J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

[latenlazy]

View attachment 166536
He also claimed WS-15 is still behind western engines on lifespan...

Omfg bruh in 2025 man i have no hope for the vce engine if this is true hopefully not I don't believe that China still behind on engine lifespan in 2025

Service life for new machines are always lower because you have to figure out how to improve that as you use the product. You just don’t have any data on what the long term wear factors are until you spend the hours to study the wear. It’s called sustaining innovation and it’s normal. Quit the ignorant fanboy logic and calm down.

 

[Blitzo]

Omfg bruh in 2025 man i have no hope for the vce engine if this is true hopefully not I don't believe that the ws15 isn't on par with a fucking 30 year old engine in 2025 if it's through then I'm convinced China is cursed when it comes to jet engines cause something has to be wrong

Can I ask people to stop writing like this? Our rules of behaviour does include asking people to not use excessive slang or indeed swear words.

Write in a manner that's a bit more professional please. This place isn't somewhere to let loose and to enjoy yourself, but rather a place to try and put some effort in and try and place your best foot forwards.

That goes for everyone.

 

[Mearex]

So uh, how many people in this forum need to apologize for freaking out about this in the summer.

I will gladly apologize as soon as i get confirmation of ws-15 mass production, and preferably some specs too

 

[tphuang]

Service life for new machines are always lower because you have to figure out how to improve that as you use the product. You just don’t have any data on what the long term wear factors are until you spend the hours to study the wear. It’s called sustaining innovation and it’s normal. Quit the ignorant fanboy logic and calm down.

I actually frankly don't understand why people are having emotional reactions on an engine that's not in production based on random weibo post

I swear the nozzles look mismatched...
View attachment 166484

Have we seen J-20s with drop tank before? If not, then this is not surprising, but cool to confirm that you can have J-20As fly close to the combat zone, drop the external tanks, carry out its duty and then fly back. Should give it comfortable 1IC range.

 

[latenlazy]

I actually frankly don't understand why people are having emotional reactions on an engine that's not in production based on random weibo post

Have we seen J-20s with drop tank before? If not, then this is not surprising, but cool to confirm that you can have J-20As fly close to the combat zone, drop the external tanks, carry out its duty and then fly back. Should give it comfortable 1IC range.

We have seen J-20s with drop tanks before.

 

[Blitzo]

I actually frankly don't understand why people are having emotional reactions on an engine that's not in production based on random weibo post

Have we seen J-20s with drop tank before? If not, then this is not surprising, but cool to confirm that you can have J-20As fly close to the combat zone, drop the external tanks, carry out its duty and then fly back. Should give it comfortable 1IC range.

We've seen vanilla J-20 with four drop tanks as early as 2016, and a few times since then as well.

 

[MeiouHades]

A short lived victory at that, AL-51F-1 is supposedly in low rate initial production and is meant to scale up in 2026. The on going war may delay this reported schedule however. I don't think we can confirm the AL-51F-1 service until it's seen on production Su-57's. This goes for the WS-15 as well, it's all well and good to proclaim production. But until it's physically seen on production models. It's all comparisons between each others words and not proofs. Can we wait before making such grand sweeping statements?

I'm not sure why you believe the AL-51F-1 entering mass production means that Russia has achieved parity with Chinese aero engine tech. Not only is it inferior in thrust numbers to the WS-15 (I know that's not all that matters, but it's still important and one of the few things we can know about the WS-15) and definitely in MTBO, but Russia still hasn't demonstrated a single (to my knowledge) working prototype of a ACE design whereas China is working on two and did demonstrate one.

They're not comparable. Not even remotely close at this point. Russia's only advantage over China currently as high-bypass turbofans, but not because it's technologically superior, but because it arrived to this game much earlier. As others have said above, once China starts mass production its own high-bypass turbofans that are in development/testing as we speak, that advantage will vanish too.

I'm genuinely struggling to think of possible way that Russia could be technologically comparable to China as far as aeroengines go.

