Sending jets abroad no more

For its first quarter-century the Pakistan Air Force had a problem that had nothing to do with enemies. Its fighters had to be sent abroad for major inspection and repair, and parts were hard to get, which kept squadrons short of aircraft. The answer, under the defence policy of 1972, was a complex of factories at Kamra, near Attock in northern Punjab, beside the PAF base now called Minhas. The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex was established in 1973, with its first plant, the F-6 Rebuild Factory, already working on Pakistan’s Chinese-built Shenyang F-6 fighters. It is owned by the Ministry of Defence Production and run by serving air force officers.

Four factories with code names

Each factory took a code number from the year it was approved. P-721, the Aircraft Rebuild Factory, overhauls and reverse-engineers Chinese types: the F-6, A-5, F-7 and their engines. P-741, the Mirage Rebuild Factory, came out of long negotiations between the Bhutto government and France; it opened in 1975 and rebuilt its first Mirage III in 1980. It later learned to overhaul the Atar engine and, with American permission, the F100 engine of the F-16. P-751 became the Aircraft Manufacturing Factory, and the Kamra Avionics and Radar Factory followed in 1983. Overhauling ageing Mirages at home is claimed to have saved billions in foreign currency.

A Swedish trainer goes native

The manufacturing factory’s first product came from Sweden. In 1975 PAC began working with Saab on its MFI-17 Supporter, a small strut-braced trainer. Pakistan took 18 from Sweden, assembled 92 from kits and built 149 itself as the Mushshak. An upgraded Super Mushshak with a more powerful engine followed from the mid-1990s and became an export success: Turkey took 52, Saudi Arabia 20, and Iraq, Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Qatar ordered more. Some 535 of the family have been built. In 1985 PAC also joined China’s Hongdu on the K-8 Karakorum jet trainer, making parts for it at Kamra.

Thunder over Kamra

The big ambition began in 1987 as Project Sabre II, a low-cost fighter studied first with American and then Chinese partners. In the 1990s, with Russian designers also involved, the project became the FC-1, or JF-17 Thunder, developed with China’s Chengdu and powered by a Russian RD-93 engine. The first prototype flew in China on 25 August 2003. Kamra began making sub-assemblies in January 2008 and serial production in June 2009. When the 50th Block 1 aircraft was delivered in December 2013, 58 per cent of it had been made in Pakistan. Block 2 followed, then Block 3 with an AESA radar and PL-15 missiles.

Combat and customers

The JF-17 has become the backbone of the PAF, at about half the cost of an F-16. It has bombed militants in North Waziristan, shot down an Iranian drone in 2017, and flew in the February 2019 clashes with India and the May 2025 conflict, when Pakistan claimed a JF-17 destroyed an Indian S-400 battery, a claim India disputed. More than 200 have been built. Myanmar ordered 16 in 2015 and Nigeria inducted its first in 2021. In 2025 Azerbaijan expanded its order to 40 Block 3 aircraft in a deal reported at US$4.6 billion. One opportunity slipped away: in 2024 the ministry chose Chinese J-10s over funding Kamra’s own Project Azm fighter.

Fabrieken

• Aircraft Rebuild Factory (P-721) · Kamra, Punjab — Founded as the F-6 Rebuild Factory; Chinese types and engines
• Mirage Rebuild Factory (P-741) · Kamra, Punjab — Opened 1975; Mirage, Atar and F100 engine work
• Aircraft Manufacturing Factory (P-751) · Kamra, Punjab — Founded 1975; Mushshak and JF-17 production
• Avionics Production Factory · Kamra, Punjab — Founded 1983 as Kamra Avionics and Radar Factory