India’s Tejas Fighter Jet vs Pakistan’s JF 17 – Burning Issues

Table of Contents

MANEUVERABILITY

THRUST TO WEIGHT RATIO
Though both aircraft have identical empty weight (~6,500 kg) & maximum take-off weight (13,500 kg), but JF-17 has an 85 kN engine whereas the Tejas has a 90 kN engine.
This gives the JF-17 a maximum T/W ratio of 0.84 to 0.95. The Tejas has a maximum thrust to weight ratio of 1.00 to 1.07 depending on the fuel & missile load.
LCA’s better thrust to weight ratio means it can maneuver more aggressively.

Sustained Turn Rate (STR): JF-17’s sustained turn rate is 14.4 degrees per second but the LCA Tejas has an STR of 16 degrees per second as showcased in the Bahrain Air Show.
Instantaneous Turn Rate (ITR): JF-17 Thunder has an ITR of 24.4 degrees per second. Tejas, 30 degrees per second as executed by test pilots.
Wing loading: The wing loading of JF-17 is 401 kg/m2 whereas Tejas has a far better wing loading of 255 kg/m2. LCA’s lower wing loading means it has far better maneuverability in general, lower stalling speeds, better low-speed handling & shorter landing & takeoff distances.

Radar: JF-17’s radar is KLJ-7 which has a detection range of 105 km for a 5 m2 target against 150 km for the Israeli radar of Tejas, the ELM-2032. This is a huge advantage in a face to face scenario as the Tejas can detect & lock the JF-17 before the JF-17 comes to know about the presence of Tejas in the region.

JF-17 uses Chinese missiles which include PL-5, PL-8 in short range. The LCA Tejas uses the proven but old R-73 & will be using the ASRAAM in the future. As of now, in the short-range, both the aircraft have equal capabilities but after the integration of ASRAAM, LCA’s capability would be much better.

The JF-17 has an all-metal construction. This leads to early metal fatigue with a life of only 4,000 flying flight hours (20–25 years service life).
The Tejas is majorly made up of composites with 45% by weight & 95% by surface area. Hence the Tejas has an in-service life of 9,000 flying hours which might be extended to 12,000 hours (40 years).
This is twice the life of the JF-17.

Brigadier Xavier Isaac, the Argentine Air Force chief, reportedly confirmed these speculations in an interview given to Pucara Defense. He mentioned that the country would reconsider the JF-17, especially for the new Block-III variant.
Countries choosing the JF-17 over Tejas is mainly attributed to the low rate of production by HAL, which is about half of their Pakistani counterparts.
China has a Security Council Veto and any country buying weapons from China can have significant influence over any Security Council decisions (same with US or French or Russian weapon sales).
Tejas is just a very confused aircraft – -it doesn’t fit any known market segment.
JF-17 uses mostly Chinese but some Italian (avionics and radar) and Russian (engine) equipment – all of which are cleared for re-export to 3rd countries.
Tejas uses American engines, Israeli radar, and a mishmash of avionics from countries that will never authorize re-export.
Tejas also suffers from the fact that currently there’s no major operator of this aircraft, not even the Indian Air Force, which only has a handful of these aircraft in service. This reduces the confidence of any potential buyer.
In contrast, the JF-17 Thunder program has seen great success. More than 100 units are in service with the Pakistan Air Force with just as many on order. This makes logistics, spare parts, servicing, training, upgrades, and weapons integration a smooth process.