China Flanker Thread II

[Blitzo]

Also, I'm not sure why there is doubt about J-15 carrying YJ-91 under the intakes. It clearly has the space for it.

 

[Totoro]

weight wise yj83 should fit, i don't think the air launched variant without the booster is significantly heavier than kh31.

wingspan wise - it's a very, very tight fit. bltizo, it's easier to just use total wingspan and apply 45 degree turn to it. one gets 865 mm. that's more than your calculation because you ommited the other wing and the distance between wingroots on a 45 degree rotated body isn't total body diameter but 230mm instead of 360 mm.

kh31 has 648 mm "depth", when rotated by 45 degrees. so difference is some 220mm, which would, if the missile would be fit at a same distance from intake as kh31, lower the clearance from tip of the wings to the ground to around 100 mm, perhaps less. Right now, judging by the images, clearance from kh31 wingtips to ground might be around 300-ish mm.

since the landing gear shock absorber seems to have some 150-ish mm long gap for moving up and down - that in itself might be too close for comfort...

But, the hardpoint interface on this j15 is quite a bit smaller than ones on su30 carrying kh31. you can barely see it, whereas on su30/kh31 combo it is easely 250 mm tall in itself (plus some 300ish mm for the pylon).
on these j15 images it looks as if the interface and the pylon combined don't go lower than 400ish mm, under the intake.

All in all - it might be within limits to hang a jy83 under the intakes. or we might actually see a kh31 variant there, or even a kh31 inspired variant. or maybe it's simply a redesigned pl12/pl15 pylon which is yet to become standard for all future j11/j16.

 

[Air Force Brat]

weight wise yj83 should fit, i don't think the air launched variant without the booster is significantly heavier than kh31.

wingspan wise - it's a very, very tight fit. bltizo, it's easier to just use total wingspan and apply 45 degree turn to it. one gets 865 mm. that's more than your calculation because you ommited the other wing and the distance between wingroots on a 45 degree rotated body isn't total body diameter but 230mm instead of 360 mm.

kh31 has 648 mm "depth", when rotated by 45 degrees. so difference is some 220mm, which would, if the missile would be fit at a same distance from intake as kh31, lower the clearance from tip of the wings to the ground to around 100 mm, perhaps less. Right now, judging by the images, clearance from kh31 wingtips to ground might be around 300-ish mm.

since the landing gear shock absorber seems to have some 150-ish mm long gap for moving up and down - that in itself might be too close for comfort...

But, the hardpoint interface on this j15 is quite a bit smaller than ones on su30 carrying kh31. you can barely see it, whereas on su30/kh31 combo it is easely 250 mm tall in itself (plus some 300ish mm for the pylon).
on these j15 images it looks as if the interface and the pylon combined don't go lower than 400ish mm, under the intake.

All in all - it might be within limits to hang a jy83 under the intakes. or we might actually see a kh31 variant there, or even a kh31 inspired variant. or maybe it's simply a redesigned pl12/pl15 pylon which is yet to become standard for all future j11/j16.

You are correct, those oleo struts do sometimes "fully compress" upon recovery to the deck, and those weapons are much to expensive to jettison. brat

 

[plawolf]

Judging from the calculations, and just looking at the new pylons themselves, I think it's a good bet that the J15 can carry a pair or YJ83s under the nacelles.

Even if the J15 can only take off with a fraction of its full fuel load, such a configuration could make sense with buddy refuelling. A J15 tanker with 2-5 big drop tanks and full internal fuel could top up more than 3 J15s carrying quad YJ83s, it would be worth while as you are getting 100% more missiles for the loss of 50% of aircraft available for the strike mission , giving you a net gain in the number of missiles your air wing could deploy in a single mission. If they can stick another YJ83 between the nacelles and still be able to top up 3+ such loaded J15s with a single J15 tanker , that's even more bang for the same fleet.

But even if that calculation doesn't hold true, such a capacity is still worthwhile to develop in preparation for when the PLAN gets CATOBAR carriers and dedicate carrier tankers.

 

[Blitzo]

weight wise yj83 should fit, i don't think the air launched variant without the booster is significantly heavier than kh31.

wingspan wise - it's a very, very tight fit. bltizo, it's easier to just use total wingspan and apply 45 degree turn to it. one gets 865 mm. that's more than your calculation because you ommited the other wing and the distance between wingroots on a 45 degree rotated body isn't total body diameter but 230mm instead of 360 mm.

