JF-17 Thunder

A fighter nobody could cut off

Pakistan learned the hard way what it means to depend on someone else’s fighters. In 1989 US sanctions ended Project Sabre II, a design study with Grumman and China; that year Grumman also left a Chinese upgrade of the F-7, the Super 7, after sanctions followed the Tiananmen Square protests. [1] Pakistan’s Air Force wanted an affordable, modern, lightweight multirole fighter that no sanctions could take away from it, to replace a large fleet of ageing A-5C bombers, F-7 interceptors and Mirage III and 5 aircraft. The cost was split equally between Pakistan and China. [1]

The project, launched in 1991 as the Fighter China-1 (FC-1), stalled when Pakistan, watching India buy the Su-30MKI, asked for higher performance; a 1998 agreement restarted it. [2] Sanctions after Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear tests slowed it again by blocking Western avionics, so in 2001 the air force decided to design the airframe first and fit the avionics later. [1] Its chief designer, Yang Wei, would go on to design China’s J-20 stealth fighter. [1]

Thunder

The first prototype was rolled out on 31 May 2003. Its first flight slipped from June because of the SARS outbreak, and around this time the name Super 7 gave way to JF-17, for “Joint Fighter”. [1] Testing brought changes: the air intakes were widened because the RD-93 engine smoked too much, the wing root extensions were altered to fix control problems, and the fin was enlarged to hold electronic warfareEW GlossaryJoint terms: Electronic warfare. Military action involving the use of electromagnetic and directed energy to control the electromagnetic spectrum or to attack the enemy. equipment in its tip. [1] The RD-93 belongs to the same Russian engine family as the MiG-29MiG-29 Fulcrum AircraftA twin-engine Soviet fighter with a helmet sight and R-73 missiles, built to counter the F-15 and F-16.’s. [1] [2]

Its gun is a twin-barrel GSh-23, and its missiles are mostly Chinese: the PL-5 short-range missile and the SD-10 for fights beyond visual range, with air-to-ground and anti-ship weapons too. [1] Serial production of the Block 3, with an AESA radar and the RD-93MA engine, began in December 2020. [1]

In service

The first two small-batch JF-17s reached Pakistan in March 2007 and flew in the Pakistan Day parade over Islamabad that month. The first Pakistani-built aircraft followed in November 2009, and No. 26 Squadron, the “Black Spiders”, became the first JF-17 squadronSquadron GlossaryJoint terms: 1. An organization consisting of two or more divisions of ships, or two or more divisions (Navy) or flights of aircraft. 2. The basic administrative aviation unit of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. 3… in February 2010. [1] It flew its first combat sortiesSortie GlossaryJoint terms: In air operations, an operational flight by one aircraft. against militants in South Waziristan and later struck Taliban hideouts during Operation Zarb-e-Azb from 2014 to 2016. [1]

In February 2019 two JF-17s took part in Pakistan’s retaliatory strikes on India, and in the May 2025 conflict with India the air force sent JF-17s into combat in both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles, publicly showing a Block 3 armed with long-range PL-15E missiles for the first time. Many of the claims made on both sides in that conflict are disputed. [1] More than 200 JF-17s have been built for Pakistan and for export customers including Myanmar, Nigeria and Azerbaijan. [1]