Pakistan in negotiation to buy 36 J-10s, priced at $25~40 million each

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Hamilcar 11/9/2009 12:35:05 PM

Why do the Americans need what they already probably have?

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SlowMan 11/9/2009 12:58:25 PM

@ Hamilcar

> Why do the Americans need what they already probably have?

The US DoD most certainly not have hands-on information on J-10. The US acquires such information only when they get their hands on the hostile aircraft, either by purchasing the aircraft or examining them at friendly nations that have them.

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Hamilcar 11/9/2009 1:07:06 PM

@ Hamilcar

> Why do the Americans need what they already probably have?

Don't be naive. Who do you think actually keeps the Pakistani government leadership alive and trains the Pakistani air force?

And don't tell ME how the USAF acquires foreign technology, when you don't even know how the RoKAF works.

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SlowMan 11/9/2009 2:06:00 PM

@ Hamilcar

> Who do you think actually keeps the Pakistani government leadership alive and trains the Pakistani air force?

That's why I said the US could get some detailed hands-on info on J-10 when Pakistan buys some.
Until now, only Chinese airforce operated J-10 and there was no way for the US to put its hands on it.

> And don't tell ME how the USAF acquires foreign technology

Let us recall the inception of F-15. F-15 was designed to match or exceed the supposed spec of Mig-25 collected from intelligence operation, which was supposed to be super-agile and be loaded with latest high-tech technology. Not until the US got its hands on an actual example via the defection of Viktor Belenko did the US realize that the intelligence was wrong.

Pakistani acquisition of the J-10 would be the first time USAF officials could actually examine and probably "fly" J-10 in person.

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Hamilcar Will you learn? 11/9/2009 2:22:31 PM

Few accept your false interpretation of events and accept that you have something credible to say. Even your news stories you post you get wrong.

The F-15 myth that it was designed to fight Foxbats is an interesting one that gets a lot of play. The F-15 was actually designed to fight PRIOR TO THE FOXBAT, based on USAF VIETNAM experience with missiles and guns, Slowman. Again you don't know what you discuss.

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SlowMan 11/9/2009 2:38:53 PM

@ Hamilcar

> The F-15 was actually designed to fight PRIOR TO THE FOXBAT

Mig-25 entered into picture in 1967, around the same time USAF was drawing up F-15 requirements. A quick search on the subjects and published books disprove your false claim that F-15 design process had nothing to do with Mig-25's reported performance. The US was genuinely concerned by Mig-25 and was desperate to obtain an example for analysis.

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Hamilcar 11/9/2009 3:45:29 PM

@ Hamilcar

> The F-15 was actually designed to fight PRIOR TO THE FOXBAT

You just prove my case and then claim that you disproved my case. What was happening in 1967, Slowman? Care to enlighten me? No, don't bother, since you just will wind up not being correct.

FACTS.....

The Mig 25 was introduced in 1970. Wide-spread squadron service was 1976. First flight (crash) was 1964. First official copy passed into US hands about 1976.

Eagle was originally designed in 1964-1965. Final design was 1967-1969 after energy maneuver studies (*Vietnam war operational experience and research or why were we getting killed by Mig 17s and 19s ) made a hash of the 1964 missile shover proposals (Note that the Foxbat was a missile shover?). Introduced 1974 onward.

In summary, Slowman, you are in error. You do not know what you discuss. You don't even have your dates right.

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SlowMan 11/9/2009 3:59:50 PM

@ Hamilcar

> You just prove my case

Actually you just proved my case and showed how clueless you are.

> What was happening in 1967, Slowman?

The US was already spotting Mig-25 prototypes by then and factored Mig-25 into F-15 design considerations.

> The Mig 25 was introduced in 1970.

And Israelis were busy shooting at them in 1971.

> Eagle was originally designed in 1964-1965.

The USAF was drawing up its F-15 requirements in 1967 after the split from VFX, when the first reports of Mig-25 was in hands.

> Introduced 1974 onward.

First flight in July 27, 1972, introduced January 9, 1976.

> In summary, Slowman, you are in error.

Look who's in error.

> You do not know what you discuss. You don't even have your dates right.

Look who's the one with wrong dates.

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Hamilcar I am looking at him. 11/9/2009 4:31:09 PM

Quit trying to google wiki. It won't help you.

data....

Operational History

The USAF introduced the F-15 as ?the first dedicated USAF air superiority fighter since the F-86 Sabre.?

The first F-15A flight was made in July 1972 with the its two-seater brother designed for training purposes, the F-15B, following in July 1973.

Around 365 F-15A?s and 61 F-15B?s were produced between 1972 and 1979, at which point, the revised F-15C and the two-seat F-15D entered service.

========================================

More data....

