown just 500 hours on the F-16 for about 8 years, which is next to nothing.
Till 2004, PAF had only 16 of its 32 F-16s operational.
The non-accident record of PAF’s F-16s is still quite good, but look at it in terms of whether they were flown at all and if so, for how long.
FWIW, as a comparison, IAF’s MiG-21s fly 2 sorties a day, minimum 20 days a month. Each sortie in a MiG-21 is about 33 minutes. So, an IAF MiG-21 puts in 250 hours a year. That still does not undercut the big attrition rate, but it does give you some idea as to how much the old beasts are flogged, even today. If someone wants to reply purely in terms of IAF, please use the IAF thread. Let’s leave this one to the PAF F-16s and the dreamer drone 😉
Golden_ArrowThe reason I posted that was to explain to those duffers who use India’s MRCA tender as an example of LCA’s “failure.”
IAF currently has 35 squadrons. It needs a minimum of 39 but the LCA will only give 8 a year starting 2008-09 at the earliest and it may increase in rate later. So you have a need for 150 extra planes that need to come from somewhere.
150 extra will come from 126 MRCA, Qatar (11) and perhaps some more Bison upgrades to keep the MiG-21 for some more time.
Golden_ArrowSameer,
Looks like our buddies Munir and HKhan have their undies in a bunch because someone of their own questioned Pakistan’s mythical contribution to the FC-1 project.
As usual the buzdils will end up banning the poor souls who dared to tell the truth to the faithful.
aukaat aukaat kee baat hotee hai…
The contributions Pakistan has made to the project are not so apparent..
Pakistani contribution to the project has in fact been considerable without admittedly being responsible for solely designing the FBW system or any such component on their own.
Sure, if we cannot see an example, it must mean that it is true. BTW, since Zimbabwe is mentioned as a potential FC-1 client and there is no news of their contribtion, it must mean that Zimbabwe had a great role in the project. 🙂
Yes Pakistanis are learning a lot but we are also teaching a lot to Chinese as well.
Now this may be right that we dont have super computer and fency wind tunnels but Pakistanis are contributing as much as Chinese in terms of brain power
Like what? How to get credit for someone else’s work? 😉 I have no super computer too, so I have a contribution to the project as well…
Golden_ArrowSameer,
Don’t you realize that you cannot ask such embarassing questions because they just opened the factory and that provides all answers?
Once the factory begins work, the price will come down further. In fact, all Keymags forum members will get their own FC-1s if we behave nice with our Pak friends.
Golden_ArrowUSAF is inducting the F-22 and JSF. But since the F-22 is inducted in smaller quantities, it is obviously a failure…
Golden_ArrowRaj,
FC-1 will end up with at least $22 million unit cost, unless it is taken without an engine, avionics, radar and weapons. But then again, such things have been “decoupled” 😀 so we never know.
Actually, if they just buy that mock up shown above, it will be even cheaper per unit.
Golden_ArrowIt will be over before it begins. What a stupid thread!
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