Is there any link/source/news that PAF may go for IRIS-T? Present in an exhibition does not mean that PAF already integrated it.

Present at an exhibition only implies that it is available. Diehl’s BGT IRIS-T SL was considered for Pakistan’s competion, though the contract was awarded to SPADA 2000.

We know that PAF is on the look out for a WVR missile for its JF-17, and some in the ‘know which’ business say it could be A-Darter. It might be MICA/IRIS-T/some chinese version, we simply don’t know yet.

Here are my facts…

Before posting try to read some more comments, specially to whom I am commenting. I was replying to quadbike’s post as he said, if PAF F-16 A/B have an exercise with F-22, this will be ‘help’ against SU-30MKI in WVR. Now I said that MKI and F-22 are totally different aircraft wrt WVR capabilities. F-22 is the best operational fighter until now, but MKI is really a ‘superduper plane’ in WVR when it is fighting against other similar generation fighters. So an exercise with F-22 will not help to take MKI. If he tells the same after PAF doing an exercise with Malaysian SU-30MKM than its correct. Thats it.

There are important people here to think about that and you are a new member here, so don’t think about bandwidth.

Just a general comment about WVR. Please note that this is abs nothing to do with what is being discussed in this thread vis-a-vis PAF participating in these exercises.

http://www.janes.com/defence/air_forces/news/idr/idr010529_1_n.shtml
A third lesson is that WVR is an equalizer. “An F-5 or a MiG-21 with a high-off-boresight missile and HMD is as capable in a 1-v-1 as an F-22,” comments a former navy fighter pilot, now a civilian program manager. “In visual combat, everybody dies at the same rate,” says RAND’s Lambeth. Indeed, he says that a larger fighter like the F-22 may be at a disadvantage. In the early 1980s force-on-force exercises at the navy’s Top Gun fighter school, F-14s were routinely seen and shot down by smaller F-5s flown by the navy’s Aggressor units. An F-22 which slows down to enter a WVR combat also gives up the advantage of supersonic maneuverability.

Regarding planes like F-22, MKI, typhoon, Rafale etc., they have their promary advantage in BVR. If their opponent survives BVR (for whatever reason) and enters WVR with a decent missile/HMD combo, the outcome would be far from certain. Every ounce of manuverability helps the pilot when it comes to survival, but modern missiles have become a lot manueverable than their opponent, i.e. fighter aircrafts.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/19/inside-the-ring-37209361/
DIA on China’s new fighter
By Bill Gertz INSIDE THE RING

The Defense Intelligence Agency is sticking by its estimates of when China will deploy a fifth-generation jet fighter after recent remarks by a Chinese general that Beijing’s most advanced jet could be fielded by 2017 – years earlier than U.S. intelligence projections.

“We believe that first flight of a Chinese fifth-generation fighter will occur in the next few years; however, we also believe it will take about 10 years before the [People’s Liberation Army] begins to operationally deploy a fifth-generation fighter in meaningful numbers,” DIA spokesman Donald Black told Inside the Ring.

As reported in this space last week, Gen. He Weirong, the deputy commander of the Chinese air force, told Chinese state-run media that the new advanced jet would fly soon despite U.S. intelligence projections that it will not be ready for combat for at least 10 years. (Gen. He was incorrectly identified as Gen. Ho Weirong last week.)

Gen. He said the first jet could be deployed by 2017, and his remarks have sparked renewed debate over whether to continue production of the Pentagon’s most advanced jet, the F-22. Production of the jet, beyond 187 more planes already in the pipeline, was effectively canceled by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates earlier this year.

If deployed by 2017, the new advanced warplane would make China’s jet force more advanced than those of Britain, France and other Western European statesaccording to military analysts.

Asked if U.S. projections about the new Chinese jet were incorrect, Mr. Black said “the intelligence community has been warning of the development of a Chinese fifth-generation fighter for several years.”

“Intelligence estimates typically provide a range of dates associated with operational deployment,” he said. “Gen. He’s comments are generally consistent with these intelligence community estimates of Chinese fifth-generation fighter operational deployment.”

The United States is deploying large numbers of F-35 jets, which lack some fifth-generation capabilities of the F-22, such as supercruise, a propulsion system that allows the jet to fly longer distances, fire its long-range weapons, and then exit without running out of fuel.

