Last year, Turkish defence electronics giant Aselsan disclosed that it supplied ARTCom 9681 VUHF-A (Very-Ultra High-Frequency Airborne) radios into the mission computer of the JF-17 Thunder, the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) workhorse multirole fighter.
However, Aselsan also added that the integration and tests were done for a Central Asian country – and it even stated that this package (JF-17 + ARTCom 9681) entered the inventory of this country. There have been rumours of Turkmenistan acquiring the JF-17; however, these reports have not been confirmed. That said, from the sales (i.e., Myanmar, Nigeria, and Azerbaijan) and non-sales (i.e., Uzbekistan, Malaysia, etc.) thus far, there are correlative trends in the successful orders.
Basically, a prospect operating old or obsolete combat aircraft is not the sole metric or driver of a JF-17 sale. When Pakistan embarked on the JF-17 (then known as FC-1 or Super-7), it and the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) had forecasted that the aircraft would have significant viability due to the numbers of legacy MiG-21, F-7, F-5, and other fighters in operation around the world.
Yet, as the market would show, many of those air forces had opted to move towards polar ends of either a few high-technology, high-performance aircraft or, at the other, slower local security and air-policing-oriented platforms. In other words, one will see air forces adopt Rafales or Typhoons on one end, or Super Tucanos on the other. Until 2022, the tactical fighter space was shrinking.
As a result, the space in the middle for new lightweight tactical fighters became small and, interestingly, flush with many competitors like the Gripen, used F-16A/Bs, FA-50, and Tejas. Thus, the viability of the JF-17 securing large orders became limited due to (1) a limited market and (2) an abundance of similar options. Since the Russia-Ukraine War, however, there has been a broad revisit towards tactical fighters, but aside from a few major air forces adopting them (e.g., Poland), there is no mass-market push.
Finally, of the few markets that could look at the JF-17, not all of them are necessarily interested in the Thunder. Uzbekistan, for example, recently inducted the J-10CE, with Bangladesh and Indonesia finalizing their respective orders for that fighter. Yet, despite all this competition (both from outside China and from within AVIC’s own product lines), the JF-17 has still secured a major order from Azerbaijan, with promising prospects in Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
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