The Flight of JF-17

Prasun K. Sengupta

Three Pakistan Air Force (PAF) JF-17A Thunder Light-MRCAs participated in the expo, following their first appearance at Le Bourget back in 2015. Presently, the last three JF-17A Block-2s are on the Aircraft Manufacturing Factory’s (AMF) final assembly line at the Kamra-based Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), which will eventually equip a seventh operational squadron of the PAF later this year.

JF-17 Thunder of Pakistan Air Force during Paris Air Show 2019 © www.pid.gov.pk

Meanwhile, the first JF-17 has undergone a major overhaul at PAC Kamra’s Aircraft Repair Factory, and there is a tandem-seat JF-17B operational conversion trainer, 17-601, now undergoing test and evaluation at the AMF. A decision from the PAF on new-design active phased-array multi-mode radar (AESA-MMR) for the Block-3 JF-17s is pending and is expected by this November, followed by its first evaluation sortie early next year. Then, under contracts that were signed in late-2017, the AMF will assemble 50 Block-3 JF-17s and 26 JF-17Bs. Next year, the Air Engineering Depot No.102 at PAF Base Faisal will start overhauling the JF-17’s Klimov RD-93 turbofans.

After the PAF’s February 27 confrontation with the Indian Air Force (IAF), known in Pakistan as Operation Swift Retort, the PAF’s Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan had said in mid-April that ‘the aircraft performed very well against the IAF’s Mirage-2000s and MiG-21 Bisons’.

On the export front, Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC) has so far delivered six FC-1s (four single-seaters and two dual seaters) to the Myanmar Air Force, while the PAC has sold three JF-17As to Nigeria, and these should be delivered after the pilots are trained in Pakistan. Sales and marketing of the JF-17 have been split between PAC and China National Aero-Technology Import-Export Corp (CATIC) since 2015. CATIC is engaged in discussions with Egypt on the sale of FC-1 Block-3s, while PAC continues to talk to Malaysia.

More than 100 JF-17s have now come off the AMF’s final-assembly line, where t