 

[henrylowe]

I'm not sure why you believe the AL-51F-1 entering mass production means that Russia has achieved parity with Chinese aero engine tech. Not only is it inferior in thrust numbers to the WS-15 (I know that's not all that matters, but it's still important and one of the few things we can know about the WS-15) and definitely in MTBO, but Russia still hasn't demonstrated a single (to my knowledge) working prototype of a ACE design whereas China is working on two and did demonstrate one.

They're not comparable. Not even remotely close at this point. Russia's only advantage over China currently as high-bypass turbofans, but not because it's technologically superior, but because it arrived to this game much earlier. As others have said above, once China starts mass production its own high-bypass turbofans that are in development/testing as we speak, that advantage will vanish too.

I'm genuinely struggling to think of possible way that Russia could be technologically comparable to China as far as aeroengines go.

Not being biased against Russia, but as far as I know, no Su-57 has ever been fitted with two functional AL-51 or the Product 30 as it had formerly been known as, right? On the other hand, we have clear pictures of J-20s testing with two WS-15s since mid-2023. The cartoon guy is widely seen as a credible source because his art often predates actual photographic revelations by a few months and the pattern rarely if ever fails.

 

[Nx4eu]

I'm not sure why you believe the AL-51F-1 entering mass production means that Russia has achieved parity with Chinese aero engine tech. Not only is it inferior in thrust numbers to the WS-15 (I know that's not all that matters, but it's still important and one of the few things we can know about the WS-15) and definitely in MTBO, but Russia still hasn't demonstrated a single (to my knowledge) working prototype of a ACE design whereas China is working on two and did demonstrate one.

They're not comparable. Not even remotely close at this point. Russia's only advantage over China currently as high-bypass turbofans, but not because it's technologically superior, but because it arrived to this game much earlier. As others have said above, once China starts mass production its own high-bypass turbofans that are in development/testing as we speak, that advantage will vanish too.

I'm genuinely struggling to think of possible way that Russia could be technologically comparable to China as far as aeroengines go.

How could you claim this with zero confirmed figures from either side. Before the released picture of the Chinese ACE engine on the test stand did you also believe claims that China is developing and testing ACE engines? If so, then you must also believe official claims from ODK-UMPO that Russia has been testing VCE engines since 2021. This is my problem about internet arguments, it wholly relies on trust of sources on both sides. If you only believe Chinese sources, and dismiss all Russian sources, of course it will look like China is far ahead of Russia, and vise versa. This is why online arguments on whose engine tech is superior is stupid.

 

[ougoah]

How could you claim this with zero confirmed figures from either side. Before the released picture of the Chinese ACE engine on the test stand did you also believe claims that China is developing and testing ACE engines? If so, then you must also believe official claims from ODK-UMPO that Russia has been testing VCE engines since 2021. This is my problem about internet arguments, it wholly relies on trust of sources on both sides. If you only believe Chinese sources, and dismiss all Russian sources, of course it will look like China is far ahead of Russia, and vise versa. This is why online arguments on whose engine tech is superior is stupid.

Might be stupid to debate these things with so much seriousness and conviction but any betting man would bet that China would bring ACE engines into service well before Russia does at least as far as official declaration goes. Russia is running on fumes. It has barely a fraction of the funding Chinese organisations have, barely the same level and extent of tools and resources or human talent. Russia's lost a lot of human talent just over the last few years.

If we chart out the trajectory of these programs, the Russian engines are going the way of the Russian space program and the Russian airforce and navy. Russia is regressing in basically every measurable way. It's so fucking hard to deny that even the most unhinged Russian stronkist will feel himself a fool to continue promoting that Russia is some hub of strength and tech development.

The engine race is just between the US and China. China and Russia may be overall pretty equal in aeroengines when it comes to low bypass and ACE/VCE (and China's behind Russia in high bypass) but China's running at a pace that Russia does not match. If you were to assume Russians are just smarter to compensate, well evidence would suggest no for one but even if they are, and somehow also culturally more suited to develop and master these engines, they do not have the resources these days.