W.E.B. Du Bois
04-18-2012, 11:33 PM
There are several generations of fighters in terms of their combat performance. The J-10 is the Chinese equivalent of an F-16. The J-7: a Russian Mig-21. J-10 is fourth generation, J-7: third generation. China had been working on J-10 ever since the 1980's and it wanted to replace most of its air force with J-10's, however due to continued difficulties in producing the WS-10 engine which powers the J-10, and due to the high costs of the J-10, China has gone back to the old, upgrading the Vietnam War era Mig-21 with modern radar, avionics and links to airborne radar. It is a quaint solution and while surely it marks the difficulties of the J-10 program, it also shows a pragmatism in Chinese governance that is sorely lacking in India; which had an extremely lengthy program to replace their Mig-21's that to this day is still being delayed, and even when successful will have to simply import French Rafale fighters into India, rather than importing a fighter which they will be taught to build in the future.
According to a Russian press release (which are always dubious because Russia does not have a free press) a rumored deal with China over a modernized Su-27 (Su-35) has fallen through. This occurred probably because China just wanted the technology and didn't want to buy enough numbers of the actual plane to make it worthwhile to Russia.
http://cnair.top81.cn/fighter/J-7G.jpg
Since this plane is optimized to fire infrared missiles (which are short range), it seems to me that J-7G is only able to fight at close range and would probably be easy prey for any aircraft that can fire a medium range missile. I also doubt J-7G has electronic countermeasures to defend itself from an incoming missile. The plane might therefore be called cannon fodder to fill up the air space and take hits for China's better aircraft.
According to a Russian press release (which are always dubious because Russia does not have a free press) a rumored deal with China over a modernized Su-27 (Su-35) has fallen through. This occurred probably because China just wanted the technology and didn't want to buy enough numbers of the actual plane to make it worthwhile to Russia.
http://cnair.top81.cn/fighter/J-7G.jpg
Since this plane is optimized to fire infrared missiles (which are short range), it seems to me that J-7G is only able to fight at close range and would probably be easy prey for any aircraft that can fire a medium range missile. I also doubt J-7G has electronic countermeasures to defend itself from an incoming missile. The plane might therefore be called cannon fodder to fill up the air space and take hits for China's better aircraft.