Pakistan Air Force | News & Discussions

1. There is no official agreement for J-35. Just 2-3 yrs old statement of CAS.
2. Did PAF announce its pilots being trained for J-35s? I am curious please share the link if you have.
3. Even if J-35 are to join PAF, they are not coming in next 2 years minimum as PLAAF needs to fulfil its own requirements and production hasn't entered in full swing yet.

So, be patient.

There was no official agreement for J-10C till they landed in Pak.....
 
There was no official agreement for J-10C till they landed in Pak.....
This thing was disclosed in 2022/2023, 1-2 years after contract signing, J-10 planes already in Pakistan and officially disclosed.
IMO:

PAF's plan to purchase FC-31/J-35 should be in the detailed negotiation stage. Including but not limited to:
1. Technical details. Subsystem selection and adaptation to PAF's existing systems...
2. Negotiation of sales price and payment method. This step may be slow.

When will the official announce the signing? It doesn't matter.
 
The STRATCOM Bureau
@OSPSF
Jul 27

Apologies in advance for a significantly longer response, meant to address a common misconception where most people judge the capability-addition of weapons on individual specifications rather than on reliability in assigned mission sets, availability, or the total/combined effect of its role in a larger operational strategy.

Short answer: We do have a larger conventional bomb than this for over twenty years years now. Ask the Indian Army base in Narian, Rajauri, IIOJK. They would know.

Now for the Longer Answer:

Larger size is not always a better missile, more speed doesn’t make one fighter jet better than the next. Ideally, every individual military assesses and decides on a unique munitions mix according to their own specific requirements and threat spectrum both laterally and vertically as well as operational domain and conventionality of the target enemy force. For example, Central African states mostly have their entire air forces comprised of attack helicopters, serving their needs quite well.

In their point of view, their old Russian gunships serve them better in their daily operational requirements of rapid, localised close air support (CAS)+COIN ops, as compared to giving them a cost-draining, stealth-focused, maintenance-heavy F-35.

Pakistan has a larger air-dropped munition than this one in active service, and has already used it in combat twice and successfully and that to against a hostile nuclear-armed state.

The AWC-NESCOM H-4 SOW, with a loadout weight on launch aircraft slightly over 1,200 kilograms or 2,650 lbs, and a Stand Off Weapon (SOW) range of 130 kilometres.

The Turkish GAZAP bomb is lighter/smaller at 970 kilograms or 2,000 pounds.

More Important to understand that these two are different bombs for different roles:

The GAZAP small-ranged, thermobaric bomb dispersing small fragmentation blasts, designed for a maximum area-wide damage to an undefended and open space.

Pakistan’s H-4 SOW, on the other hand, is a radar-evading, active-guided heavy glide bomb with terminally control capability via television guidance (TGM) or an active IIR seeker, designed for the long-ranged, surgical destruction of a hardened/reinforced, high-value target

It can be launched at a significant stand-off distance from the target location, maximising survivability even striking in and through fiercely-contested or heavily-saturated airspace.

Think of the ideal design role to be a high-value strike launching behind heavily-defended enemy territory and a contested airspace with layered air defence and target a single, mission-critical, hardened/reinforced target inside a military base having several similar targets via terminal piloted guidance.

The Pakistan Air Force prioritises precision airstrikes and assured, accurate hits on critical targets/nodes to build a combined, maximum effective operational damage to the enemy.
We do not have an operational requirement or a realistic set of such open area targets with reasonable military-use to justify an air-slugged heavy munition with zero control on collateral damages once detonation begins.

PAF also has air dropped cluster-munitions for anti-personnel/armour clearance area clearance but that is meant for war-fighting conventional forces of a near-pear adversary.

For maximum area damage to lightly-armoured targets/unprotected enemy assets in unreinforced structures, launched outside of enemy borders, we can utilise long-ranged guided rocket artillery, glide and cruise missiles.

For a larger, base-wide denial and strike operation we could use a combination of loitering munitions, very long ranged guided rockets and missiles, JDAM waves, anti-runway bombs, a specifically-calculated number of long-range glide bombs, air-launched precision-strike cruise missiles with combinations of blast-fragmentation, penetration, and pre-fragmentation warheads, and of course combinations of mobile tactical ballistic missiles and hypersonic, air-launched missiles.
 
IMO:

PAF's plan to purchase FC-31/J-35 should be in the detailed negotiation stage. Including but not limited to:
1. Technical details. Subsystem selection and adaptation to PAF's existing systems...
2. Negotiation of sales price and payment method. This step may be slow.

When will the official announce the signing? It doesn't matter.
Because it's not happening
 

How Pakistan shot down Indian jets with Chinese tech​


World's largest air battle in decades saw 110 aircraft clash in a one-hour night fight, experts estimate

Reuters
August 02, 2025


rafale fighter jet taxis on the tarmac during its induction ceremony at an air force station in ambala india september 10 2020 photo reuters


Rafale fighter jet taxis on the tarmac during its induction ceremony at an air force station in Ambala, India, September 10, 2020.PHOTO: REUTERS

Just after midnight on May 7, the screen in the Pakistan Air Force's operations room lit up in red with the positions of dozens of active enemy planes across the border in India.

Air Chief Mshl. Zaheer Sidhu had been sleeping on a mattress just off that room for days in anticipation of an Indian assault.

New Delhi had claimed Islamabad for backing militants who carried out an attack the previous month in Indian Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians. Despite Islamabad denying any involvement, India had vowed a response, which came in the early hours of May 7 with air strikes on Pakistan.

Sidhu ordered Pakistan's prized Chinese-made J-10C jets to scramble. A senior Pakistani Air Force (PAF) official, who was present in the operations room, said Sidhu instructed his staff to target Rafales, a French-made fighter that is the jewel of India's fleet and had never been downed in battle.

"He wanted Rafales," said the official.

The hour-long fight, which took place in darkness, involved some 110 aircraft, experts estimate, making it the world's largest air battle in decades.

The J-10s shot down at least one Rafale, Reuters reported in May, citing US officials. However Pakistan downed at least 6 jet aircraft in the war. Its downing surprised many in the military community and raised questions about the effectiveness of Western military hardware against untested Chinese alternatives.

Shares of Dassault, which makes the Rafale, dipped after reports the fighter had been shot down. Indonesia, which has outstanding Rafale orders, has said it is now considering purchasing J-10s – a major boost to China’s efforts to sell the aircraft overseas.

But Reuters interviews with two Indian officials and three of their Pakistani counterparts found that the performance of the Rafale wasn't the key problem: Central to its downing was an Indian intelligence failure concerning the range of the China-made PL-15 missile fired by the J-10 fighter. China and Pakistan are the only countries to operate both J-10s, known as Vigorous Dragons, and PL-15s.

The faulty intelligence gave the Rafale pilots a false sense of confidence they were out of Pakistani firing distance, which they believed was only around 150 km, the Indian officials said, referring to the widely cited range of PL-15's export variant.
 

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