Müller, Holger China's Fighter for the World. The F-7/FT-7 Family. Volume 2: World-Wide Service

A volume from the Technology @ War series. Continuing the story of the Shenyang (later Chengdu) F-7 and FT-7 family of jet fighters manufactured in the People's Republic of China, Volume 2 recounts the significant improvements to their equipment and their commercial success over decades. The rapprochement with the West and the integration of Western avionics into the Soviet airframe did not make the J/F-7 a particularly advanced combat aircraft, but it did increase its combat value to such an extent that it became an export hit. More importantly, this not only gave the Chinese access to Western technologies, including air-to-air missiles, which they copied, but also laid the foundation for the in-house development of modern equipment and weapon systems. When cooperation with the West came to an abrupt end after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Chinese engineers and scientists had accumulated enough know-how to continue developing the J/F-7 family on their own. Thanks to the combination of new aerodynamics and modern avionics, genuine multi-role combat aircraft were finally created, which still form the spearhead of the air forces of numerous countries in Asia and Africa today. When production of the J/F-7 was finally discontinued in 2016, two generations of modern combat aircraft based on this design were already rolling off the production line in China, and the prototypes of the fifth generation were already in the air. The experience gained by China's aviation industry in developing the J/F-7 from a day fighter to a multi-role combat aircraft was instrumental in this success. Volume 2 contains both a detailed description of the equipment and avionics of all variants and sub-variants of the J-7/F-7/FT-7 family and a detailed report on their deployment in more than a dozen countries on five continents.