Chinese Aviation Industry

Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
AssassinsMace said:
I sort of agree with what all you said. I'm not saying the Chinese government has an inferiority complex. I'm saying the public does. All governments, regardless if they're democracies or not, have to justify their hold on power or they face revolt. The Chinese people look at the West as having "gotten it right" because they're number one in the world. If one is perceived as having gotten it right, people are going to follow that path to success. The HJ-12 may perform less or better than the Javelin or whatever else. But they're still going to make it look like it because it's gotten all the positive advertisement. Why does Beijing beg to be a part of the International Space Station when it's clear it will never happen? China is going to build it own space station but that's secondary because they want to be a part of something established as a great achievement by the world so they can cash that in on their own citizens because that's how they see success. I bring up the Asian inferiority complex because that's where it comes from. Whether or not people in the government are inflicted, they're still have to appeal to that part in the public in order to legitimize their hold on power.
Click to expand...

The public may or may not have an inferiority complex, but they're not the ones making the decisions for military procurement.

So my point is the same: whether the PLA choose a proven airframe or to develop a new airframe is not driven by vanity, but rather by technology, cost, and military demand.

You're making it sound like Beijing wants the PLA only to look like western militaries only to legitimize the civilian government, which is clearly both an impossible task and a futile one. Fortunately it is also not their aim, given what we can observe. The reason they want stealth fighters, aircraft carriers, large destroyers, ballistic missiles, submarines -- it isn't to show off.
They are seeking to modernize the military, to fulfill requirements of national defense. And modern militaries tend to have certain types of equipment that work in the same way and may also happen to look similar in configuration (eg.: HJ-12 and Javelin).
Honestly I'm surprised that I'm having to explain this this way, you've been here as long as I have and I've always thought you've understood these principles.

I think you are being far too sensitive to what you perceive as Beijing's desire (or the chinese people's desire) to be seen as modern or accepted. It may be there to an extent, but it doesn't quite reach to the degree of military procurement where they would rather buy things to be seen as modern rather than buy things for the capability their offer.

Also, since when was Beijing "begging" to be part of ISS? The US blocked them, and China shrugged and went on their way to develop their own. The way you talk also makes it sound like space stations are not a useful impetus for technology development and scientific research, and that China only wants it just to show off.

Don't get me wrong, clearly every nation exploits their military and scientific developments for nationalism, it isn't unique to China. I fully agree with that.
But you are waaaaay off mark if you use that reason and "inferiority complexes" to try to explain why the PLA chooses copies of airframes versus original airframe designs in some cases.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Bltizo said:
The public may or may not have an inferiority complex, but they're not the ones making the decisions for military procurement.

So my point is the same: whether the PLA choose a proven airframe or to develop a new airframe is not driven by vanity, but rather by technology, cost, and military demand.

You're making it sound like Beijing wants the PLA only to look like western militaries only to legitimize the civilian government, which is clearly both an impossible task and a futile one. Fortunately it is also not their aim, given what we can observe. The reason they want stealth fighters, aircraft carriers, large destroyers, ballistic missiles, submarines -- it isn't to show off.
They are seeking to modernize the military, to fulfill requirements of national defense. And modern militaries tend to have certain types of equipment that work in the same way and may also happen to look similar in configuration (eg.: HJ-12 and Javelin).
Honestly I'm surprised that I'm having to explain this this way, you've been here as long as I have and I've always thought you've understood these principles.

I think you are being far too sensitive to what you perceive as Beijing's desire (or the chinese people's desire) to be seen as modern or accepted. It may be there to an extent, but it doesn't quite reach to the degree of military procurement where they would rather buy things to be seen as modern rather than buy things for the capability their offer.

Also, since when was Beijing "begging" to be part of ISS? The US blocked them, and China shrugged and went on their way to develop their own. The way you talk also makes it sound like space stations are not a useful impetus for technology development and scientific research, and that China only wants it just to show off.

Don't get me wrong, clearly every nation exploits their military and scientific developments for nationalism, it isn't unique to China. I fully agree with that.
But you are waaaaay off mark if you use that reason and "inferiority complexes" to try to explain why the PLA chooses copies of airframes versus original airframe designs in some cases.
Click to expand...

Well I think you're taking what I said too seriously. Is the government obsessed with it? No. But they still have to show accomplishments to its citizens to legitimize their rule. And that's very important to them. That's a common thing I always read about the communists especially since they were born from a peasant uprising. They're well aware they have legitimatize their rule over China. And copying other's proven accomplishments like you said is the quick way to that goal.

I still hear Beijing wishing to be a part of the ISS. They always talking about cooperation in many areas where they can go it alone. I don't see China giving the finger. If they had that attitude they would just do it and not talk about wanting cooperation with the US. But they do want it because that's seen by citizens as an accomplishment that they're a part of something great.

Since this is a military forum, it sounds like I'm talking about this is a problem only with the military. It's goes way beyond. What I have read and experienced personally, and I have plenty of stories, there seems to be a theme that following what has been proven successful (aka copying) is a measure to one's own success and it seems to have crept into the military whether it's because politics of the government or in individuals in significant positions. The cheapest and quickest way is copying. It's not the goal. It's a means to the end.

