Alright, now that we’re done with the political wrant, can we discuss objectively the Saeqeh?

Here is something to get the wheels moving:

http://en.trend.az/regions/iran/1936646.html

These were the first 5 delivered DATED 2009.

Thanks a89, Krishna_j and halloweene, these are all great suggestions.

I’ll work on:

1. Trying to get interviews (although as I’m based presently in South East Asia, its a long flight, maybe I can get someone in Pakistan to do it for me… but that becomes an even longer shot…)

2. If I can get #1, I could perhaps get hold of some more reliable data or confirm the data we have accumulated in the various forums and sites.

3. Deino’s work is definitely an inspiration, and its always good to look at what has worked. I’ll definitely take a look at that and other successful coffee table books on aviation.

Y20 Bacon, thank you for your attempts at humour, somewhere you’ve also attempted to give me some good advice, I’ll try to extract that at some point.

Progress:

I’m considering an 8.5×11 inch coffee table book with loads of pretty pictures but also something like a story book which tells the story of the JF-17, starting from a historical perspective, moving on to the program, and the people behind that program. Then moving on to whatever specs can be put up with some level of certainty, without going into too much controversy. And since I’m the author, I’d like a final small section on speculations and controversies, but I’m still mulling over this part.

Thanks Deino and benhongh,

I read your inputs with most interest. Benhongh – I’m going to try and do the JF-17 because I have followed it for a long time (since 2002 and the S-7 program since the mid 90s) and have a knowledge base on it that, I dare say, can rival almost anyone outside the “inside information” group.

My biggest weakness would be I am too invested, too close to the project, and as such must have biases that I cannot myself perceive. Getting pictures would be the big task, getting all the copyrights and so forth. I’ve never had to do that before.

Deino –

Thanks, yes I will most certainly contact you further. I think your books are really great and I would think it a big success even if mine was half as good.

I’ve already figured out global distribution through Amazon and other major sellers (something I did from my past experience with having published two other non-aviation related books). So I don’t have to worry about physically selling units.

I do want to keep it less controversial but not non-controversial – its a nearly impossible task trying to please both the JF-17 as the panacea of military aviation (of whom I’m myself an example of) and the JF-17 – failed project that’s really a MiG-21 Or MiG-33, or F-5, or an F-16 ripoff (don’t sell Pakistan F-16s, didn’t we tell you?) crowd.

So that leaves me with trying to walk a middle line somewhere. Since I’m targeting a coffee book style hard cover, I think pictures would be the key – great pictures and a narrative of the development process. That’s what I really want – a narrative of what happened, how it happened, who said what,… where the program was headed, how it was perceived… what went wrong… what went right… combine that with full size images…

That’s the basic idea I have for now…