I think the Chinese would be buying the Tu-22M5 for Anti-Shipping reasons, not just for conventional land attack, because they already have a lot of platforms that can strike Taiwan. What they need is someting like the Kh-32 or whatever and a good platform to carry it.

It uses existing facilities and tooling too for one thing. But it may also be a bit short ranged. Chengdu won’t certainly go for a round inlet MiG-21 to get a BVR J-7 that is for sure—they already made clear their direction on this with the F-7MF. We don’t know what these airframe changes would affect the overall cost. The problem of a 5-7m BVR J-7 fighter cheapie is that the J-8F (Kunlun-2 engines, SD-10 capable radar) can do this now with not much upfront development cost and time.

And it appears that the PLAAF won’t go with the F-7MF anymore, and even the FC-1 is still a 50-50 chance. J-10 and Sues will be the mainstay with J-7G and J-8F rounding up the legacy end.

Well yes but what is the estimated cost of the J-8F?

Also what makes this BVR J-7 attractive is it’s cost, and as you said it’s very cheap to operate. It could be used in unlimited training(twin seat JL-7 and used for training for other platforms too) while it’s supersonic, it could be armed for strike and of course CAS missions(put in some ATGMs on it like Vikhr) and it could be a nice supersonic multirole and Air Defense fighter for some 5-7mn that would be able to stand up nicely to alot of the current 4th gen fighters. This is basically like a new and furtherly improved Mig-21-93.

Kopyo is too big for the J-7G, and for the planes that can fit it, China has no plans of upgrading the J-7C/D and the J-8E further than the radars they already have, which is the JL-7A radar also AKA known as the Type 226. The best these planes could shoot is a PL-8. Only FC-1 could fit Kopyo but the current radar specs being asked for the FC-1 exceeds that, which is why the Grifo S-7, Thales RC-400 and a KLJ type radar being ground tested. China appears to have at least two Kopyo sets for evaluation.

J-7 program is already at a shoestring budget, or they would have gone through with the F-7MF program where you can jam a 700mm antenna right up the plane’s nose. And if they need a small dogfight only radar, why should you even bother to import one? We’re only talking about a simple radar here with the dogfight modes (e.g. boresight, vertical scan) with RWS.

Yes, but I am just saying hypothetically that if a customer wants a J-7G airframe and Russian avionics in it. The Kopyo-M has a diameter of some 500mm I believe, while the Kopyo-F(which is still in development) is said to have a 440mm diameter. It’s volume is also much smaller(160dm3) compared to the bigger volume of the Kopyo-M(230dm3). I mean if the Kopyo-F is intended to fit in the tail of the Su-35 then I am sure it will be able to be somehow squeezed into the nose of the J-7G.

Or why not get something like the J-7FS with the F-8 Crusader style nose and intake?

Yes but are even the latest J-7s as trainers able to simulate the J-10 in anyway?

Also Crobato, what do you think of arming someting like J-7G with latest Russian or Israeli avionics, radar(like Kopyo-F) and various weapons AA weapons like R-77 or Derby and some lighter A2G weapons mostly for CAS and such and not some heavy strike due to it’s limited payload and range? How do you think it might be able to compete in the BVR arena? Of course you could probably squeeze all of this in around 5mn, very cheap for a BVR supersonic fighter.