Getting back on track, and off insinuations of me being a liar, two JF-17s and two F-16s reached Izmir yesterday for the TUAF’s centenary air show.

BTW check the dates on the cables 2006.
I had my little chat this March. An elapsed time period of 5 years. A lot can change in 5 years. But what’s the use of arguing with people with pre set notions. Waste of my own time.

@ Black Archer, ”No”. Copyrights, you might have heard of them? Buy your own copy my friend. And the artist’s impression of the actual two seater design is way more graceful than what you’ve posted. Infact if (God willing) the 2 seater becomes a reality, it will be amongst the best looking dual seat fighter variants out there IMHO.
I’m amazed at how this aircraft has grown through it’s development. I remember meeting an airforce officer (a group captian, GDP) about 2 years back who told me that the F-16s would be our last US purchase. I asked him about the Thunder at that time and he said it was ok for our needs thats it.
I met him again at a wedding this March, and this time around he was gushing with pride and pleasure over the Thunder. ”It’s a wonderful aircraft. We’ve fully opened up the envelope, very highly agile, 9Gs etc etc”.
What struck me most at that last meeting was his assertion that the avionics are overall at par with the Block 52s. I was pretty dismissive of that till I read this article and all the gushing of praise for the Thunder’s avionics. Guess we have pulled one. 🙂

You forgot the rejoinder to the French about Chinese avionics. ”You may not sell to us, but the Chinese are coming out with solutions matching or exceeding your systems.” And that was 2 years ago.

Rookh there are no open sources for this but the range of the MAR-1 is ~90 kms.
This comes from Paf sources and has been confirmed by multiple members on Pakdef including me. You may not like them but there is no denying that Pakdef consistently provides accurate information about the Pakmilitary, more than anyone else on the www.

The area and topography around Abbotabad and Kakul are such that no one can enter it’s ADIZ without being detected atleast 20 miles away at low level. This comes from a GOC Army aviation. A person who trained at and around Kakul numerous times.
Secondly no VTOL aircraft bar V-22 has the range to get from Bagram to Abbotabad even when you measure the distance as the crow flies. Go figure.
Third I have it on good authority that western command ADC was told to stand down from GHQ and AHQ that night.
Just think logically even if they were’nt detected coming in, Pakistan knew diddley squat about the raid, they lost a stealth mod Knighthawk and called Chinooks for backup (one large rcs chopper I think) that they could have gotten away without being intercepted especially after spending 40 minutes on scene after fireworks had been shot off. Plus considering that PAF habitually keeps a pair of fighters on QRA at ready5 24/7 at all it’s main bases and that two of those bases are 6-13 minutes flight time away (Kamra and Peshawar, Id have added Risalpur and Chaklala, but there are no fighters based there). No they could’nt have keeping in mind above constraints.
It was a joint op, no matter if GOP wants ironclad deniability. Too many factors (I won’t mention here) when considered, render any other conclusion moot.
That’s all I’d say. And PAF’s Adges is not the same PADS 77 anymore, not since last 5 years or so.
And kindly keep further discussion of the raid or any thing remotely related to it’s own thread. Thankyou people.

That PLA was the other kill Wg Cmdr Mervyn Leslie Middlecoat who was shot down over the Arabian sea. He slowed down over the Gujrat coast after he thought he had successfully disengaged from Migs after a strafing run on Utterlai iirc.

Just a note about that kill on 17th Dec. Samad Changezi was a very good pilot, considered to be amongst the very best within his peers.
What got Changezi shot down that day was target fixation which meant he had lost SA and thus was shot down by any one or more of the 3 IAF claimants for either a single or as it ought to be a shared victory.
This was just to support Alfakilo’s assertion that without knowing the exact details of the engagement, we cannot generalise and say that the 104 lost due to it’s inferior dogfight performance etc etc.
@ Alfakilo ‘are’nt you Andy Bush?’