A rare picture of the B-6D in black/dark green liverage. There were four sold by China to Iraq in the early 90s.

sadly speaking, J-7/8 is still the backbone of the force for the next 5 to 10 years.

Actually, you can’t put up “J-7/J-8” as one. The backbone is the ubiquitous J-7s with around maybe 600 – 800 depending on how people calculate retirement of the order variants. There are also J-6 in some squadrons.

Then again, when there are around 300 Flankers and possibly another 200 – 300 BVR capable J-8IIs, the J-7 backbone is not as important as before.

Is there an official policy barring ethnic Chinese from becoming pilots in the RMAF?

The name Lt Kol Tan Hui Hock in the article below is clearly Chinese.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/6/24/nation/14642794&sec=nation

Cheers,
Sunho

There is a policy to bar Chinese (and other minorities) from staff positions. Meaning they are not allowed to be promoted.

The Chinese community used to contribute a majority of pilots in the RMAF. In fact, this was so prevalent and well-known in the military world that the USAF noted the RMAF in a study on affirmative action concerning the lack of African-American pilots. In the US, African-Americans pilots form (or formed since the study was done in the 1980s) an exceedinlgy small percentage of pilots while the Chinese in Malaysia, also a minority and suffering official discrimination, formed an exceedingly large number of the RMAF’s pilots.

As for “racial conspiracy theories” :rolleyes:

The NEP policy is official. Malaysian law states OFFICIALLY that non-bumi are to be restricted from schools and government jobs. This is law not a conspiracy. Its purpose is to enforce stratas of citizenship. It is to make sure that some are more equal than others.

BTW, the lowest members of this racial strata are actually Tamils and other southern Indians who had their schools closed in massive numbers, mired in poverty and forced to emigrate. Unlike Indians in Chinese-dominated communities like Singapore and Hong Kong where they are well off because they are allowed the same rights as the majority population.

Great thread!

Let’s not forget that by the standard of countries outside the P5, Iraq had a massive air force of over 900 planes right before Desert Storm in 1990. About 500-600 of those were combat aircraft — fighters or bombers.

Also I wanna know…
..if any of you guys can provide a three view drawing of the FT-7 or the JJ-7..??

I’ve been looking for one for years. Haven’t found one. So you might have to use one of the MiG-21U and modify it to have two ventral fins.

Also, you could use the JL-9 as a base too. The rear section is identical to the FT-7. The double-delta wings, the cheek inlets and of course the radome is different.

At least one of its requirements will be “more expensive than the 5th generation fighter.”