I think there is slight miss reporting by the press — I am sure what he actualy says is that the remaining 3 SAAB aircraft will be delivered by end of 2011 and that Pakistan is in negotiations with the Chinese for AWACS aircraft and once the negotiations are complete they will be in a position to sign the contract ie he does not give a timeline for delivery of Chinese aircraft.

I was a bit surprised by this because – based on previous Government statements – I thought this was a done deal. Probably what they have done so far is agree the requirement, arrange credit — and left PAF to work out the details / performance requirements / evaluation before signing the dotted line.

Regardless – very exciting times for the PAF indeed and despite limited resources – well on track for maintaining ‘minimum credible detterance’.

Indeed, can you believe that now with Erieye, TPS-77, F-16 Block 52, AMRAAM,JF-17, Air refuelers and SPADA 2000 all to protect are airspace, just 7 years ago, we still relied on CAPs flown by F-6s with AIM-9Ps and no radar!!!

What a difference 7 years makes!

SPADA 2000

NATO SAM in use with Spain, Italy,Kuwait and Thailand. Overhaul and repair facilities already up and running in Karachi.

vipers still selling like hotcakes! I dont see orders for this bird ever dying out! :p

Excellent Youtube of SAAB Erieye induction. Never seen ACM look so proud as when he is receiving the picture of the Erieye.

Endbit for non Urdu readers he goes on to state

all F-16s delivered next year. Chinese AWACs in final negotations ready for 2011. Italian SAM in 2011. First JF-17 operational Sqd in June 2010.

Busy times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJxx3BZexj8

Nirav

After racial slurs that the mods have kindly deleted, I am no longer interested in a discussion with you. Apologies, but life is too short.

the Bison only did well in BVR, with its Elta jamming pod and R-77 BVR weapons allowing its pilots to fire first. in WVR, a Bison would stand little chance of winning against an F-16, Mirage-2000, F-22 or F-16 Block 60. all of them have better situational awareness than any MiG-21 variant, have good T/W ratio and are very agile to boot. at least 2 of these carry the HMDS that can allow off-bore sight shots of WVR missiles. the only way in which the J-7PG would be competitive at all would be if they simply trained for after the merge WVR fighting. if the pilots on the F-16, Mirage-2000, F-22 and F-16 Block 60 don’t train hard for WVR combat, they may suffer losses here. It happened with Indian Navy Sea Harriers against the Rafale before their LUSH upgrade- they simply were not competitive against the Rafale at BVR. they got off their carrier and got shot down, again and again. only in WVR were they competitive, because, as IN pilots explained, they trained for WVR a lot, the French didn’t.

but that assumes that by some chance the J-7PG or SHar even managed to get within WVR range of any of these fighters with much much better radars, passive sensors and BVR weapons. anyway, I don’t want to derail this thread. no need to discuss this any further.

As you have stated, I dont think PG were there for any BVR combat,simply close range DACT.

The current JSF requirement is already based on only one QE class being in commission as a carrier at any one time, as this has always been the plan. Therefore, there is no implication of a reduction in the requirement.

There is no separate RN requirement, but a joint RAF/RN one, which assumes one carrier air group, plus land-based aircraft assigned to the RAF, plus an OCU, plus reserves.

Current planning assumes that if we ever want to put air groups on both carriers at once, we will make up the numbers with F-35s normally assigned to land-based ops, with RAF pilots. Experience with Harriers (which are trickier to land on carriers than F-35B should be) shows it is practical. Conversion to STOVL carrier ops is very quick & easy compared to conversion to cat & trap, & pilots can keep current with only occasional refreshers.

My bad, assumed requirement was for two carrier goups. However, I stil stand by what I said. I dont think there is a snowballs chance in hell of UK geting all 150 pending Defense Review.

Erieye in Pakistan colours! 😉

Swedish Ambassador does not look to bad either!

Thanks to Usman on Pakdef.