When Life's Little Ironies Attack...
Aug. 26th, 2005 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frustratedpilotHey.
One of my ongoing interests these days is Mainland China's military aircraft, mostly the new types in development or now entering service.
The FC-1 Xiaolong, also known as the JF-17 Thunder (as the Pakistanis, who are partners in the machine's creation) is among these new types. It began its concept as an upgraded J-7 (ex-MiG-21), with a new forward fuselage, in the late 1980s, but since the early 1990s it has evolved into a new machine from nose to tail...and now resembles more than any other aircraft the Northrop F-20 (a derivative of the successful F-5 Freedom Fighter/Skoshi Tiger/Tiger II family which never made production).
Now, as aviation fans are aware, in the 1980s, the F-5 was used by the USAF and USN strictly as a "body double" for MiGs in field exercizes and at the Top Gun pilot training school. In the movie Top Gun, a few F-5s were painted in black quasi-Eastern Bloc schemes and dubbed "MiG-28s" in the dialogue.
And so, the FC-1 (which is powered by the same engine as the MiG-29 Fulcrum) is stepping into a "role" given it twenty years ago. But that's not the totality of the irony I'm noting here.
I came to this site recently:
http://www.china-military.org/events/video/video_clips.htm
And downloaded the first of the two clips about the FC-1. As interested as I was, I didn't mind the fact that all the narration was in Chinese...but as I couldn't follow the narration I found myself playing "Name That Tune" with the soundtrack towards the end--
It was a re-orchestration of Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love" from the soundtrack of The Karate Kid II!
Xiaolong, or Shaolin? I always thought that aerial combat was the last martial art...
FP
One of my ongoing interests these days is Mainland China's military aircraft, mostly the new types in development or now entering service.
The FC-1 Xiaolong, also known as the JF-17 Thunder (as the Pakistanis, who are partners in the machine's creation) is among these new types. It began its concept as an upgraded J-7 (ex-MiG-21), with a new forward fuselage, in the late 1980s, but since the early 1990s it has evolved into a new machine from nose to tail...and now resembles more than any other aircraft the Northrop F-20 (a derivative of the successful F-5 Freedom Fighter/Skoshi Tiger/Tiger II family which never made production).
Now, as aviation fans are aware, in the 1980s, the F-5 was used by the USAF and USN strictly as a "body double" for MiGs in field exercizes and at the Top Gun pilot training school. In the movie Top Gun, a few F-5s were painted in black quasi-Eastern Bloc schemes and dubbed "MiG-28s" in the dialogue.
And so, the FC-1 (which is powered by the same engine as the MiG-29 Fulcrum) is stepping into a "role" given it twenty years ago. But that's not the totality of the irony I'm noting here.
I came to this site recently:
http://www.china-military.org/events/video/video_clips.htm
And downloaded the first of the two clips about the FC-1. As interested as I was, I didn't mind the fact that all the narration was in Chinese...but as I couldn't follow the narration I found myself playing "Name That Tune" with the soundtrack towards the end--
It was a re-orchestration of Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love" from the soundtrack of The Karate Kid II!
Xiaolong, or Shaolin? I always thought that aerial combat was the last martial art...
FP
