Chief of Pakistan Air Force Zaheer Ahmed BaberHe has announced that his government will buy Fifth generation aircraft of Chinese manufacture and construction. Specifically, he announced that Islamabad was preparing a takeover stealth fighter FC-31, also known as Shenyang FC-31 Gyrfalcon. For many, it is a poor copy of the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth aircraft; For others, he is one of the American's Asian rivals F-35. If this operation materializes, Pakistan will become the It is the first Muslim country in the world to integrate a fifth-generation aircraft into its air force. It would also be the first operator of this fighter aircraft outside of China.
Although Pakistan has traditionally purchased and jointly developed fighter jets from China, the Pakistani high command's announcement is a new blow to its rival and neighbor India, with which it has had a territorial dispute for decades. Furthermore, this move upsets European manufacturers such as France with its brand new fighter jet Rafale, and Turkey – which is developing its own fifth-generation aircraft – from the juicy Asian market, where several governments have increased their defense budgets. It is a great success for China, as it has so far failed to sell the FC-31 – also known as J-31 – to another country Performance problems and poor engine thrust.
Pakistan – one of the nine nuclear powers – currently has an air fleet consisting of French Mirage III and Mirage 5 aircraft and that Chinese multi-role fighters J-7, JF-17 and J-10C from ChengduThe latter was considered the most advanced fighter aircraft in its inventory after its acquisition in 2022. Pakistan's defense ministry has not made clear how many FC-31s it will buy or what the delivery times are. It was also not disclosed what stage the acquisition is in.
Emperor Tufail, The analyst and former Pakistan Air Force pilot assures Defense News that managing “too many types of aircraft” “doesn’t make sense from a training and maintenance perspective.” The expert also emphasizes that Pakistan is facing a “pretty bleak” economic situation, which is why, he says, “a drastic reduction in spending is necessary.” In his opinion, good alternatives would be the JF-17, the J-10 and the F-16, which “can adequately play the role of air superiority.”
How is the FC-31?
Many analysts believe that the FC-31 was modeled on the F-35 design. Chinese hackers are said to have stolen several terabytes of data related to the F-35 program. So, Beijing would have copied the Lightning II radar design, the engine, the method used for gas cooling, leading and trailing edge treatments and contour maps for the aft deck heater.
Still, the FC-31's stealth capability, combined with its advanced Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar and advanced armament, “represents a significant advance over the JF-17 and J-10, not to mention the JF- 10.” 17,” explains Thomas Newdick in The WarZone.
The Chinese company Shenyang Aircraft Corporation has also developed an improved version of the J-31, known as the J-35.