Faani83
Registered Member
This week on Radar Mode, Qasim Ovais sits down with Squadron Leader (Retired) Ali Hamza — a 20-year Pakistan Air Force fighter pilot and instructor, Gold Medalist in Defense and Strategic Studies, MPhil in International Relations, and the man behind AeronautIR. His recent article "The F-4 Phantom Fallacy," is a sharp challenge to the idea that drones have made manned airpower obsolete — and today he brings that same skepticism to a wide-ranging conversation on where Pakistani airpower is actually headed.We cover the debate over whether Pakistan's next fighter is a genuine clean-sheet leap or a patch on existing limitations, the hard engineering problem of fusing legacy sensor networks with next-generation stealth assets, and whether the push toward 5th-generation platforms is being driven by doctrine or by desperation. From there we get into the uncomfortable economics of modern air defense — what it actually costs to shoot down a cheap threat with an expensive interceptor, and why that math might be unsustainable for every air force in the region, not just Pakistan's. We also talk about the drone debate head-on: whether unmanned systems are a genuine revolution or an overhyped accessory, what Pakistan's private defense sector needs to actually compete, and how pilot training itself has to evolve when the cockpit of the future may involve managing swarms rather than just flying solo.Along the way, Sqn Ldr Hamza shares stories and perspective from two decades in the cockpit and years of writing and analysis since — grounding a very technical conversation in real experience, real judgment calls, and 20 years of exemplary service to the nation.