Like I said before what China is charged with copying... are the insides exact copies too? If I go by the charge the J-31 is a result of stolen data on the F-35, why don't they just copy the same exact engine? The insides are not same. China develops it's own components or gets them from the Russians. If they're not exact copies on the insides, then they're going out of their way to make it look like something else namely what's more notable. So it has to be as superficial as political for public consumption. And why do they do that? Because the public, whether you want to or not call it an inferiority complex, uses the West as a measurement of success. From the flip side of the coin, even if it were an exact copy as what outsiders believe, why would one want to make it look the same? Wouldn't one rather make it look it was an original idea? No one sees the insides so who would know? That's because that's not what's important. What's important is Chinese citizens think they're on a path of success which legitimizes the government for doing a good job. I know you've said like with aircraft the shaping is a important. Yeah I'll give you that but virtually everything else does not need to look like their Western or even Russian counterpart. Yet they do it.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Look I don't want to draw this out too much, as it seems that your opinion is one that is overarching among a variety of domains not only military, and that it has been formed through a variety of experiences.

I am only talking about the miltiary domain here: I agree that the PLA induction of copied airframes etc is a means to an end, but that end is not "legitimatizing government rule over China".
I've already said how copying is the quickest way to provide capabilities at lower cost and with any technological limitations that may or may not apply. I still stand by that statement.


I agree that the public uses the west as a measurement of success, but my problem is you thinking the PLA only seeks out new equipment to legitimate government rule.
In other words, you're saying China wants aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, ballistic missiles, submarines, destroyers, AEWC, ASAT, only because it wants to legitimate government rule, rather than actually having equipment to fight a war.
The fact that products look like western or russian counter parts is because form follows function. Apart from things like flankers, Z-18, Z-20 which are rehashes of existing designs, all clean sheet designs are no more "copying" existing designs than any other plane.
KAI KFX, ATD-X, TFX, AMCA are not all copying F-35 or F-22 anymore than FC-31 is. Y-20 is not copying C-17 anymore than XC-2, A400M, KC-390 is.
They reason their clean sheet products look similar to existing products is because things look the way they are for a reason. When you only have certain technologies and a certain amount of computing power and money to throw at a problem your solutions will naturally look similar.

Neither derivations of existing products or clean sheet products that somewhat resemble foreign counterparts are deliberately chosen to emulate foreign "success stories" just to legitimate government rule.
I don't know how you could come to that conclusion after nearly a decade on this forum.

Besides, the government has other ways to legitimate their rule. Raising living standards, for one. No one will care about all the fancy toys the military gets if their lives are going to hell.

---

Beijing wanting to cooperate with other countries on things like ISS is because they want to share costs and learn from other players who've been at the game longer than they have. It isn't to say to its people "look we're important now too" -- or at least that is far from the most important concerns. We've seen China turn its nose up at existing financial institutions for its own like AIIB and the Silk Road Fund, if they were so obsessed with sucking up to other countries they wouldn't have gone it alone. The galileo project is a similar one where China said "screw you" and left.
And I haven't heard anything about China wanting to join ISS for years. I'm sure if the offer came up China wouldn't say no, because they're not stupid.
 
Last edited:
D

delft

Brigadier
tphuang,
In "China Air and Naval Power" for November 15 you say
Just as significantly, Boeing and Lockheed has the ability to mass produce large numbers of aircraft that AVIC1 currently simply do not have the capacity to do. Lockheed can produce well over 100 F-35 a year in the future and have the ability to produce 500 F-16s a year. CAC produces around 50 J-10s in a high production year.
Click to expand...
PLAAF apparently only wants scores of aircraft or less of any type so the batch production method is chosen. If PLAAF wanted hundreds then serial production would be chosen. This is not a matter of technology, just of adapting production to the wishes of the customer.
 
tphuang

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
delft said:
tphuang,
In "China Air and Naval Power" for November 15 you say

PLAAF apparently only wants scores of aircraft or less of any type so the batch production method is chosen. If PLAAF wanted hundreds then serial production would be chosen. This is not a matter of technology, just of adapting production to the wishes of the customer.
Click to expand...

there are a lot of limitations that affects the production of J-10. Outside of the most obvious one in turbofan engines, there are also limiting factors in producing other subsystems. Especially now that they moved to this entire new set of integrated avionics on J-10B. And then there is the matter of how fast their production lines can assemble J-10s. It seems like they were limited to 2 per month per assembly line for much of J-10A's production. That's serial production for CAC. They just happen to break them out into batches, that's all. Even if they devote 3 lines to J-10 production at max capacity and ramp the production rate to 3 per line per month, that would only be 100 a year.

And when it comes to large transport, which is what my post was about, I would like to see them be able to ramp up Y-20 production as soon as serial production is ready to start, but it takes time to do so. They are building this new factory near pudong airport to be capable of assembling 150 C919 and 50 ARJ-21 a year
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
.

