To start off with you need to create a logical regional grouping first. The EU is composed of nations that are culturally and ethnically similar.

India is as far away culturally from China and Korea as Somalia or Germany is.

So the premise of the thread is entirely off and is guarantee to get you a bad answer. The question should be if a joint East Asian or joint South Asian aircraft is possible not a mix of the two.

In the far future, I do see a possible pan East Asian venture. All of the three major East Asian nations China, Japan and Korea have each other as their major trade partners. This is the most economically integrated region outside of the EU.

But it has to be in the future.

I’m a bit baffled as to why everybody thinks it’s so hard to classify them. The qualities have been established for something like 20 years.

Where? When? By whom?

When people talk about fighter generation today, they mean the jet fighter generation as marked by an historically revolutionary design or concept at each point.

Also, the designations we see in English speaking forums are defined by the Anglo-American experience. (Fighter generations in China and, to an lesser extent, Russia are very different.)

There are no globally agreed upon “generation” standards much less a “4.5” standard.

The prime machines in each generation as defined by the American experience are:

Generation 1: F-80 Shooting Star (early gen 1), F-84 Sabre (late gen 1) — gun platforms still basically dogfighters with greater top speed over props

Generation 2: F-8, F-100 series — mach performance machines, mainly supersonic interceptors; range-finder radars; maneuverability took back seat to performance

Generation 3: F-4 (early gen 3) — began as a gunless high performance interceptor that became a multi-role vehicle during the war in Vietnam; practice trumped theory (the F-4 was designed as strictly a missileer); it set the stage for gen 4

Generation 4: F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18 — high performance and high maneuver; powerful radars

Generation 5: F-22 — high performance, high maneuverability and stealth

What constitutes “4.5”? Some make arguments for the Rafale and Eurofighter. Having the canard delta configuration is a break from most of the earlier gen four aircraft but a different configuration doesn’t make a new generation. You need a defining aircraft.

Deja vu. Crobato replied to the same article an Indian had brought up on Sept. 12 in this very same thread.

The countries that can afford buy Western technology, if they cannot afford they switch to Russian, if it doesn’t suffice for that they go to China.

Countries that can afford to AND are in the West’s good graces will buy from the West. But if not, there is always China.

Instead of grandstanding on and on about the “West”, it’s not Holland, Germany or Sweden selling these superb aircraft. It’s mainly the US, France and to a lesser extent, the UK.

That’s three nations in the UNSC P5 and two of them are hostile to a very large chunk of the non-white world. Again, that is where China comes in. Russia is/was a superpower and another P5.

Outside of the P5, there is no aircraft industry remotely close to China’s. So Chinese aviation might fellow the other four members of the Permanent Five but it is sure as hell better than any other not in this circle.

As for Chinese exports, they are not new either. China had been exporting aircraft since the 1960s.

Without Boeing or Airbus subcontracting business to Chinese industry, it be would 100% military.

The Y-12, MA-60 and the NH-5 are all mainly civilian projects. The civilian part is the great growth portion of Chinese aviation.

The projects running are not working without American/European support.

They’ll run because of the Chinese market. The ARJ-21 will sell because of the Chinese market. Unlike the Y-10 when China had thought it had free access to Western technology, the China of today will mandate its airlines buy the ARJ-21.

The ARJ-21 is for example a product the world doesn’t need.

It’s a product that China needs. There are 3500 Chinese to be bought in the next two decades. Now China has a product that can return some of those billions back into China’s aviation industry.

Saying the ARJ-21 is not needed is the same is saying that Airbus was not needed. Both are subsidized projects to retain resources in the home countries.

Hardly competitive, it will remain a niche product for domestic market and third world countries (like Laos).

That is enough. Far better to have a product than none. With a product, you can create cash flow and turnover to create better product. Without any, you stay where you are. Airbus shows that you can get better by subsidizing and capturing a portion of your home market and then moving outside over time.

Neither a J10 nor a BS6 can compete on equal terms against European/American/Japanese industry products.

Funny. That’s the same attitude towards the Japanese in the 1960s. “Made in Japan” was a mark of inferiority until the 1980s (just as “Made in Germany” was a mark of inferiority in Great Britain circa 1900.)

And stop it with the “European” crap. The nations superior to China in aircraft are the US, Russia, France and the UK. After that, there is no European nation that can create a homegrown fighter from scratch — nuts to bolts, no outside parts — that can compete with China (with all due respect to the Swedes.)

Military sales are among the largest trades currently happening.

Military sales are an absolutely pittance compared to civilian deals. Iran’s military deals with China are a billion dollars every two years or so. Iran’s bilateral trade with China is around $9b.

Look at it this way: the largest military sales between nations were those from Russia to China between 1995 and 2003. But Russia’s military sales to China at its height was around $3 billion dollars a year.

The US exports $50 billions a year in civilian goods to China. Let’s not mention the trade going from China to the US. Who has the preponderance of influence over China? The US by wide margin.

Defense is of vital importance to Iran – they will not make strategic partnership with anyone unwilling or unable to provide complete ‘service’.

Now there is truth to that. Iran because it is embargoed by the US would like to have friends who could help it militarily as well and will test China’s willingness to sell weapons as a sign that China or any other nation is willing to stand in face of US pressure.

That said, if it were military equipment alone (like Russia’s relationship with Iran) then China’s impact would be much less. It’s the Chinese economic impact that gives China influence. Remember, Iran is embargoed by the West. The Chinese boom in the past two decades basically allowed the Iranians to sell their oil east instead of west. Iran has been remarkably well-off considering over 20 years of blanket hostility from the West.

BTW, the reformist faction in Iran were gaining the upper hand until Bush made his “Axis of Evil” comment which cut the legs from the reformers. That and the stupidity of invading and destroying the one major secular nation in the Middle East (women were able to drive in Baathist Iraq, they are not allowed in Saudi Arabia, our “ally”) will create blowback for the next several generations no doubt.