China Flanker Thread III (land based, exclude J-15)

[Jingle Bells]

Rare? In fact I haven‘t seen one on any Flanker yet.

Well, I don't see why they should need to dual rack when there are still a few pair of vacant pylons for almost all sorties on pics and vids available to us. A flanker can single mount 12 AAM at full capacity. If most sorties we seen on pics and vids only go with not more than 6 AAM to begin with, why on earth should 4 of the 6 AAM be dual mounted? It would make no sense to have a flanker mount only 6 AAMs, yet still have 4 of those AAMs on two dual mount racks. In Chinese, that's called “多此一举”.

 

[Jingle Bells]

Though it was proved last August that they draw that way to only mark entry and exit of median line and don't show the flight path after they cross the line. There was footage of PLA aircraft flying near shore of taiwan island and in that day's report it's still "just across the edge and back".

That's called ”温水煮青蛙“ in Chinese.

Yes, that's the trick. You'll be putting you faith into an agency that was first saying no missiles overflew Taiwan, then when was called out by Japanese MOD saying not only did DF-15 overflew, it actually overflew almost directly over Taipei they came back with "but but the missiles were more than 100km up, therefore in space and not in our airspace".

There's already so many cases those MND report being proven false. Not the least of which is the fact that they show PLAAF aircrafts taking physics defying hair pin turns.

To tie this back to the thread. I recall last year in particular ROCMND reported once an unusual number of J-16 in the strait, to the point that if it was real you could build a whole J-16 wall flying towards Taiwan with minimum space separating them for safe operation and still not reach the number quoted. I recall we were suspecting that this was an artefact of them falling for J-16D or other means of EW.

It would actually be strategically worse for the island's MND if PLAAF actual does things that way. Because it's actively breeding complacency in the island. From Mainland's point of view, it would be better if the island is complacent and constantly feel a false sense of safety and even triumphalism. This is especially true for advanced flankers like J-16 and J-16D which already have extremely long range radars and a whole arsenal of long range stand-off weapons. Technically, they don't even need to fly that close to start attacking.

 

[Gloire_bb]

Well, I don't see why they should need to dual rack when there are still a few pair of vacant pylons for almost all sorties on pics and vids available to us. A flanker can single mount 12 AAM at full capacity. If most sorties we seen on pics and vids only go with not more than 6 AAM to begin with, why on earth should 4 of the 6 AAM be dual mounted? It would make no sense to have a flanker mount only 6 AAMs, yet still have 4 of those AAMs on two dual mount racks. In Chinese, that's called “多此一举”.

There is some merit in dual-mounting missiles between the engines, as we saw Russian su-35s doing it from time to time during the first half of 2022 (later on R-37Ms took the place of twin R-77-1 pylons).
The tradeoff is simple - more bothersome to mount, but lesser drag coefficient.

Spoiler: example

 

[Dylan Nguyen]

J-11B and J-11BS

 

[Gloire_bb]

The gray-nosed J-11BGs of Northern Theater Command.

Always found it interesting that China went the US way on its mainline fighters, when it comes to EW self-protection.
I.e. no European semi-permanent or permanent, low-drag EW pods - only fully suspended (read - full drag) ones.
Neither nation really likes to carry them for a2a missions either (at least on photo ops) - mostly ground attack, or separate training (like here).

 

[Deino]

Even if confirmed since some tome, heavy loads on a J-16 are still rarely seen. Here serial number 65213 - from the 40th Air Brigade appears to carry a KD-88 and the usual associated guidance pod and a K/RKL700A ECM pod.

(Image via @军I名 from Weibo)

 

[siegecrossbow]

First female J-11B pilots.

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[luosifen]

Flankers of Xi'an Flying College:

 

[delta115]

 

[luosifen]

Different video about the female J-11B pilots with English subtitles: