Thread by @daeroplate_v2

Article in greek media about jf17. I have used yandex translator. Goog translate failed on the long text. Fascinating insights in operarional exp of jf17

https://twitter.com/omeshsi90460560/status/1368176606234181632

Pakistan specifically envisioned acquiring a fighter jet, comparable to the Su-30MKI, Mig-29 and Mirage-2000. China even said it would import the aircraft because of its superior capabilities. However, the aircraft is far from its designed capabilities,

as it is a low-cost fighter developed with low-quality Chinese avionics and weapons.

The PAF found, however, that the operating and maintenance costs of JF-17 aircraft are very high compared to modern weapons systems and should be reduced to make the operations more cost-efficient.

China, Pakistan's" all-weather " friend, having spent a significant amount of money developing the militant, likely forced Pakistan to accept Chinese electronics to offset some of its development costs.

The Pakistani Aerospace Complex( PAC), Kamra is supposed to have a 58% share in production, but this is far from the reality. Kamra procures raw materials and production kits of major systems from China and assembles the JF-17 at the aircraft manufacturing plant, Kamra.

PAC only manufactures certain sub-assemblies

such as wings, front fuselage and tail with material once again imported from China. While most of the systems are Chinese, South African and European, the ejection seat is from Martin Baker (UK).

Therefore, it is prudent to characterise the PAC Kamra, an assembly branch that integrates all these components into a full metal semi-monocoque frame, which is also mostly made in CAIC, China.

Since its launch in 2009, PAF has raised more than 115 aircraft. The long-awaited training aircraft were also built and were recently ceremonially installed in December 2020. The introduction ceremony was a mere formality, as most of the instructor aircraft are non-operational.

There are five JF-17 operational squadrons and one in the Combat Command School, which PAF overestimates as a sixth Squadron.

Possibly a seventh training squadron would have been formed by upgrading the version of the training aircraft. The aircraft is available in two blocks or variants. A third block, which is supposed to be more advanced with better avionics and AESA radar, is still under development

A modern fighter requires the presence of reliable systems on board with minimal maintenance problems. The ability of the aircraft is judged by the avionics, weapons and engine that equip it, and the JF-17 fails to pass the desired limit in these areas.

This was detected on February 27, 2019, during its poor performance against the Mirage-2000 and SU-30 of the Indian Air Force, during an IAF retaliatory effort targeting a Pakistani terrorist organization.

In air defense, the domestic Link-17 data connection is not simply unreliable, but it does not have an adequate data transfer rate and can in no way be integrated into the Link-16 of the F-16 fighter to provide the aircraft with real interoperability capability

The "Thunderbolt" does not even have an effective BVR or airborne Interceptor radar.

While propaganda fanfare promoted it as PAF's next best fighter after the F-16, its remarkably low endurance, poor accuracy and low weapon carrying capacity were

widely demonstrated on February 27, 2019, with all range Extension Kit (REK) bombs failing to hit the target in the face of effective Indian fighter interference.

This has recently been publicly accepted by the country's politicians, and PAF's miserable excuse has been that REK bombs are a symbolic "reaction" with no intention of inflicting casualties, a fact particularly hard to believe.

The heart of JF-17 avionics is the KLJ-7 Al (WMMC) radar management & weapons delivery computer, systems that have been tainted by serious problems. KLJ-7 Radar has multiple functions, but shows degraded behavior and faces several operational &maintenance problems since the start

Despite the fact that the Nanjing Electronic Technology Research Institute promotes recommendations for its improvement, the radar still experiences high failure rates. WMMC has limited capacity and a high failure rate of some of its modules, including the host module.

The wmmc malfunction has caused air-to-air missile launch zones to shrink beyond visual range during combat exercises. Because of its unreliability, the PAC is now trying to intervene in the WMMCs.

The weapon load that the aircraft can carry is also not noticeable.built-in 23 mm weapon initially encountered air jams, later appeared to present further problems. In addition to the Chinese missile SD-10 BVR, REK and C-802AK, carries the conventional weapons load of a MiG-21.

Attempts to integrate the aircraft with other Chinese weapons are underway, but with limited success. One of the main reasons for the weak performance of the JF-17 is because the aircraft has a single Russian RD-93 engine and is known

for its repeated breakdowns and poor reliability since its creation.

The poor state of operability of RD-93 engines is a weak area, and PAF has repeatedly expressed serious concerns in China about the quality of maintenance and the high cost of repairing the engines

Recently, China has also faced problems supplying spare parts for the engine from Russia because of embargo imposed financial transactions. The engine cannot come directly from Pakistan or be further exported from it. China plans to replace with a Chinese WS-13 under development.

future Chinese support for RD-93 may not be immediately available as China would like operators to replace RD-93 with WS-13. The high rate of inoperability, repeated blows to the engine and poor supply of spare parts,

make the JF-17 aircraft expensive and a less reliable platform., while reducing overall the availability of fighter jets.

PAF presented the aircraft in major air shows, however, the presentation during the Paris Air Show in 2019 was inadequate, especially in the low-speed flight. Thus, as the JF-17 turned out to be an indifferent construction,

China, pushing for its development, does not import a single unit of the type, preferring the more capable J-10 fighter,

whose market is now considering Pakistan. Although it's cheap at its original 2018 Price at $ 25 million per fighter jet, with the Pakistani rupee devalued by nearly 30% last year, it would ultimately cost much higher.

Moreover, with the inability of the Government of Pakistan to strengthen its financial situation, any new client of JF-17 would find it extremely difficult to obtain material and back-up support that Pakistan has to obtain from China.

Pakistan's financial problems led to bankruptcy of its payments to China for the JF-17 project with a large outstanding amount of more than a few hundred million dollars.

Even if China is able to supply these spare parts, it will do so at exorbitant prices that escalate every year, as it does with Pakistan. Pakistan has spent more than 3 billion US dollars to acquire these 3.5 generation fighters

Whether these costs were really worth it is a question for Pakistani taxpayers to ask.