With a country like Egypt which has access to Western aircraft, Chinese planes really doesn’t have a chance unless they came with ToT.

The same would go for the FC-1. Any contract will almost be certain to end up with an assembly line in Egypt.

The Egyptian produced K-8Es is licensed for 80.

There were stories that the Egyptiang plant would also provide for a Moroccan order. This hasn’t been confirmed but Morocco has shown up in several publications as a K-8 customer even though it hasn’t received any Chinese-built K-8 so far.

This is a rare picture of the K-8E

Watch Pinkov change his tune after reading the boards which, aside from talking to Russians at air shows, is about all he does.

He seems to have absolutely no contact within the Chinese industry.

Originally posted by pluto77189

The idea is to create the BEST aircraft, not one that’s “good enough”. If it’s overkill, good, this way it’ll remain the BEST, longer, saving us money in the long run.

The issue is not that US shouldn’t build the best aircraft, she shouldn’t use China as a lame excuse.

As I said earlier, if you need to build the Raptor, go build it, don’t point to China as an enemy.

Don’t single out one country, as in the story I posted, and declare it as a reason for the Raptor.

China don’t really care whether the USA increases its advantage or not, it – along with the rest of the world – has accepted US military dominance, but they don’t like being used as a target and as an excuse.

As said earlier by other posters in the thread, China military per capita is actually very small cokpared to the US. China has a population 400 percent bigger than the US but a military only 30 percent bigger in personel and a budget that is many times smaller.

Originally posted by crobato
I do think its too much. The J-7E never amounted to more than 300, nor do the J-8II in all its variants. Come to think of it, the total number of Flankers are rapidly approaching to a point they will exceed the J-7E or the J-8II one on one.

The E is just one subset in the J-7 line. There are are about 1000 in the whole J-7 family including the JJ-7s.

Once the J-10 is being produced, I would find it hard to believe that a process similar to the J-7 wouldn’t happen with endless versions of the J-10 being made over the years.

So there won’t be 1000 J-10As, but there could certainly be 1000 J-10s of all varieties through the years.

Probably the project with the most uncertain future is the FC-1.

The FC-1’s future is actually pretty certain in my view. Simply because it has a customer in Pakistan and also because it will form the underpinning of that customer’s aircraft industry going forward. Too much vested interest and planning had already gone into the plane.

The FC-1’s future is at least secure on the Pakistani end, F-16 or no F-16 (which would be bought off the shelf).

The FC-1’s future in the PLAAF might be uncertain only if the J-7MF is made or the J-7G could have bvr and a more powerful radar crowbarred into it (doubtful). Otherwise, what else is there in the low price range? Also, they need replacements for the Q-5 and they have nothing else on the board as a strike craft.

If the FC-1 isn’t inducted into the PLAAF and the J-7MF is not made, then there will be 1200 J-10s because the J-10 is really the only other possibility for a modern rank-and-file machine. They’re not going to make a two-engine plane like the J-11, the basic PLAAF machine. It’s too expensive to operate across the majority of the air force.

I think the J-7G is a short term project for Chengdu to keep the assembly lines open until the J-10 or FC-1 enters production.

The J-8II variants are similar short-term projects for Shenyang until if/when the fully indigenized J-11 is mass produced.

The JH-7A will have a limited production run for the Navy. Strike in the PLAAF should be handled by the Q-5 replacement and again we go back to the FC-1.

Originally posted by Rick

Good point. All in all, the J-11s and these Mk3s could all finsih up around the same time, 2006 or 2007. That would be a good time to start producing the version of the Su-30 the PLAAF likes. If this is to be the case, negotiations of that contract would need to start soon, if not underway already. ALthough it shouldn’t take 2 years for SAC to get the technology installed to produce the Su-30s.

At some point, I think the indigenous (J-11B?) program will have to kick in simply because they will want/need to integrate the SD-10 and the accompanying Chinese radar sets.

You might see a departure from new Russian contracts especially if by 2006 or 2007 we see a dropping of the European embargo.