Watched Vantage Point on Blu-ray the other day. It has a pretty unusual format, but it works for the film. I won’t give away the details but it was a pretty creative way to tie everything together. The movie worked pretty well. All of the actors seemed to be very well suited to their individual roles, especially Forrest Whitaker.

The JF17 would be ideal, but if the PLA don’t take JF17s, then J10s look like the only option, though that still feels like a bit of a waste of a very capable platform.

Maybe this is an offhand indicator that the PLA isn’t bothering with the JF-17? With hundreds of J-10s in the pipeline and the J-11B and XXJ programs progressing to varying degrees, there really is no need for an inferior platform like the JF-17. Look at how clean the logistical trail can be with the above three types, especially when you consider that the days of AL-31FN powered J-10s appear to be over. Adding the JF-17 throws another powerplant type into the mix, and where would you use it anyway? Taiwan? Better to have more capable and advanced BVR shooters like the J-11B and J-10 handling the strait. Far West to act as deterrence to India? See previous comment. For point defence? No, that’s an increasingly less important mission with the deployment of advanced SAM batteries and a waste of resources anyway. Ignore the JF-17, give the display team “older” J-10s with AL-31FN engines after reequipping their units with new jets with WS10s, and move on.

Then go to RIAT or Farnborough and force the RAF by proxy to refit the Red Arrows with Typhoons 😀

MPA = Maritime Patrol Aircraft

What are the sustained and instantaneous turn rates of the LCA? Here’s the data for the MiG-23 that you are leaving out: Max instantaneous turn rate of 16.7 deg/sec at the speed of 780 km/h and a max sustained turn rate of 14.1 deg/sec. The MiG-23’s AOA is obviously not making it super agile, so that comparison is invalid. The figures came from the flight manual as well: http://backfiretu-22m.tripod.com/id16.html

All of this “this airplane can do maneuver X and that means it is better” is completely and totally irrelevant without all of the facts. Unless you have the sustained and instantaneous turn rates to get an idea of how much airspeed and energy they are bleeding off doing high AOA maneuvers, all of your commentary has absolutely no relevance to actual air combat.

See, Su-30 MKI is advantaged with TVC which Mirage and Tejas do not have.

TVC isn’t necessarily a huge advantage. By reworking the flight control system after they removed the thrust-vectoring engines, Sukhoi got the Su-37 demonstrator to emulate its old display routine that had been performed with TVC installed.

If the tailess design is so good why then Russia made an aircraft with the triplane configuration

If the triplane configuration is so good then why did MiG choose a canard delta for the 1.42…