See how the Pakistanis are writing and taking all the credit for the hard work done by the Chinese engineers.
The Dawn Press Service
Karachi
The pictures of the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal, Tanveer Mehmud Ahmed, standing next to the latest generation fighter JF-17 being co-developed by China and Pakistan, has made every Pakistani proud. But the photo-op is only the tip of the iceberg. During an exclusive interview with the Air Chief, the Dawn has learnt that there are complexities that are beyond the comprehension of the enlightened common man and it takes the genius of people like the Air Chief to solve these issues in order to maintain the cutting-edge of the PAF.
According to the the Air Chief, it all started when the Air Chief decided to sit inside the cockpit of the JF-17 – a simple task no doubt our readers will agree. “But I soon realized that canopy would not close – the issue being that the cockpit was designed for a 5’ chinaman pilot
{This is their description of a Chinese and these Pakistanis love comparison, earlier they compared Indians and said that One Pakistani= 3 Indians. After the war they swallowed it}whereas PAF pilots – our strapping Punjabi lads – average 5’10, my own height being 5’11”. He immediately rushed to the design bureau and a brainstorming session was held with the design engineers. A computer-modelled geometric analysis revealed the root cause: there is 6” of clearance between the chinaman’s head and the bottom of the canopy. That left 4” short for the Pakistani pilot.
2” was obtained by removing the seat cushion bottom - this was suggested by the The Air Chief himself, no less! The Air Chief who started his career flying Tiger Moths in WWII, is a strong believer of core flying principles i.e a pilot should know how to fly by the seat of his pants.
{Sometimes they even fly without pants} The Air Chief claims proudly that this measure will radically improve the man-machine interface. Infact this will now be used as a pilot program to test if seat cushions should be removed on all other fighters of the PAF as well.
For the balance 2”, one of the bright Chinese design engineers who had spent time at the Toshiba wafer labs in Tokyo, came up with the idea of adopting pushers to force the canopy closed as soon as the pilot sits in the seat, similar to the pushers in the Tokyo subway system who push passengers into subway cars in rush hour. The Air Chief immediately agreed to the idea rather than going back to the drawing board to redesign the airframe that would take about 10 years. The Chinese agreed to reinforce the canopy locks to prevent accidental opening during mid-flight, due to head pressure from the inside.{Take note}
The Chinese also agreed to supply additional ladders free of cost for the starboard side for the pushers to climb and be ready to ‘push’ the pilots in. Other benefits were gained as well: because the pilot now sits in a “pressurized” zone between the canopy and the seat, there is no need for a safety-belt, thus improving scramble time. Also, the pilot’s head is now naturally angled at 60 deg declination thus ensuring he has a direct line of sight to the instrument panel, pre-empting critics who said that the instrument panel was not well laid out.
Dear readers, our proud country is blessed to have people of this caliber{The Chinese who provided the solution} or the dumbass airchief .