j_hungary
Professional
People need to understand that it's one thing to have a platform fully ready and it's another thing for them to be exported.
Let's assume J-31/J-35 was already fully developed, that does not mean it could be incorporated into any Air Force other than the Chinese, because there are a lot of sustainment operation you need to do in order to operate it, it's not just China dumping these fighter in Pakistan and tell you to deal with it.
Then it come the economic issue, would China give these fighter to Pakistan for free? These airframe is by no mean cheap, and you would need the entire sustainment model whether or not you have 4 airframes or 40, so the notion of China just "gifting" some airframe to Pakistan is probably going to be illogical, because you still need to establish an entire food chain for the platform. From pilot management, inventory management to logistic sustainment. And those cost are exponentially more expensive than just a couple of airframe
On the other hand, the entire development of J-31 is in question here, you need more than 1 prototype because every time you try to make a progress in its development, you will need to make a new prototype, A-10 made a single prototype from switching from 20mm to 30mm gatling gun.......And there are no point to make a prototype if you are not flying it, and if you fly it, people are going to know, gone is the day when you can just close off airspace and you can keep the development secret. If there are more of them then people are going to know, and wave are going to make, nothing is known highly suggested said item does not exist.
Can China be developing the entire project in absolute secrecy? Sure, but the chances are the bigger the project is, the more people will know, so that chance is more align to the chance I hit the lotto tomorrow. And some one mention we only know about F-22 in 1997 when they enter service when they are developed in 1988. If we are talking about what an F-22 actually look like, yes, it only show up in 1997 when we know what it was, but the public had known the Advance Tactical Fighter program (Which the F-22 came from) at least since early 1990
Let's assume J-31/J-35 was already fully developed, that does not mean it could be incorporated into any Air Force other than the Chinese, because there are a lot of sustainment operation you need to do in order to operate it, it's not just China dumping these fighter in Pakistan and tell you to deal with it.
Then it come the economic issue, would China give these fighter to Pakistan for free? These airframe is by no mean cheap, and you would need the entire sustainment model whether or not you have 4 airframes or 40, so the notion of China just "gifting" some airframe to Pakistan is probably going to be illogical, because you still need to establish an entire food chain for the platform. From pilot management, inventory management to logistic sustainment. And those cost are exponentially more expensive than just a couple of airframe
On the other hand, the entire development of J-31 is in question here, you need more than 1 prototype because every time you try to make a progress in its development, you will need to make a new prototype, A-10 made a single prototype from switching from 20mm to 30mm gatling gun.......And there are no point to make a prototype if you are not flying it, and if you fly it, people are going to know, gone is the day when you can just close off airspace and you can keep the development secret. If there are more of them then people are going to know, and wave are going to make, nothing is known highly suggested said item does not exist.
Can China be developing the entire project in absolute secrecy? Sure, but the chances are the bigger the project is, the more people will know, so that chance is more align to the chance I hit the lotto tomorrow. And some one mention we only know about F-22 in 1997 when they enter service when they are developed in 1988. If we are talking about what an F-22 actually look like, yes, it only show up in 1997 when we know what it was, but the public had known the Advance Tactical Fighter program (Which the F-22 came from) at least since early 1990
