All Block 52s have been delivered. The delivery of weapons started quite a while back, though im not aware of their current status. F-16 MLU is currently in progress.

IMO, none of this aid suspension saga currently applies to F-16s package. Since Pakistan had asked US to withdraw some of its trainers and certain other groun personnel from Pakistani territory, its likely to have an impact in those areas. I personally have not heard anything which involves AF, apart of rumours about Shamsi airbase.

This whole affair is simply the result of trust deficit. Pak-US relations have never fully recovered from the pressler amendment saga. And it appears that US has now decided to use the stick more harshly and in public. Lets see how this whole thing evolves.

Arm twisting by UAE ?

Appears to be so, when seen in the light of these quotes…”The UAE is finding the Rafale offer to be too costly compared to the capabilities of aircraft and other technologies on the market,” and “The negotiations with France are still ongoing and both sides are looking for a compromise.“

I Wonder what the final outcome would be? Considering that UAE Mirages have considerable life left in them, they can certainly afford to delay the finalisation of Rafale deal while doing some more arm twisting. OTOH, French might take the gamble that UAE ruling authorities are unlikely to put all their eggs in the same basket (not only because they would have more freedom to play around with the avionics/weapons choice), and hence no more F-16s. My personal opinion is that the two sides would reach a compromise.
But lets assume, they don’t. So if the French don’t budge down, and UAE don’t go down the US route, could this perhaps provide a chance of Gripen or Eurofighter??? And what sort of impact would such a decision have on the future for Rafale?

I think all of the F-16s should be BVRAAM capable by 2020, work on upgrading the legacy Block-15 aircraft to Block-50/52 standard has already begun in Turkey and I think there is at least 1-2 Block-15 aircraft in the US which are being upgraded and tested as pattern aircraft.

I second that. It’d be more expensive to maintain MLU/Non-MLU F-16s than upgrading them all to the same standard. As long as the ground situation in Pakistan and/or US/Pak relations do not deteriorate beyond a certain point, IMO all F-16s should be BVR capable by then.

Just a quick question, why there has not been a twin seat trainer of the JF-17 yet? Wouldn’t the trainer version help market it better?

They do appear to have some plans in that regard. In fact, JF-17 twin seater CGs appeared in AFM July 2011 issue. Since PAF was the primary customer, it seems they were concentrating all their efforts on the single seater and wanted it in service ASAP. PAF had already had similar experience with F-6/F-7, where twin seater arrived after a while of single seater being in service.

given that the DARIN III includes 2032 even those might carry BVR’s like derby.

I think by 2020, every single fighter in IAF/PAF scenario would carry BVRAAMs.

pix were taken on 17 June…copyright by 希望之盾

Finally. 🙂 I hope a long-standing debate would soon be put to rest. 🙂

Indeed it is, but we’re quite used to seeing SD-10s on J-10s by now. Until now, I don’t think there’s been a pic of the JF-17 with SD-10s?

IIRC the PAF chaps at Farnborough were saying the integration work should have been completed by end of last year or early this year. Not sure when that pic was taken.

I cant remember seeing a pic of JF-17 with SD-10 either.

As for the second part of your post, I can second that. Two members of the JF-17 delegation (PAC) confirmed that (independently from each other) at Farnborough 2010. You might also remember the model JF-17 there that was carrying 4 SD-10s (2 & 3 R/L). I must add that those twin launchers on J-10 look good indeed, and we have already seen such launchers on JF-17, albeit with bombs. So, on the speculation side, we’ll get to see more JF-17/SD-10 pics in near future, and might also get to see on SD-10 equipped twin launchers on JF-17.

Added later: Something was bugging me, so did a google search. It appears that huitong put a pic of JF-17/SD-10 in flight a while back… that site seemsto be down at the moment though.