Pakistan Air Force | News & Discussions

Yes, like having ejection seats :D
Over 140 unique modifications and upgrades were made by PAC to the F 6
eg

Avionics & Displays: Integration of western avionics systems and gun cameras into the cockpit.
Armament Upgrades: Modifications to carry western and French weapons, including the AIM-9B/J/P Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and French 68mm SNEB rocket pods.
Fuel & Endurance: Addition of an underbelly gondola-style (integral) fuel tank. They also tested larger drop tanks.
Safety Improvements: Installation of Martin-Baker ejection seats for improved pilot survivability.
Electronic Warfare: Placement of the EW antennae behind the cockpit for enhanced threat detection and survivability.
Ground Support: Implementation of a special ground power unit that bypassed internal start procedures, enabling significantly faster engine starts and quicker scramble times.

The list goes on and on...but i hope u get the picture.
 
Over 140 unique modifications and upgrades were made by PAC to the F 6
eg

Avionics & Displays: Integration of western avionics systems and gun cameras into the cockpit.
Armament Upgrades: Modifications to carry western and French weapons, including the AIM-9B/J/P Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and French 68mm SNEB rocket pods.
Fuel & Endurance: Addition of an underbelly gondola-style (integral) fuel tank. They also tested larger drop tanks.
Safety Improvements: Installation of Martin-Baker ejection seats for improved pilot survivability.
Electronic Warfare: Placement of the EW antennae behind the cockpit for enhanced threat detection and survivability.
Ground Support: Implementation of a special ground power unit that bypassed internal start procedures, enabling significantly faster engine starts and quicker scramble times.

The list goes on and on...but i hope u get the picture.

Never knew about the EW bit. PAF really did try and make it into a poor mans Mirage 5!
 
Over 140 unique modifications and upgrades were made by PAC to the F 6
eg

Avionics & Displays: Integration of western avionics systems and gun cameras into the cockpit.
Armament Upgrades: Modifications to carry western and French weapons, including the AIM-9B/J/P Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and French 68mm SNEB rocket pods.
Fuel & Endurance: Addition of an underbelly gondola-style (integral) fuel tank. They also tested larger drop tanks.
Safety Improvements: Installation of Martin-Baker ejection seats for improved pilot survivability.
Electronic Warfare: Placement of the EW antennae behind the cockpit for enhanced threat detection and survivability.
Ground Support: Implementation of a special ground power unit that bypassed internal start procedures, enabling significantly faster engine starts and quicker scramble times.

The list goes on and on...but i hope u get the picture.
Never knew about the EW bit. PAF really did try and make it into a poor mans Mirage 5!
This isn't a technical issue, but rather an issue of economic balance.

Modern, advanced EW modules aren't cheap. Placing them on a very old fighter jet platform requires extensive adaptation upgrades and modifications. Is it worthwhile?

China has indeed converted a large number of J-6 fighter jets into drones. However, these conversions were limited to keeping the aircraft airborne and performing simple tasks, such as suicide bombing, improvised aerial bombing, or pure decoy missions.

Theoretically, converting these J-6 drones into other high-value drones wouldn't present any technical problems. But it simply isn't worthwhile.
 
This isn't a technical issue, but rather an issue of economic balance.

Modern, advanced EW modules aren't cheap. Placing them on a very old fighter jet platform requires extensive adaptation upgrades and modifications. Is it worthwhile?

China has indeed converted a large number of J-6 fighter jets into drones. However, these conversions were limited to keeping the aircraft airborne and performing simple tasks, such as suicide bombing, improvised aerial bombing, or pure decoy missions.

Theoretically, converting these J-6 drones into other high-value drones wouldn't present any technical problems. But it simply isn't worthwhile.

I think it was something more simple like a RWR, this was back in the 70s and 80S Michael
 
I think it was something more simple like a RWR, this was back in the 70s and 80S Michael
I'm not referring to a specific technology, but rather a way of thinking.

I still have a 2011 computer. I don't want to get rid of it. I want to upgrade it.

However, the old RAM it can use is now more expensive than the latest models. It can only use SATA SSDs… I replaced the graphics card with a newer one, but the motherboard chipset limits its performance.

Right now, I only use this computer for general purposes (completely abandoning upgrade plans). For more high-performance tasks, I use another computer. When this old computer becomes completely unusable someday, I will simply discard it.
 
I'm not referring to a specific technology, but rather a way of thinking.

I still have a 2011 computer. I don't want to get rid of it. I want to upgrade it.

However, the old RAM it can use is now more expensive than the latest models. It can only use SATA SSDs… I replaced the graphics card with a newer one, but the motherboard chipset limits its performance.

Right now, I only use this computer for general purposes (completely abandoning upgrade plans). For more high-performance tasks, I use another computer. When this old computer becomes completely unusable someday, I will simply discard it.
I understand your analogy and the PAF actually follows similar logic, they're still using almost 50 year old upgraded Mirage III fighters, because they serve a specific role. The PAF has always done this, try to extract the maximum value from their aircraft types, they didn't decommission the 50s era F86 Sabre until the early 80s, and the F6/A5 didn't retire until the early 2000s, aircraft that by any other measure should have long been placed in museums. But as you have said many times, sometimes it comes down to cost and financial reality, not being able to replace aircraft, we're not like China remember, we have limited resources.
 
So was F16s. PAF had evaluated F-16 before F-20s.

F-20s were being considered to supplement the F-16s in PAF not as a substitute.
As far as I recall, US wanted to give F20 to Pakistan instead of F16's, but Pakistan insisted on F16's and due to its front line role against Soviet Union in Afghanistan war, US finally approved it. I remember that Pakistan rejected the US aid offered by Jimmy Carter equating it to "Cumin in Camel's mouth". Our relations became stronger with Ronald Reagan getting in the white house and supported Pakistan with more military and financial support.
 
As far as I recall, US wanted to give F20 to Pakistan instead of F16's, but Pakistan insisted on F16's and due to its front line role against Soviet Union in Afghanistan war, US finally approved it. I remember that Pakistan rejected the US aid offered by Jimmy Carter equating it to "Cumin in Camel's mouth". Our relations became stronger with Ronald Reagan getting in the white house and supported Pakistan with more military and financial support.
There were several episodes.

In the late 70s and early 80s, the PAF was offered F-20 and F-16-79. PAF insisted on the standard F-16 and the US agreed.

Then after signing the F-16 contract, the PAF gave the F-20 another look as a possible F-6 replacement (120-180 units). F-20 seemed promising but Northrop was not ready for weapon tests and the PAF team evaluating it had to deem it inconclusive. Then the last F-20 prototype crashed and that killed the program.
 
Question is why does a Country like India face those issues? Its not like they can't afford them. They can easily poach people from Rolls Royce, GE, Safran and others to help out with their Kaveri engine issues. Not suggesting that it'll be easy and/or that i'd take 2-3 Years, but atleast they'd be on their way. I fail to understand what's their excuse...

Infact, it was recently (somewhat) brought up in the latest edition of: Ctrl Alt Defence

Already Time-stampted

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It's the "science and arts" of materials technology. It's no "Java" programming. You need countess hours and days of efforts by thousands burning an exorbitant amount of top $s. Strangely, the Turkish engineers "debugged" it at a very cost effective manner. How? A single act of Khush Aml, done with Iman and Ihlas, has a thousand Bereket in it.....
 

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