Suspected Saudi pilot pilot of Dragon fighter jet

Recently, according to Pakistan's International News reported that the Saudi Royal Air Force commander Mohammed al-S. This. Salle. Al. In front of the media, Khatabi announced that he was considering buying a large number of "Dragon" fighter jets from Pakistan. As early as the 27th after the India-Pakistan war, the Saudis sent F-15 fighter pilots to Pakistan to test-drive the light fighter jointly developed by China and Pakistan, it can be seen that the Saudis are extremely interested in this fighter.

Typhoon fighter aircraft of the Saudi Air Force

On February 27th, a small air war broke out between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, which ended in India's 2-0 defeat and the downing of two MiG-21 fighter jets. As we all know, Saudi Arabia is an oil-producing country, generally only buy expensive do not buy the right, the Saudi Air Force a water F-15 fighter and Typhoon fighter, even the F-16 is the top U.S. model, suddenly announced the purchase of dragon fighter let many military fans surprised.

The Dragon fighter has a deep power in pneumatic design

In fact, the Saudi procurement of dragon fighter aircraft is not surprising, dragon gives the first impression is cheap, after all, Pakistan's first dragon bare metal purchase price is only 8 million U.S. dollars, which is the third generation of fighter is simply cabbage price, but this does not think that the dragon's combat power can not. Although the dragon was developed on the basis of the "Super 7" project (super 7 is the depth improvement of MiG 21), but the project later and MiG 21 has virtually no relationship, Cheng Fei took over the Dragon project when the main direction on the pneumatic design.

Huge edge design

First of all, the Dragon fighter is the world's first production aircraft equipped with DSI intake channel, greatly reducing the weight of the body, the use of large side strip design (F-18 fighter aircraft classic design), coupled with a deep body design and manufacturing skills, resulting in the dragon volume although relatively large, but the actual weight is not India's LCA heavy, mobility in the same class outstanding, you can see that its body design itself is extremely advanced (manufacturing process, mobility, cost perfect balance), But this is not the most important reason for the Saudis to see the dragon, the dragon's biggest feature is upgradeability.

The F-20 fell into the body space

There are many products in the light fighter market, the most successful of which is the F-5 "poor fighter", but Northrop in the launch of the successor F-20 and F-16 competitive export market share, because of the small body space, poor upgradeability and other shortcomings, suffered Waterloo. Dragon fighter aircraft in this point fully absorbed the shortcomings of the predecessors, upgradeability in the three generations of light fighter aircraft no one can be out of the right, even sweden's Eagle Lion can not, its radar cover size than all light fighter aircraft, or even more than the French wind fighter. At the same time, "Dragon" also learned from the successful experience of F-16 exports, for the Dragon to create a set of personalized upgrade system, according to different customers can quickly launch products in line with customer expectations.

The air-cooled phased array radar shown in the 607

At present, Pakistan confirmed on the latest Dragon Block III batch that it is equipped with 14 KLJ-7A liquid-cooled active phased array radars, belonging to high-end products, the performance is basically similar to the latest five-generation AESA radars in the United States. If customers purchase some of the old-fashioned dragon performance want to significantly upgrade, China also has a solution, this is 607 LKF601E air-cooled active phased array radar, this radar also debuted at the 2018 Zhuhai Air Show, the entire system is extremely lightweight, old-fashioned dragon basically do not have to modify the electrical design, the old radar can be removed directly to install.

Dragons may continue to write the F-5 legend

Of course, no matter how advanced a fighter aircraft, just blowing with the mouth is no way to show customers, the best way is to participate in the actual combat test, and this dragon also did. According to Pakistani news, in the air war on the 27th, the dragon shot down two MiG 21 in a row without any loss of its own, can be said to be free for the dragon hit a wave of advertising, which attracted the Eyes of Saudi Arabia.

Author: Engineer