Authorities from Argentina once again made a technical visit to Pakistan, with the aim of negotiating the purchase of JF-17 Thunder Block III fighters.
General Juan Martín Paleo, who is head of the t Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces of Argentina, visited the fighter's manufacturing facilities, being the 3rd time that an delegation from Argentina has been present at the site.
Despite Argentina also showing interest in used Kfir and F-16 fighters, coming from Israel and European countries, respectively, the preference for acquiring new combat aircraft may be with the JF-17, after the country found resistance in buying new aircraft manufactured by western countries.
The Chief of the t Staff of the Argentine (🇦🇷) Armed Forces, General Juan Martín Paleo today toured the Pakistani (🇵🇰) PAC JF-17 Block III production facility.
This comes after continued deliberations over a purchase of 12x JF-17 vs 12x American (🇺🇸) offered F-16s. pic.twitter.com/ubpVemA92O
— SA Defensa (@SA_Defensa) August 26, 2022
At this moment, the Argentines are probably negotiating the last details of the contract for 12 JF-17 Block III fighters, such as payment methods and delivery time for these planes.
The Chinese company CATIC made several technical documents and even a flight simulator available to the Argentine delegation so that the pilots could familiarize themselves with the JF-17 Thunder model.
Despite Argentina denying interest in buying the fighters, at least since 2020 China has been negotiating the acquisition of a batch of 12 PAC JF-17A/B Block III fighters. The purchase of this lot is valued at US$ 664 million.
The JF-17 is a fighter developed by Pakistan tly with China (which designates it FC-1), where the Pakistanis own 58% of the manufacture of parts and China the remaining 42%.
The engine is the Klimov RD-93 of Russian origin, based on the RD-33 used in the MiG-29 Fulcrum and other fighters of the family, capable of propelling the fighter to speeds close to Mach 1.8 (about 2205 km/h).
The aircraft can employ an array of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, guided bombs, pods and sensors and is operational in the Pakistan Air Forces, Niga © ria and Myanmar.
