After some thought, I am putting forward my ideas of what PLAAF CCAs might look like and what features they might include. Refer to
Guancha's article for PLAAF thinkings on CCA. I will update previous
infographics.
View attachment 142164
Looks good.
Just a few comments:
1. PL-15E is the designation of downgraded export version?
2. A notional QJ-2 would also use the WS-15 engine? I don't expect that much of a cost difference from the WS-10
3. There's supposed to be a specialised super-manoeuvrable WVR CCA in development? If so, my guess is that you want this to be more expendable because it's for WVR combat. So you would use a smaller airframe with maybe a single WS-13 and maybe 2-4 missiles. It also implies that there are tailfin control surfaces as manoeuvrability at supersonic speeds is limited.
It would be a rarer variant as there isn't as much WVR combat occurring and would only have the range for 1IC operations.
4. Following on from point 3, this would imply that the larger CCA variants don't need to prioritise manoeuvrability and can focus on other elements like straight line speed to increase the range of the their air-to-air missiles. So the QJ-1 example could dispense with the TVC and get more thrust/range instead.
5. And if there is a smaller specialised super-manoeuvrable WVR CCA with tailfin control surfaces, then whilst it is difficult to track on x-band engagement radars, it can still be detected with low-frequency radars.
In such a scenario, it makes sense to have expendable Kratos Valkyrie type CCAs to fly ahead with WVRAAMs first.