I omitted the other wing, because I was under the assumption that the other wings/top wings wouldn't need to be considered, because after all, the pylon attaches to the missile fuselage rather than the missiles wings. I also made an assumption that any pylon on the aircraft designed for YJ-83K would have sufficient clearance space for the top side missile wings to not touch the aircraft's wing or air intake or wherever the pylon is located.

But I did overlook the additional distance of the diameter of a circular body on the overall missile to ground distance.
That should be half of missile wingspan*sin45 - half of missile diameter
So 610mm*sin45 - 180mm = 251mm, so not 304mm


Btw I get 862.7mm instead of 865mm


I'll do a quick Microsoft paint sketch later to visualize it. Describing this is quite difficult. I think I'm complicating matters by pointing out all the individual smaller dimensions and then adding them together, but I think it's easier to divide it out and add them back together so everyone can agree on the final thing.


--

Here we go:

In my mind, the minimum height that the J-15's (or any other aircraft's) pylon will need to allow the missile to sit, is 360mm + 251mm + wingtip/ground clearance. This is already assuming that the pylon in question is attached to the aircraft in such a way where there is both sufficient missile wing tip/aircraft clearance distance, but also so that it is minimal at the same time.

Because we can't know what the wingtip/aircraft clearance is, we have no real way to really eyeball the pictures of J-15's under intake pylons and judge if there is sufficient distance for the overall vertical distance of the missile (2H + diameter). That's the reason I didn't use total wingspan. However, we can try to judge whether the distance between the under intake pylon and the ground is equal to a diameter + height + wingtip/ground clearance, assuming that the pylon is deep/high enough to allow for the missile to be carried with minimal sufficient wingtip/aircraft clearance.

(I should note that I was trying to judge whether the missile could sit on the under intake pylon on Deino's picture rather with sufficient clearance rather than trying to estimate whether there was enough space under the J-15's air intake for a YJ-83K to sit at all, because I think there clearly is enough volume for that).

---

One way of reducing the wingtip/aircraft clearance is by "recessing" the missile and allowing the wingtips to protrude outside of their space under the nacelles. Of course, this will reduce the space between the nacelles, potentially reducing the horizontal clearance of any missiles under there, and may also impact the rear landing gear, but the horizontal distance that will protrude out doesn't have to be very much, only enough so that the missile can have a few more centimeters of clearance. Chump change.

Looking at the relatively small height of the under intake pylon in Deino's picture, I presume that is how YJ-83K is meant to sit -- with wingtips protruding slightly out.

Overall, I think the prospect of hanging YJ-83Ks under J-15's air intake/nacelles has a lot going for it.

 

[Blitzo]

I also think the flanker (J-15 and J-16) should be able to carry a YJ-12 under each wing, in addition to one between the nacelles. That picture of J-15 with the YJ-83K from the front shows just how small YJ-83K is relative to a flanker.

They probably have enough room there to fit a missile with double the wingspan of YJ-83K there if they really want to, and YJ-12 is certainly not as large as that!

 

[Deino]

I also think the flanker (J-15 and J-16) should be able to carry a YJ-12 under each wing, in addition to one between the nacelles. That picture of J-15 with the YJ-83K from the front shows just how small YJ-83K is relative to a flanker.

They probably have enough room there to fit a missile with double the wingspan of YJ-83K there if they really want to, and YJ-12 is certainly not as large as that!

To admit You might be correct with the YJ-83K ... it is indeed smaller than it seeems to be. But if You take a look at this new huge pylon on the H-6G esp. in comparoson to the YJ-83K pylon - and the YJ-12 is even longer in front of the pylon - I'm really sure that the YJ-12 is a "monster" !

Deino

 

[broadsword]

H-6G carrying two YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missiles.

 

[Deino]

Yeppp ... surely not the best image but after a quick search I just cut & pasted the best images I found to this collage: Look how far the YJ-12 reaches out both in front and behind the already much longer plyon ... I'm really sure that the YJ-12 is too large for a Flanker (at least for the wing and intake pylons).

Deino

 

[Blitzo]

To admit You might be correct with the YJ-83K ... it is indeed smaller than it seeems to be. But if You take a look at this new huge pylon on the H-6G esp. in comparoson to the YJ-83K pylon - and the YJ-12 is even longer in front of the pylon - I'm really sure that the YJ-12 is a "monster" !

Deino

YJ-12 is definitely a big missile, but, eyeballing the YJ-83K on the H-6 and comparing it to the J-15, I think YJ-12 can fit under the J-15's wing. YJ-12 actually looks like its overall wingspan is only a little bigger compared to YJ-83K -- it is only a much longer missile than YJ-83K, about 150% YJ-83Ks length. But J-15 is a big plane as well.