Mr. Gates said in July that U.S. projections of when China would deploy its new fifth-generation jet, dubbed J-XX by some analysts, indicate that the F-22 was not needed in large numbers because China will not have large numbers of fifth-generation fighters by 2020. Despite large numbers of F-35s and some F-22s, “China, by contrast, is projected to have no fifth-generation aircraft by 2020. And by 2025, the gap only widens,” Mr. Gates said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not see “any inconsistency in what the SecDef has said and the DIA assessment.”

“In both cases, we don’t see any significant fifth generation Chinese fighter capability for next 10 years or so,” Mr. Whitman said.

Richard Fisher, a China military-affairs specialist with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the DIA’s response to the Chinese general’s remarks were comforting.

“But one has to suspect that there is now light between recent DIA assessments and what Secretary Gates said on July 16,” Mr. Fisher said. “Secretary Gates basically said that a Chinese fifth generation fighter threat would not materialize well into the 2020s, while the DIA seems to imply that their ‘range’ of assessments could accept this happening closer to 2020.”

For Mr. Fisher, the most important issue is not the quality of U.S. intelligence analysis on Chinese weapons developments, but U.S. leadership.

“The Obama administration convinced the Congress to deny U.S. forces a critical capability, the F-22, in some part due to its assessment of Chinese next-generation fighter capabilities, an assessment that may not have been the ‘consensus’ within the intelligence community,” he said.

“Democracies require informed debate in order to survive. It is appearing that the debate over the termination of F-22 production was not sufficiently informed regarding emerging Chinese capabilities.”

Mr. Fisher said some evidence indicates China may have several fifth-generation fighter programs in train and could augment less capable jets with upgrades and advances.

“I doubt that the Chinese are going to limit their force to 187 fifth-generation air-superiority fighters,” he said, referring to the Pentagon’s limited buy of F-22s.

A U.S. Air Force official involved in the F-35 development program told Aviation Week that the Chinese will “have a difficult road if their design is tied to the J-10,” China’s indigenous fourth-generation fighter.

The officer said that significantly reducing the new aircraft’s radar cross-section will require more than stealth outer coatings. New integrated design and shaping as well as coatings are needed, the officer was quoted as saying in the magazine’s Nov. 13 article on the new Chinese jet.

A Chinese Embassy spokesman did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the new jet.

Aerospace Daily and Defense News is reporting today (19 Nov) that the Pak-FA prototype will not fly until 2010.

Of the top of my head, I remember seeing article/interviews etc. in Janes back in 2003/04, saying Russian 5th gen prototype would make its first flight in 2006. With time it was 2007, 2008, 2009. So if its 2010 now, so be it. One can only say that with every day, week, month passing, we know that we are getting closer to the day when it would eventually make its first (at least public) flight.:)

An operational squadron doesn’t mean that they will be fully integrated with every single intended weapon. Rafales and Eurofighters were operational before having all of their A/S modes and stores fully checked out.

Agreed. And we don’t know what has or has not been integrated with KLJ-7, considering that PAF might go for a different set of avionics altogether from the 51st machine.

Most of the time you just need to transport stuff from A to B. Efficacy, survivalability and maintenance are secondary if you simply lack airframes for the job because every single damn chopper costs you $60mil. I agree that a squadron of specialized helos for specialized tasks like SF insertions or high-risk missions is fine, but 70% of all missions only require main rotor, tail rotor, good gearbox, solid armored hull and radio altimeter.. You must be able to build that for $15-18mil a piece, otherwise you’re just wasting money.

You might have a point. So in this regard, what sort of approach, do you think, could help them save some money? Are you suggesting a mixture of (lets say) helos, i.e. a few specialised ones with all the gizmos (expensive) for special missions and the rest should be a lot cheaper for other missions?

Sometimes sheer numbers is hard to counter with better technology. The high tech plane in higher numbers may win every a2a battle but lower numbers will mean that the enemies relatively low tech fighter/bombers may penetrate your defense and bomb the **** out of your airbases. 😉

Indeed sometimes. Quantity vs. Quality discussion is probably as old as civilisation itself. One point to note, however, is that many who championed the argument of quantity during the cold war era appear to shifting their strategies for the 21st century warfare.