Are they at least upgrading the radar if the news is true?
China Flanker Thread II
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Are they at least upgrading the radar if the news is true?
by78
General
The TV report is recent and aired within the past three days. So it would appear some kind of Flanker is under current production. Is it J-11B? I don't know.
That's indeed a major surprise ...
by78
General
By the way, I found a transcript of the TV report. You can use Bing or Google Translate on the text.
Here is my short summary:
1) The report is about the material and fabrication technologies used to build the Sino-Flanker.
2) The show indeed confirms that J-11B is still being produced.
3) The yellow coated surfaces of the J-11B are aluminum. The green surfaces are carbon-fiber composites.
4) 3D printing is used extensively.
Beyond revealing that J-11B is still in production, nothing else major is revealed. I expect the full video to soon become available on Youtube.
EDIT: I found the actual TV report.
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by78
General
Could you explain to me why this is a surprise? Pardon me, I don't follow China's Flanker variants all that much.
IMO it's a surprise since the final aircraft manufactured were from Batch 06 and delivered in late 2014/early 2015.
Not only that. There is also an expectation that China will move on completely from mechanically-scanned radars onto AESA radars. The J-10C, J-16, and J-20 are all AESA-equipped so it's a reasonable expectation that the next iteration of the J-11 family also be equipped with AESA.
However, from the CCTV footage, it seems the radomes of the J-11Bs currently in production are unchanged from the earlier versions. It's possible that they've put an AESA behind the black radomes but literally every single other AESA fighter in PLAAF service have grey radomes so that would be a departure from the norm.
I understood there is just one Flanker production facility. So when J-15's or J-16's are produced no J-11B's can be built. And I understood that after Batch 06 Flanker production was modernized with more composite material and more 3D printing. So the new J-11's will have these same improvements.
Do we really know for sure that there is only one Flanker production facility? Or are there in fact two - one for the J-11B and J-15 for years, which was changed to J-16 and J-15 and now J-16 and J-11B, while the J-15T is prepared for serial manufacturing??
I'm almost sure that J-16-production is continuing in parallel.
Deino
Would that mean that after the plant for J-15 and J-16 was built the plant for J-11 was modernized? Then they took quite a lot of time for that modernization but perhaps also for training the personnel.
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