China Flanker Thread II

[Air Force Brat]

Unlike the China military industrial complex, Pratt & Whitney didn't have sources to buy or steal cutting edge information and technology, so you would expect more problems with original design and R&D.

Stony, I think the term is "borrow", in any reqard you are correct, all clean sheet designs have to be engineered, prototyped, and go through a trouble shooting phase, the F-100 was going into the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world, the F-15, and its kinematic performance was in a whole nother world, just as the F-22s remains today. I know that its difficult to remain objective in these discussions, particularly when others make false accusations to cover their own methodology, or defend the lack of progress, we all know what the score is, we don't need to move the goal post, so it is best to have a civil objective conversation to sort out these nuggets of truth. brat

 

[latenlazy]

The P&W F100 suffered such prolonged period of teething trouble because of two factors:

1. F100's original performance target was too ambitious for the state of the art in related sciences by about 3-5 years. Therefor according to an AIAA postmortem it would have been impossible for the engine to meet all of them and still be reliable at the beginning.

2. The DOD procurement policy initially guaranteed P&W monopoly of fighter engine supply, so even after state of the art in related sciences caught up to the F-100, P&W had little incentive to solve the problems with F100.

When DOD finally decided to develope GE F101 into an alternative fighter engine, P&W found the motivation to rapidly fixed all outstanding problems with F100.

It's not clear what is the problem with WS-10. WS-10 is by all appearances not ahead of the state of the art. In fact it may be somewhat behind it. But the Chinese engine developers lack experience. This may be at the origin of the initial problems suffered by WS-10.

As to why it is taking so long to fix the issue, I wonder if the knowledge that ws-10 is the only chinese engine of its class in the pipeline and chinese government would keep pumping in money to make it work contributed to a lack of maximum motivation to fix all the problem as quickly as possible? If there is another Chinese engine roughly in its class WS-10's problems would be fixed much sooner?

Given the limited information we have of the WS-10's development history, it seems design issues were already resolved by 2008. The problems were in the production process with quality control, which seems to be a common issue still being sorted out in many Chinese high tech sectors. Scaling your industry can be as or more difficult a hurdle to cross as design and development, and is an altogether different sort of challenge, especially on the project management and human resources front (organizational science is also a science!).

I don't think there's another engine in the same class as the WS-10 in the works, nor do I think it would be wise to start one just for the sake of project management. China's still trying to play catch up, and diverting resources to a second product that can deliver the same performance instead of focusing on reaching the next level is on net balance probably less cost efficient. Furthermore, I think that the differences in management structure in the comparison communicates different incentives for workers that may preclude the effectiveness of using competition to drive down cost and increase value. The US government purchases its hardware from private contractors and thus have no direct control over who builds their stuff. The PRC government purchases its hardware through its own SOEs, which not only gives them a direct line to fire people, but also means that no matter who they purchase from there's a moral hazard problem. The different organizational structures naturally lead to different methods to resolve principle-agent problems.

 

[Blackstone]

I like the way you use the word "stolen". In actual fact very few of the said original designs can be said to be "original". Take the case of the turbofan engines from the U.K., U.S., France and Russia - which of them can be claimed to be the "original"?

I said "stolen," and that's exactly what I mean. Whatever Pratt&Whitney did with engine developments, it did so with full cooperation of its partners. China, on the other hand, employed nefarious quasi-government (PLA unit 61398) intelligence (hacker) assets and stole what it couldn't buy legally. Yes, yes, yes, we all know governments spy on each other, but let's be honest and call a spade a spade.

 

[latenlazy]

I said "stolen," and that's exactly what I mean. Whatever Pratt&Whitney did with engine developments, it did so with full cooperation of its partners. China, on the other hand, employed nefarious quasi-government (PLA unit 61398) intelligence (hacker) assets and stole what it couldn't buy legally. Yes, yes, yes, we all know governments spy on each other, but let's be honest and call a spade a spade.

Does China's purchase of the cfm-56 in the 80s count as stealing? If you're going to levy blame for theft you'll want to do it in the right places.

 

[SinoSoldier]

Unlike the China military industrial complex, Pratt & Whitney didn't have sources to buy or steal cutting edge information and technology, so you would expect more problems with original design and R&D.

Unlike the US, the Chinese never had the audacity to kidnap German scientists, force them to work for you under the threat of imprisonment, and still claim that they have the lead in ingenuity.

 

[Blackstone]

Unlike the US, the Chinese never had the audacity to kidnap German scientists, force them to work for you under the threat of imprisonment, and still claim that they have the lead in ingenuity.

Hey, we're no angels, and you'll never see me say otherwise. However, it's my honest believe we're better than most of the colossi the world has ever seen.

 

[latenlazy]

Hey, we're no angels, and you'll never see me say otherwise. However, it's my honest believe we're better than most of the colossi the world has ever seen.

Honesty requires getting the specifics right.

 

[Quickie]

I said "stolen," and that's exactly what I mean. Whatever Pratt&Whitney did with engine developments, it did so with full cooperation of its partners. China, on the other hand, employed nefarious quasi-government (PLA unit 61398) intelligence (hacker) assets and stole what it couldn't buy legally. Yes, yes, yes, we all know governments spy on each other, but let's be honest and call a spade a spade.

Where is the proof? Without proof, it could all just be propaganda.

 

[Quickie]

Hey, we're no angels, and you'll never see me say otherwise. However, it's my honest believe we're better than most of the colossi the world has ever seen.

That's part of the problem, isn't it? Believing what you want to believe without regards to reality.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Guys we have left the map and crossed into dark territory. Lets gat back to the flankers