According to Ahmad, the deliveries will begin as early as March 2022. Chinese J-10s from People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) will participate in Pakistan National Day celebrations set to take place on 23 March 2022. The PAF has started to seach an off-the-shelf fighter to match its fleet modernization strategy in 2016. The PAF had sought to acquire additional F-16C/D Block-52+ to enlarge its fleet of 18 aircraft. But the deal fail as the U.S.’ refused to let Pakistan use Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to help fund the procurement.
The minister also claimed that the acquisition is Pakistan’s response to India’s deployment of the French Dassault Rafale. India began to receive the fighter jets in 2020 and has been steadily increasing their number in its Air Force and testing the naval variant of the aircraft to deploy at future aircraft carrier.
Chengdu J-10 is a 4.5 generation fighter jet with a single engine. It first flew in 1998 and was introduced to the PLAAF in 2005. With nearly 460 in service as of late 2021, it is the most prevalent fighter jet in the Chinese arsenal. It has a variety of configurations, including the basic J-10A and a twin-seater training version, the J-10S. In the early 2010s, an updated J-10B was introduced, and all prior models were phased out in favour of the J-10C in 2018. The jet is equipped with a diverterless supersonic inlet (DSI) and an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar. The export variant of the J-10C is known colloquially as the J-10CE or J-10E.
J-10 sales negotiations with Pakistan date back to 2006. Pakistan, a long-time ally of China, chose to co-manufacturer with China a light fighter called the JF-17 Thunder, the latest Block III model that introduces significant beyond-visual-range (BVR) warfare capability.
Likely, Pakistan would only buy the latest J-10C model, which has Chinese-built WS-10B or WS-10C turbofan engines rather than Russian AL-31F engines used on the J-10A and J-10B, to reduce the political complexity of the acquisition. The J-10C also features an advanced Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar and compatibility with longer-distance PL-15 beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles.
