Paul Lewis/ISLAMABAD
Pakistan plans to order around 50 improved Chengdu F-7MG fighters from China, as the air force moves ahead with the upgrade of its existing F-7P and Dassault Mirage III/5 fighters and the delivery of more secondhand French aircraft.
The Pakistan air force (PAF) is looking for F-7s to replace its two remaining squadrons of elderly Nanchang F-6s, which its plans to phase out in the next three years. A final go-ahead for an F-7MG order hinges on completing flight trials of the fighter's improved radar.
Chengdu has updated the F-7 with the installation of the multi-mode pulse-Doppler Super Skyranger radar in place of the earlier GEC-Marconi Type 226 ranging-only system. Pakistan has test flown the radar twice and has asked Marconi Electronic Systems to refine the system for low-level (below 1,500 ft (460m)) use, which was not part of the original Chinese PLA air force specification.
Alenia is proposing an improved +/-20 deg scan version of the Fiar Grifo 7 radar for the F-7MG as an alternative. The new version would address the +/-10 í azimuth limitations of the current Grifo 7 development. Pakistan plans to upgrade 100 of its F-7Ps with the new radar by 2000.
Grifo 7 flight trials have been underway since 1996, but were delayed as the Italian company struggled to miniaturise the system to fit the F-7. "What we were looking for was a radar-off-the-shelf.....a simple adaption of a fully developed radar, but that didn't happen." says an official.
A larger Grifo M version of the radar is being test flown on a Pakistani Mirage III and has also been the subject of software and hardware delays. The programme is near to completion and the PAF hopes to begin modifying 33 ex-Australian air force Mirage IIIEA/DA from mid-1999.
The initial phase, completed in June last year, entailed fitting the aircraft with a new Sagem head-up display, navigation/attack avionics and hands-on-throttle-and-stick controls.
The PAF plans a similar upgrade plus an enhanced night attack capability for around half of the 40 Mirage IIIEF/DF fighters being acquired from France.
Source: Flight International