That would be a huge improvement over where they are now if they can reach that level and I don't think you need to be able to produce 150 Y-20s a year. The point is that to go from the production rate for Y-8/9 right now to where it needs to be for exporting Y-20, that's a huge jump. That takes time to ramp up. China's aviation industry is not like shipbuilding industry where they can just ramp up production in a series and produce them cost efficiently.
 
asif iqbal

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Yes that is a good point

It's like doing small scale laboratory chemistry, then you need to scale up to the bench top units before finally going to the pilot plant

You have scale up factors at each stage and problem solving at each stage and it's not different for aviation industry building small number of units to large number of units, the larger you go the larger your problems so it's a important point about going to large scale aviation manufacturing which is a challenge for China
 
supercat

supercat

Major
An interesting piece on the Wall Street Journal
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


Under Pressure: The 10-Story Machine China Hopes Will Boost Its Aviation Industry.

In April last year, Erzhong Group published a photo of its new, 80,000 ton hydraulic press forge, the biggest of its kind in the world.
Huang Menglin/The Wall Street Journal

DEYANG, China – The engineers started closing the rollerdoor the moment they saw a foreigner walking toward them.

Standing around laughing in blue overalls and yellow hard hats, they went quiet the moment I started walking up the drive. I asked if I could take a peek behind the door. They said it was a secret.

Still, I managed to catch a glimpse of two floors’ worth of the 10-story-tall machine Beijing hopes will play a major role in driving China’s aviation and aerospace industries: an 80,000-ton closed-die hydraulic press forge.

Repeated requests for a tour of the forge were declined. Both Zhang Jian, the head of propaganda at Erzhong Group, the company that built and operates the forge, and Wang Yu, the secretary of the board of directors of Erzhong’s Shanghai-listed unit, said that the forge is “confidential.”

It’s not immediately clear what about the machine – which is painted green with Erzhong Group printed across it in red Chinese characters – is so secret.

The machine is the biggest of its kind in the world. The biggest forge in the U.S. can exert only 50,000 tons of pressure, and is operated by Alcoa AA -0.35% in Ohio. France has a 65,000-ton machine, and Russia has a machine capable of exerting 75,000 tons of pressure.

Erzhong Group has its own internal newspaper, published by the companys Communist Party members.
Huang Menglin/The Wall Street Journal

But the technology China is using is nothing new. It is based on modifications of Russian designs from the 80s, according to a person involved in the development process.

More sensitive is was China can potentially do with it.

Press forging involves shaping a piece of metal under high pressure by squeezing it into a mold. That alters the flow of the metal’s grain – its internal structure – allowing engineers to create stronger and lighter components than would be possible by just beating them into shape or welding them together. Greater pressure results in stronger components.

The Erzhong forge can exert up to 80,000 tons of downward pressure using five columns. Flipped upside down, it could lift China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier, with room to spare for a handful of submarines. Airbus is using the Russian forge to make landing gear components for the A380, the world’s biggest passenger plane. Having the world’s biggest forge should allow China to produce large components of higher strength than possible elsewhere.

The technology was pioneered during WWII by Germany, which didn’t have a sufficient supply of steel and so had to mold its air force out of more brittle, but lighter metals, according to Tim Heffernan, a writer who has researched the U.S. forge program. The end of the war brought the start of the jet age, and the U.S. government provided support for the building of forges around the country, so that the country was able to produce light planes that were sufficiently strong to withstand supersonic speeds.

Alcoa’s forge has been producing parts for Boeing and Airbus for decades. The company says it supplies almost all forged wheel and brake components for U.S. military aircraft and helicopters, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the U.S. military’s newest fighter jet.

Erzhong hasn’t explicitly said what the forge will be used for, but academics involved in its development process said there are potential military applications.

The first component produced by the forge at its official launch in April last year was the landing gear for the C919, China’s long-awaited and much behind schedule narrow-bodied passenger aircraft being built by the Commercial Aircraft Company of China.

Since then, though, the forge hasn’t gotten much use. People at the company say that there haven’t been many orders.

– Dinny McMahon. Follow him on Twitter @DinnyMcMahon
Click to expand...
 
T

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Current production of chinese warplanes is due to political decision based on available money and perceived requirements.
If the decision called for 80 j10, 40 j11 or something like that - such an increase could be arranged within something like 2-4 years. More workers could be trained, more shifts could be added, more assembly areas arranged, more subcontractors reached and certified. But it's just too expensive to quickly increase production like that if there are no long term planes of sustaining such production. Only something like imminent threat of total war might warrant that, and in that case the production ramp up could be even higher.

That being said, it does seem to me that fighter production (and perhaps overall combat plane production) for PLA forces will increase by the end of the decade. It just doesn't seem likely j16 production will be short lived, SAC going through all the effort to create such variant. At the same time, it doesn't seem likely CAC went through the massive redesign of j10 for a decrease in overall production compared to earlier variant. Making 40+ airframes of j10b in two or so years, knowing its basically a new plane - also doesn't seem to point in any decrease in production. And on top of that there will be j20 starting production within 2-3 years. Fighter wise, i do believe PLA forces might be getting something like 70+ airframes per year by end of this decade. And unless jh7b production is not going to happen, overall combat plane production, including jh7 and h6k might easely go over 100 a year.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top