July 29, 2010: After twelve years of marketing and tinkering, a Chinese firm (CETC) has finally made a sale of its KG300G Airborne Self-Protection Jamming Pod, to the Chinese air force. It's not that the KG300G was not able to do the job (automatically detect enemy radars and jam them as needed), but that no one wanted to buy it. Prospective buyers didn't believe the Chinese could produce a jamming pod that was competitive with Western equipment. The Chinese Air Force was not interested because it was too expensive and the air force generals didn't believe their aircraft were in need of this sort of thing.
But as the air force has modernized in the past decade, the generals believed the time had come to equip some of their aircraft with a jamming pod, and the KG300G was the best one available to the Chinese. This may spur export sales, but until the KG300G functions effectively in combat, most foreign buyers will prefer the more expensive, and combat proven, Western gear.
