Speaking of domestic advanced fighters, everyone must be unstoppablely proud. But in terms of the export of advanced fighters, our progress has not been very smooth, look at the J-10 or "Dragon" fighters we have been mentioning, although there will always be many countries showing interest, but in the end most of them are still "only look at and do not buy" this situation.
In fact, our aviation industry began in the 50s of the last century, and domestic fighters also went abroad at about the same time. However, what needs to be known is that at that time, our domestic fighters were given to other countries for free, but it is very strange that it is difficult to sell domestic fighters when we start to export at a price, and now even fall into the strange circle of "only seeing and not buying". Presumably, it goes without saying that everyone knows that our domestic fighters are no longer what they used to be, so what is the problem with the fact that our advanced fighters are not exporting smoothly?
To be honest, in the author's opinion, the difficulty of buying domestic advanced fighters mainly exposes these three major problems: First, the product positioning and the buyer's suitability are not high; second, the product performance will be used to compare with the united States and Russia's same generation; third, the export of advanced fighters is not so opportune. Maybe everyone is confused after seeing this, so let's take an example to demonstrate.
First of all, for example, our J-6, J-7, these two can be regarded as the opening of the door to the sale of domestic fighters, after all, in the late 70s of the last century, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries have introduced a certain number of J-6, J-7, so that China's military industry has a new development fund.
However, it is no accident that these countries purchased these two fighters, because before that, in order to break the isolated situation between the United States and the Soviet Union and improve the international environment on the mainland, we have provided weapons assistance to more than 10 countries, such as Albania, including the J-6, J-7, Z-5, etc., a total of 180 fighters, all of which we have aided. In this way, based on the fact that these countries already have a user experience, and it is difficult for these countries to introduce more advanced fighters at that time, coupled with the external environment or internal environment is unfavorable and urgently needs to introduce fighters, our cost-effective and no conditions of fighters have become the best choice.
Second, let's talk about the J-8II fighter that suffered "Waterloo" in terms of exports.M fighter. It is no exaggeration to say that this fighter is the best interpretation of the untimely, because when it came out, the F-16 of the United States, the MiG-29 of Russia, and the Mirage of France were also competing for the international market. Originally, the J-8II .M fighters existed to replace the second-generation aircraft such as the MiG-21, but who would have thought that these aircraft had an upgrade plan and the comprehensive performance after the upgrade was similar to that of the J-8II .M. Moreover, the price of the J-8II .M has no advantage, so on the whole, it is understandable that the export performance of the J-8II .M at that time was zero, after all, this is not better than the third-generation aircraft, and it is impossible to replace the second-generation aircraft.
Finally, let's take a look at the two main fighters we are now exporting, the Dragon and the J-10. Obviously, at present, as long as the topic of export is mentioned, the "Dragon" and the J-10 are indispensable, but the situation of the two fighters is not the same. Like the "Dragon Fighter" fighter has a clear buyer and a clear market positioning such as the replacement MiG-21 and F-5, so we not only have sustained and stable export orders, but also can obtain the largest export order in the history of the domestic aerospace industry.
However, for the J-10, going abroad is not so smooth, it is worth noting that although it has been successfully exported to Pakistan, its export still has the problem that the performance of early fighters is not outstanding and the substitution is too strong. At the same time, we also need to pay attention to a problem, that is, compared with domestic fighters, most countries are still more willing to trust the United States, Russia or European countries, and the reason for this is nothing more than two reasons: one is that the United States, Russia and Europe as veteran arms dealers and many fighters have participated in actual combat exercises, and the other is that many countries import weapons from the same country in order to maintain the entire support and training system.
Obviously, under such circumstances, domestic advanced fighters, as rising stars, it is difficult to share the "cake" from the hands of old arms dealers. Therefore, the best-selling road of domestic advanced fighters has a long way to go, and in order to break such a strange circle, we must start from the three major problems mentioned above, change the once low image of the fighter, and "brush face" in front of various countries, after all, this exposure and sense of identity will not slowly accumulate.