Pakistan Air force's most advanced fighter jets are the F-16c block 52.
Pakistan Air force's most advanced fighter jets are the F-16c block 52.
This version of F-16 is also relatively expensive to operate.
At full after burner the jet consumes 11 litres of fuel per second. Operating costs are 8-10 thousand dollars per hour all including.
Pakistan has only 19 of these units and as a matter of policy only uses these very rarely and when absolutely necessary.
The workhorse of PAF F-16 fleet are the older F16 A&B units which have been with PAF since 1983 and PAF is one of the oldest continues user of F-16 outside the USA.
The A&B Versions may be old but pilots and technicians have decades of experience with the jets and know the jet inside out.
Old does not necessarily means bad and these older versions only cost 4-6 thousand dollars per hour all including.
PAF operates about 140 units of older F-16 A&B.
On comparison Indian Air force's most modern jets are their SU-30 MKI. India has about 187 units of the jet operational since 2002. The desired number is 222 units eventually.
Being a large twin engine jet the operating costs are very high at 23000 USD per hour. The upcoming Rafale for IAF will have even higher operating costs at 28000 USD per hour.
The contact with Russia about spares was not very well done and many critical parts take too much time to arrive. Likewise the transfer of technology about assembly and manufacturing certain parts in India also has problems. Because there are businesses involved in the process and money has to be made. Likewise being a large jet, the aircraft needs lots of man hours for maintenance and turnaround time is not too quick.
As a result at any given time less than half of the SU-30 MKI feet is operational. The rest are in the workshop.
On the decision making front the indian so called democracy poses a big problem for the IAF. Most of the decisions of procurement and purchase are made by civilians who have little to no understanding of IAF requirements and have other preferences such as political gains and benefiting influential families such as Ambanis and Mittals.
Often the decisions made, make businesses and political sense but are of no benefit to IAF and even damaging.
This version of F-16 is also relatively expensive to operate.
At full after burner the jet consumes 11 litres of fuel per second. Operating costs are 8-10 thousand dollars per hour all including.
Pakistan has only 19 of these units and as a matter of policy only uses these very rarely and when absolutely necessary.
The workhorse of PAF F-16 fleet are the older F16 A&B units which have been with PAF since 1983 and PAF is one of the oldest continues user of F-16 outside the USA.
The A&B Versions may be old but pilots and technicians have decades of experience with the jets and know the jet inside out.
Old does not necessarily means bad and these older versions only cost 4-6 thousand dollars per hour all including.
PAF operates about 140 units of older F-16 A&B.
On comparison Indian Air force's most modern jets are their SU-30 MKI. India has about 187 units of the jet operational since 2002. The desired number is 222 units eventually.
Being a large twin engine jet the operating costs are very high at 23000 USD per hour. The upcoming Rafale for IAF will have even higher operating costs at 28000 USD per hour.
The contact with Russia about spares was not very well done and many critical parts take too much time to arrive. Likewise the transfer of technology about assembly and manufacturing certain parts in India also has problems. Because there are businesses involved in the process and money has to be made. Likewise being a large jet, the aircraft needs lots of man hours for maintenance and turnaround time is not too quick.
As a result at any given time less than half of the SU-30 MKI feet is operational. The rest are in the workshop.
On the decision making front the indian so called democracy poses a big problem for the IAF. Most of the decisions of procurement and purchase are made by civilians who have little to no understanding of IAF requirements and have other preferences such as political gains and benefiting influential families such as Ambanis and Mittals.
Often the decisions made, make businesses and political sense but are of no benefit to IAF and even damaging.
On the other hand PAF does not face such problems. Although the money flows through civilian administration hands as they are in charge of finances. The operational, maintenance, and purchasing, procurement decisions are made by PAF themselves.
Hence the decisions made were very good.
PAF stuck to smaller single engine jets instead of going for twin engine large jets.
As a result all PAF fleet needs much shorter time and resources for maintenance and turnaround and percentage availability of operational fighter jets is much higher than IAF.
Weapon integration and procurement in PAF case also has been very well thought after and cost effective.
Only those weapons were bought or locally manufactured which were compatible with large part of PAF fleet. As a result most of the weapons used by PAF can be carried by multiple platforms in use with PAF.
IAF has been purchasing weapons not compatible with any of their jets.
They made contract for buying 200 brahmos cruise missiles at about 3 million USD a piece. The 600 million dollar contract has only one problem. No Indian jet can carry the missile as its too heavy. To be able to carry Brahmos the IAF had to make another contract to modify their largest jets the SU-30 MKI.
About 25 jets will be strengthened to carry the 2.5 ton missile. The jets will have additional metal frames welded to the structure and with the expansive and permanent modifications, still it will only carry one Brahmos.
However since the modifications will add weight to the jet, the jet will permanently lose certain amount of range and will change maneuvering characteristics permanently.
No such problem with PAF. The entire fleet of PAF mirages and F-16 can carry Raad cruise missiles without modifications as the missile was built to comply with existing fleet capacity.
Then the problem of weapons integration. Except the PAF F-16 fleet , all the rest of the fleet's Firmware can be modifiede In-house by PAF to integrate new weapon systems.
IAF has to ask the Russians to have the Firmaware modified so that new weapon system can be Modified, which costs both time and money.
Hence the decisions made were very good.
PAF stuck to smaller single engine jets instead of going for twin engine large jets.
As a result all PAF fleet needs much shorter time and resources for maintenance and turnaround and percentage availability of operational fighter jets is much higher than IAF.
Weapon integration and procurement in PAF case also has been very well thought after and cost effective.
Only those weapons were bought or locally manufactured which were compatible with large part of PAF fleet. As a result most of the weapons used by PAF can be carried by multiple platforms in use with PAF.
IAF has been purchasing weapons not compatible with any of their jets.
They made contract for buying 200 brahmos cruise missiles at about 3 million USD a piece. The 600 million dollar contract has only one problem. No Indian jet can carry the missile as its too heavy. To be able to carry Brahmos the IAF had to make another contract to modify their largest jets the SU-30 MKI.
About 25 jets will be strengthened to carry the 2.5 ton missile. The jets will have additional metal frames welded to the structure and with the expansive and permanent modifications, still it will only carry one Brahmos.
However since the modifications will add weight to the jet, the jet will permanently lose certain amount of range and will change maneuvering characteristics permanently.
No such problem with PAF. The entire fleet of PAF mirages and F-16 can carry Raad cruise missiles without modifications as the missile was built to comply with existing fleet capacity.
Then the problem of weapons integration. Except the PAF F-16 fleet , all the rest of the fleet's Firmware can be modifiede In-house by PAF to integrate new weapon systems.
IAF has to ask the Russians to have the Firmaware modified so that new weapon system can be Modified, which costs both time and money.
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