Well- in the 60s what other VG projects were publicly known?

There is the Mirage G I suppose.

I think – later on- there was the Q-6 which was based on the MiG-23/27.

The big question is – engine.

Given the difficulty China has had in designing a large engine, you should probably stick to two R-11 copies.

Wasn’t it late 60s?

If so, they would almost certainly be drawing on the F-111 for inspiration, just as Mikoyan did with the MiG-23 and Sukhoi with the Su-24 (the Russians spent ages photographing it in great detail at a Paris airshow…)

Fliegerrevue 11/98 P33 (scanned by Deino 😉

Sure enough- we can talk about the MiG-29 and its Tumansky R-33D turbofans and N093 radar afterwards.

The design you refer to is NOT by Mikoyan. Calling it the Mikoyan I-2000 is perpetuating a mistake. If you know this, then mention it. Otherwise it seems you didn’t know 😉

Call it ‘the design formerly mistakenly known by Janes as the Mikoyan I-2000’.

What about the SARH version of the PL-2- isn’t that the PL-3? It would need only a simple MiG-21MF pulse radar in the nose.

As we are dealing in what-if scenarios, you could mount pretty much anything.

What about – Russian R-23T goes AWOL during early 70s, lands in China, where it is copied and used as a “Super Sidewinder”?

Or- building on the Mirage looks- they license build/steal the Matra 530 AAM for it?

Please note that the M53-P2 might be reliable, but it is also a less than stellar performer.

Designwise it is a simple single shaft turbofan with a bypass ratio of 0.4.

Compression ratio is a mere 9.8:1, which is so far behind the leading edge as to be embarrassing. It is heavy and underpowered compared to any contemporary engine.

SFC in mil thrust is 0.90 compared to 0.77 for RD-33.

So it ought to be reliable, given its complete lack of any high tech features!