The Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) is using Airshow China 2018 to showcase both its strong advances in developing new aerospace and defence technologies as well as its growing export portfolio.
Marquee revelations included an improved variant of the Changhe Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAIC) Z-10 attack helicopter, the Z-10ME, new armed drones, and two active-electronically scanned array (AESA) radars intended for the JF-17 Block-III, the first major upgrade of the lightweight fighter.
These AESA radars came from two state-owned institutes.
NRIET KLJ-7A AESA Radar
First, an improved version of the KLJ-7A from Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology (NRIET). The KLJ-7A was originally revealed during Airshow China 2016 as a proposed AESA radar for the Block-III.
As per reports at the time, the KLJ-7A could detect ‘fighter-sized’ targets at up to 170 km, simultaneously track up to 15 targets, and engage four of them at once. The KLJ-7A is said to have more than 1,000 solid-state transceiver modules (TRM), providing it with much improved resistance to electronic warfare (EW).
However, the variant of the KLJ-7A apparently shown at Airshow China 2018 was equipped with slanted side-panel arrays on both sides, thus providing a wider detection range without the need for a mechanical arm or swashplate to move the main array. In addition, NRIET also unveiled a KLJ-7A variant with a moving array, it is possible that this version is meant to be a lower-cost alternative to the multi-array version.
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