ASIAN DEFENCE

China made it official this week that J-20 is coming to Zhuhai air show. All of this is quite interesting when one compares this to how long before J-10 made its first visit to Zhuhai Air Show. Clearly, China has taken a more confident and transparent approach in its military programs in the past 10 years. At this point, J-20 has started Low rate initial production batches, but has yet to achieve IOC. To that end, AVIC must be confident enough in the progress of flight-testing program to allow J-20 to appear in China’s most prominent aerospace exhibition. A couple of years ago, PAK-FA had an epic failure when one of the prototypes had fire damage while delivering a flight performance in front of IAF officials. Certainly, the pilots were most likely instructed to put on a show to impress PAK-FA’s largest export client, but the aircraft was also clearly not up to task. The result of that embarrassing incident was extensive delays in the flight-testing program while that prototype was ...

China will deploy its naval vessels in coordination with the Pakistan Navy to safeguard the Gwadar port in Balochistan and trade under a bilateral trade corridor, according to a media report on Friday. Besides the joint deployment of warships, Pakistan is considering the purchase of super-fast vessels from China and Turkey for a special squadron to be positioned at Gwadar to secure the deep sea port, an unnamed Pakistan Navy official was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune. “A squadron may have four to six warships,” the official said on the sidelines of the IDEAS 2016 defence exhibition in Karachi. The super-fast vessels would be “bought soon” in view of their immediate need in the fleet and two warships had already been deployed at Gwadar, the official said. The role of Pakistan’s maritime forces had increased since the country made Gwadar operational and expedited up economic activities under the $46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the official said. ...

KARACHI: Pakistan Air Force signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a French company on technical collaboration in production of JF-17 Thunder jets during the ongoing IDEAS 2016 defence expo on Thursday. As per the MoU, the French company will provide technical assistance to Pakistan Air Force for electrification of JF-17 Thunder jets. Air Commodore Waqar Haider signed the said MoU with the French company. Earlier at the expo Pakistan also signed an agreement with Turkey to sell 52 Super Mushak basic trainers and is preparing Super Mushak jets for Nigeria and Qatar.

At IDEAS 2016 Leonardo showcases its Vixen 1000E with IFF and SkyWard. Vixen 1000E is a high performance AESA radar designed for fighter/interceptor aircraft building on over 60 years of Selex ES’s fire control radar experience. At IDEAS 2016, Leonardo showcases the Vixen 1000E radar coupled with the company's SkyWard infrared search & track system and the Selex ES SIT426 Active Electronically Scanned Identification Friend-or-Foe (E-Scan IFF). Vixen 1000E features an innovative roll-repositionable AESA antenna to provide a full ±100º field of regard allowing maximum situational awareness and platform survivability. This Wide Field of Regard (WFoR) allows the aircraft to turn away after missile launch, whilst still maintaining datalinks to the missile. The AESA antenna is coupled to fully digital multi-channel exciter/receiver and processor Line Replaceable Units (LRUs). These provide a comprehensive mode suite which includes air-to-air, air-to-surface, interleaved and su...