Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36)

Blitzo

Blitzo

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Tomboy said:
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IIRC this is a GE patent for next generation ACE, you could clearly see a "curve" in the exhaust to reduce signatureView attachment 163494
PW's XA103 also includes rather extreme measures to reduce turbine exposure and most likely IR signature.
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Those are somewhat natural evolutions of the YF-23 style exhaust trough.

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Tomboy said:
IMO, making J-36 more maneuverable at the expense of basically well stablished baseline(Extreme emphasis all aspect stealth and IR signature) for 6th gen as discussed in this forum is leaving a bad taste in my mouth, especially most people here have concurred maneuverability is playing less and less of a role in future air combat.
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It remains to be seen if the triple TVC configuration is the one they will go with for the final production model (they may well evaluate them both while certain other iterative features between prototype 1 and 2 will be "successive") -- and what they ultimately go with will depend on how they meet requirements.


But there's certainly no reason to think that the presence of 2D TVC nozzles means that all prior discussions around maneuverability and signature reduction are not relevant. Maneuverability will play a less important role in future air combat, and J-36 is likely to still be less maneuverable than J-XDS by virtue of... the rest of the aircraft's design.

mack8 said:
Damn i missed this, our triangular friend is back in force. The nozzles are intriguing for starters, are we sure it's not having two engines now? The whole area looks to me like an interim setup. Hopefully sufficiently good pictures will appear for us to see all the changes, the DSIs, the nozzles etc.
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As I posted above on #3701, it looks like three.

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ACuriousPLAFan

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mack8 said:
Damn i missed this, our triangular friend is back in force. The nozzles are intriguing for starters, are we sure it's not having two engines now? The whole area looks to me like an interim setup. Hopefully sufficiently good pictures will appear for us to see all the changes, the DSIs, the nozzles etc.
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100%. Because switching from three engines to two engines involve massive changes to the kinematics, power distribution, heat management and fuel consumption, such that it's no different from designing a brand new aircraft from scratch.

In the meantime - Are there any low-bypass/variable-cycle, high-thrust turbofan engines with 24 to 27 ton-force of thrust, whether the engine exists in real life or in projects? The answer is no.

Also, refer @Blitzo's answer above.
 
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mack8

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I do recall back few months ago the rumours about major changes that were said some would like, some wouldn't. The changes seem to look bigger in scope between J-20/2001 and 2011, which is another astonishing feature as it's a mere 10 months from 36011 flying. Though presumably they must have been working on this configuration before 12.24?

ACuriousPLAFan said:
100%. Because switching from three engines to two engines involve massive changes to the kinematics, power distribution, heat management and fuel consumption, such that it's no different from designing a brand new aircraft from scratch.

In the meantime - Could you point to any low-bypass/variable-cycle, high-thrust turbofan engines with 24 to 27 ton-force of thrust?
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We know about some of the rumoured WS-XX engines that we discussed about over the last months, who knows, maybe they do have a F-135 size engine in the works. But again, just pure speculation, hopefully we'll see the spine so we'll know for sure.
 
Blitzo

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mack8 said:
We know about some of the rumoured WS-XX engines that we discussed about over the last months, who knows, maybe they do have a F-135 size engine in the works. But again, just pure speculation, hopefully we'll see the spine so we'll know for sure.
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A F135 "size" engine wouldn't necessarily be optimized or appropriate for J-36.

As for the engine count for this prototype, the image thus seems to depict three engine nozzles rather clearly. There's nothing wrong with waiting for additional images of the dorsal spine, but as it stands I think we can pretty comfortably tick off 3 engines as being visible.

See my last reply to you.

mack8 said:
I do recall back few months ago the rumours about major changes that were said some would like, some wouldn't. The changes seem to look bigger in scope between J-20/2001 and 2011, which is another astonishing feature as it's a mere 10 months from 36011 flying. Though presumably they must have been working on this configuration before 12.24?
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The difference between 200X and 201X prototypes were more "subtle" but more "all encompassing" -- but for prototype 1 and 2 of J-36, I have a feeling the overall planform, sensor location and most of the internal structure of the aircraft hasn't greatly changed or even outright stayed the same, and instead selective parts (intakes, MLG, engine exhausts) have changed.

If that is the case (which we'd need to wait for imagery to determine), then from an EMD prototype pov, it would be more like changing a couple of major subsystems/components while the rest of the airframe is largely unchanged
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

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mack8 said:
We know about some of the rumoured WS-XX engines that we discussed about over the last months, who knows, maybe they do have a F-135 size engine in the works. But again, just pure speculation, hopefully we'll see the spine so we'll know for sure.
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The F-135 engine only has a max thrust of ~19 ton-force - And that's with some built-in caveats due to its operational conditions.

Using the most conservative estimate on the WS-15's max thrust at ~16 ton-force, that would mean a cumulative thrust of ~48-ton force. Dividing that figure by two means each engine would need to provide ~24 ton-force of thrust. Such an engine would be way larger and way more difficult to develop than even the XA100 and XA101 engines, both of which only have max thrusts of ~20 ton-force each.

Also, the available information on the WS-XX is too scarce to even worth being speculated about at this point.
 
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mack8

Junior Member
ACuriousPLAFan said:
The F-135 engine only has a max thrust of ~19 ton-force - And that's with some built-in caveats due to its expected operational conditions.

Using the most conservative estimate on the WS-15's max thrust at ~16 ton-force, that would mean a cumulative thrust of ~48-ton force. Dividing that figure by two means each engine would require ~24 ton-force of thrust. Such engine would be way larger and way more difficult to develop than even the XA100 and XA101 engines, both of which only has max thrusts of ~20 ton-force each.

Also, the available information on the WS-XX is too scarce to even worth being speculated about at this point.
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To be clear, i was referring to F-135 mostly from the size /weight perspective. Based on some engine data seen here it has an unusually low T/W ratio, probably because of the way it's optimized. But even a fairly standard by now 10 to 1 T/W ratio for a 2400kg chinese equivalent, better optimized for supersonic/supercruising flight should give the 24 tons-force you mentioned.

But again, pure speculation atm, let's just focus on the changes we can see and keep an eye out for new pics/videos. Someone mentioned DSI bumps, well the J-50 does not have traditional bumps, so it could be the case with J-36 no.2 too.
 
Blitzo

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mack8 said:
To be clear, i was referring to F-135 mostly from the size /weight perspective.
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I'm not sure why F135's size/weight would be particularly desirable or optimized for J-36, when something like F119 could be just as appropriate in terms of dimensions.

mack8 said:
Based on some engine data seen here it has an unusually low T/W ratio, probably because of the way it's optimized. But even a fairly standard by now 10 to 1 T/W ratio for a 2400kg chinese equivalent, better optimized for supersonic/supercruising flight should give the 24 tons-force you mentioned.
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That would just an entirely different engine class... IMO it's more useful to just not bring in F135 at all.


talonn said:
Hot take, but imagine if this is just a modification of the first frame due to their modularity concept. They can change anything "on the go" :O
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I think such a take is rather too hot, and unless there was rumours or evidence of it, probably better to keep such an idea under wraps.
 
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