Hey everyone. Zerø here from simpleplanes.com. And in this SimplePlanes post, I present to you: The Thunder.

More of a semi-simplistic model if I'm being honest. No cockpit, but it's not my average simple creations. Why? Because challenge. I can't do a whole 2 months worth of making to enter a challenge, especially when my expectations and ambitions were high on my creations.

Introduction:

The PAC JF-17 Thunder or the CAC FC-1 Xiaolong, is a lightweight, single engined, 4th generation, multirole combat aircraft mainly used by the Pakistani Air Force. The Thunder is a joint design (or in other words collab) of the Pakistani Air Force and the Chinese Manufacturers. The JF-17 name itself stands for "Joint Fighter - 17". The "-17" being a successor to the F-16 to the Pakistan (which isn't really true to my eyes).

History:

The JF-17 itself was designed primarily to meet the PAF's requirement of an affordable, unsanctionable, lightweight, multirole combat aircraft as a replacement for their aging bombers, fighters, and interceptors. By 1989, Pakistan had abandoned their "Project Saber II" due to the economic sanctions by the US. At the same year, Grumman and China started a new design study for the Super 7, which is a modifed J-7, but Grumman backed down as soon as sanctions were put against China for the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protest. Soon after Grumman backed down, China started the Fighter China project in 1991. In 1995, Pakistan and China agreed on a joint design project. In June 1995, Mikoyan joined to help with the design. 8 years later, the first prototype (PT-01) received it's maiden flight.

Loadout:

• 1x Grazyev Shipunov GSh-23-2
  A dual barreled 23mm cannon capable of shooting 3,400 rounds per minute. However, in the JF-17, this gun is slanted downwards by 8°.
• 2x 240gal/1100L Underwing Drop Tanks
• 1x 800L Centreline Drop Tank
• 2x PL-12/SD-10As
  A long range, active radar guided BVRAAM capable of pulling off surprising maneuvers.
• 2x PL-5EIIs
  A short/medium range, heatseeking missile capable of reaching 8 nautical miles.

Controls & Features:

Controls:

FireGuns: Fire GSh-23-2
VTOL: Airbrakes/Manual Flaps
AG2: Drop tanks
AG4: Deploy Drag Chute
AG5: Toggle Manual/Auto Flaps

Features:

• Custom Nozzles with "ring" afterburners activated at 90% Throttle.
• Gun slanted down by 8°, don't worry, there's a custom gun cross for that one.
• Simple Autoflaps. Somebody suggested for it to be able to be toggled on/off on my F-16. So I did that. ...But on other planes because at this point I feel like redoing my Viper. But anyways, turn on AG5 to turn off Autoflaps.
• Custom wings. I thought I'd try it out.
• Custom pylons (except for the centreline tank). It's very cool, though, on the pylons that carry the missiles, there's no actual pylon that is hidden, because connections in this game do like to do a little trolling when parts are scaled down to very small. Still very cool nonetheless.
  

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Gallery:

Just flyin' around.

Dropping tanks.

Doing a random strafe.

Landing.

Launching an SD-10A which got stupid shortly after it's launch.

Launching another SD-10A since the first one has gone stupid.

Splash one, splash one!

One note before I go:
"my name is jeff"

That's all. Enjoy, and fly safe!