China Flanker Thread II

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Franklin

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siegecrossbow said:
Rare image of the first flankers in China. At the time, both China and Russia were impoverished nations. Instead of using money (U.S. dollars?), China supposedly paid for the Su-27s with dog-pelts, canned food, instant noodles, tea, hats and shoes, and thermal canteens.

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That must be a joke.
 
kwaigonegin

kwaigonegin

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Franklin said:
That must be a joke.
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I believe it. Much stranger things have happened in the world of military acquisition.
You have to realized that in the early 90s Russia post USSR + breakup of the republics was a country that was in tatters. Food was scarce, economy nose diving and most places run by Russia mobs and gangsters.
China in the early 90s is many orders of magnitudes much poorer than it is today but with essentially the same amount of population.
 
Air Force Brat

Air Force Brat

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JayBird said:
Rough translation of the article on the interview with one of the negotiator from Chinese side. Chen HongSheng. ( 5th from the right in the picture posted by siegecrossbo)

The memoir of the first Su-27 contract negotiation between China and Russia was funny and interesting. According to the interview of Mr.Chen China at the time was really short on cash, and Russia was short on almost everything after the Soviet Union collapse. Sukhoi Chief Designer Mikhail Simonov mention to Mr.Chen during their dinner that they haven't paid their employees salary for the last six months already. He was thankful and very friendly throughout the negotiation and Subsequent Cooperations because this deal kind of gave Sukhoi a lifeline during the most difficult time of the company.

It was a win win situation for both side to get th deal done with 35% cash, and 65% with light industrial goods like clothes, shoes, hats and dog plets too. (But the 10,000 number probably just exaggeration as a joke by posters) And foods like beef, pork, noodles, tea, and canned foods. Sukhoi was paying it's employees with these foods as their salary.

Journalist: Are the Su-27 performance satisfactory for us after induction?

Chen: Before the end of the cold war, the Soviet Union's military technology was on par with the U.S as one of the superpowers in the world. Soviet equipments are reliable and durable overall, their electronic equipments and engine life is not as good as the U.S. But still pretty much on the same level of efficiency when all the systems are integrated. And the price is cheaper, very easy to maintain. Su-27 is one of such a perfect example. Of course there are some areas still lagging behind the U.S. Obviously on the negotiation table, we emphasis the shortcomings of the product as the main talking point.
Sample conversation on the negotiation table:

Chen: SU-27's radar is 500KG in weight, but has a search range of only 120KM. The U.S radar is only around 150KG, but it has about the same search range as the 500KG Russian radar.
Russia: Su-27 engine thrust is very powerful, a few hundred KG difference doesn't matter much.

Chen: AL-31 full-life span is only 600 hours, and MTBO after 300 hours. The U.S military engine full-life span is 2000+ hours. That's a huge difference.

Russia: It's not a big deal, fighter jets rarely survive pass 50 flying hours during war. So, the difference of full life span of the engine is not that important.

Chen: But we are not at war with anyone right now. when we use the jets for training and exercise, short engine life span will cost us a lot of money.
Russia: That's why the price of our jets are very cheap. ( *lol*)

And then he went on to say Sukhoi jets are really not bad at all, the induction of the Sukhoi jets tremendously upgraded the capabilities of PLAAF and PLANAF at the time. They did a test firing with the R-27 AAM near one of the military base in western China.

The visibility was very low that day, and the Chinese side ask the Russians if they want to change to a different time for the test. The Russians were very confident with the test and insisted it was no problem. The target drone was being locked on at 80KM and then R-27 AAM was fired at that range. The Russians informed the Chinese that the target drone was shut down according to the radar. It took the Chinese 1 hour to find the drone wreckage 60 KM away to confirm the result. Chen saids we didn't have the ability to do that at the time.
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Yes, and folks who continue to tell us this stuff is so far superior to any Western equipment should read the accounts of these negotiations. Unfortunately all the major powers are entering another economic down-turn, with all the fifth gens having slowed development/production, the fortunes of the Flanker have taken another up-turn with Russia likely buying another 48 Su-35s.
 
thunderchief

thunderchief

Senior Member
Russia: It's not a big deal, fighter jets rarely survive pass 50 flying hours during war. So, the difference of full life span of the engine is not that important.
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This made me laugh, but it was actual Soviet calculation in case of full-fledged war between NATO and Warsaw Pact . They expected 2/3 to 3/4 of all aircraft deployed on both sides to be destroyed/disabled in first few weeks of the war .

As for weight of the radar, Soviet semiconductor industry was lagging a lot at that time . Soviets regularly employed vacuum tube technology for military applications, especially for those that needed to operate in extreme weather conditions (below -50 degrees Celsius ) . Nevertheless, Su-27 had certain advantage over NATO fighters armed with AIM-7 P and M versions, because the range of R-27 was up to 80km as we could see from Chinese test, and effective range of Sparrow was up to 50-60 km . That held until early 90's and introduction of AIM-120.
 
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