F-15 Eagle

In the spring of 1966 Boyd got orders for transfer to Thailand as an F-4 Phantom pilot, which was exactly what Boyd wanted. Air war over Vietnam was hot, but the U.S. forces weren?t doing that well. In 1965 the Americans lost 171 aircraft. To cut the losses, F-4C Phantoms were ordered to fly top cover for the F-105s, but the F-4C was too big and heavy for dogfights against the more maneuverable small MiGs. There was no gun in the Phantom and the launch envelope for the early Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles was so small that a pilot had to be extremely proficient to get into a firing position. Boyd?s orders to Thailand were suddenly cancelled and instead he was ordered to Pentagon in the summer of 1966. The Air Force?s F-X fighter program was in trouble.

The troubled F-X programme was a statement to the ?Bigger-Higher-Faster-Farther? thinking in the U.S. Air Force. U.S. Navy played its role when the admirals succeeded in fooling Secretary of Defense McNamara by promising that the Navy would accept the Air Force F-111 if the Navy continue the development of their new TF30 jet engine and the Phoenix missile. The Navy plan was to play another year while waiting for the carrier compatibility of the F-111 and then turn down the aircraft and go to Congress and tell that the service already has a jet engine and a missile and now with the money allocated to the F-111 they could develop a new Navy fighter. This fighter would be the F-14 Tomcat and the Air Force was in danger in getting one more Navy-designed fighter into its inventory. Boyd was brought to Pentagon to save the Air Force F-X fighter from the Navy ploys.

U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center

The F-X had been trimmed down to 62.500 pounds, but it was still overweight, too complex, too expensive and had a too small wing. The aircraft was planned to be a multirole fighter. Boyd wanted a smaller single-engine maneuverable air-to-air fighter, which had better thrust-to-weight ratio than any other aircraft in the world. The fighter could dump and regain energy faster than other fighters. Boyd wanted an aircraft that would rule the skies for decades to come.

The F-X was the first U.S. fighter ever designed with maneuvering and E-M specifications with dogfighting in mind. Some might say that the WWII P-51 Mustang and F-86 Sabre were pure fighters, but that is not the case since they were not designed with dogfighting in mind. The Mustang was designed for range and speed and it became the premier WWII fighter because the Brits changed the power plant into a bigger Rolls-Royce engine. The F-86 was designed as a high-altitude interceptor with big wings and because of the large wing area became an excellent maneuvering fighter, which was not a design criteria.

Boyd wanted the F-X to outmaneuver all enemy fighters. He didn?t set any single performance numbers for the fighter regarding top speed or turning capability. Instead Boyd wanted the aircraft to have a high thrust-to-weight ratio to achieve excellent acce

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sentinel28a 11/9/2009 4:57:42 PM

Getting back on topic...

I don't think the US' interest in the J-10 goes far beyond curiousity. Sure, it would be nice to get in a J-10 and fly it around a bit (because all fighter jocks take a professional interest in everyone else's stuff, especially a potential enemy), but what technology does the J-10 have that the US isn't already aware of? The J-10 was based loosely on the Lavi, an Israeli design built with a great deal of input from US companies.

In theory, there is no Cold War between the US and the PRC--Chinese officials regularly visit American military bases and vice-versa. Sure, we're not going to see Chinese officials getting to tour the deep-black places like Groom Lake, and vice-versa, but the J-10 is hardly a supersecret piece of hardware--even more so if China is now exporting it. There's nothing stopping a USAF liasion officer or air attache asking for a ride in a J-10. The J-10 is equal in tech to the Super Hornet (in theory, anyway), and I'm quite sure a Chinese liasion or air attache could wangle a ride in one of those. Even if the PLAAF refuses, getting our hands on a J-10 would be fun and nice, but it's not necessary.

The MiG-25 is a poor analogy. The Soviets always kept their cards close to their chests, due to paranoia and the very real fear that the US would find out just how more advanced American tech was. (The balance of power during the Cold War depended on the US believing the USSR was just as advanced and dangerous as we were, when in truth it was usually much weaker. For instance, the Soviets couldn't hit the continental US until Khrushchev moved missiles into Cuba.) Therefore, it suited them to play up the Foxbat as being far more than it was. We know the J-10's capabilities; we didn't with the MiG-25 and had to assume the worst. We had been caught out twice in underestimating the Soviets in the MiG-15 and (to a lesser extent) the MiG-21, and didn't want to get blindsided a third time.

I disagree with Hamlicar slightly. While American aircraft designers accepted that anything that could go Mach 3 wouldn't be able to turn worth a damn--and given what was known about Soviet metallurgy, the engines would get shredded above Mach 2.5--there was always the possibility that the Soviets had found something that we didn't know. Hamlicar's definitely right that the F-15's design was based more on the lessons of Vietnam than a direct counter to the Foxbat, but certainly the fears that the Foxbat might just be as good as the Russians were claiming was added into the mix. The result was the F-15 was able to absorb both lessons, and be more than a match for anything the Soviets had or might have.

Viktor Belenko recounts in MiG Pilot (a great book, BTW) that he and his buddies used to look at intel reports on the F-14 and F-15 and just be blown away. The idea that a Tomcat driver could lock onto their Foxbat at 130 miles and fire a Phoenix that stood a good chance of actually killing them at that range bothered them immensely; the idea that their only defense against a F-15 was to run wasn't much consolation either.

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