China Flanker Thread III (land based, exclude J-15)
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
What exactly are these huge pod they are carrying? I've posted earlier of a screen capture of a CCTV-7 video of a J-16 carrying two pod like things under one wing, I thought it was a mock-up of air-to-ground munition or land attack missile. But if these are indeed what @Blitzo was suggesting, datalink pods for KD-88, why is these are need for two of them on this one jet? We saw plenty of pictures of J/H-7A carrying 4 KD-88 or anti-ship missiles, and each of those only needed one datalink pod.
And what's more confusing would be on the other picture a posted earlier:
loading 2 of those under 1 wing?!?
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In the air refueling image, the things under the wings are likely training rounds for KD-88.
No one ever said the those were pods.
In by78's picture that you are quoting, those look to me like a pod of some sort whose identify we do not know, but they seem far smaller than the KD-88 training rounds.
That is to say, I believe the two pictures show different things.
More and more Chinese Air Force aircraft are equipped with ECM nacelles. Here a J-11B from the 95th brigade based in Lianyungang, on the east coast of China..
Any reason why China is currently only producing J-16s? It makes sense that they would only produce the most advanced Flankers at this point, but why are they focussing on twin-seaters so much instead of single-seat variants?
This is actually a pretty good question, and one I've pondered for the last few years.
There's a few reasons, IMO:
1: the twin seater and (potential) single seater "domestic advanced Flankers" are actually separate developmental variants of each other. Specifically, the twin seater domestic advanced Flanker is the J-16 (which as we all know has been in production for multiple years now going back to early/mid 2010s). Meanwhile, the single seater domestic advanced Flanker that exists as an "option" is the J-11D. However, the J-11D is not a single seat variant of the J-16, and the J-16 is not a twin seat variant of the J-11D either. Meaning it's not just a matter of producing a single seat variant of the J-16 if they wanted one -- it's not that easy.
2: then there's the question of what a new build single seater advanced Flanker airframe would offer. For the PLA, they already have many hundreds of single seat J-11Bs in service, whose airframes are relatively young, and can be given MLUs to introduce more advanced subsystems. We see that with the J-11BG/BHG upgrades that include an AESA radar, among likely other upgrades.
3: then there's the question of what does a twin seater J-16 offer that a potential single seater advanced Flanker may not offer? IMO, the most valuable thing the J-16 brings, in context of the present day (and future) air combat landscape, is the second pilot. Specifically, as air combat becomes increasingly networked, and as UAVs and UCAVs become introduced in larger numbers in a MUMT fashion, there would be some benefit in having a large number of modern, capable airframes that can do various command and UAV/UCAV control tasks, while also simultaneously being able to conduct combat at the same time. Now, as technology develops of course automation means that a single person will be able to do more command/control tasks and command more UAVs/UCAVs simultaneously at any one given time -- however at the end of the day you still need a human being to take in the information and make the tactical decisions even if things are highly automated. The number of human beings will likely still present a practical rate limiting step for command/control and UAV/UCAV control in the near future.
4: lastly, the J-20 is currently in production as a single seat heavyweight twin engine air superiority (and multirole) fighter, and of course far superior to J-11D in every domain that is relevant. One would ask why build a land based, single seat twin engine air superiority/multirole fighter that is based on a 4th generation airframe, when you could build a J-20 instead, especially given current J-20As and a single seat advanced Flanker (like J-11D) would both use the same WS-10 engines anyhow.
... or putting the answers more briefly:
1: building a single seat advanced Flanker isn't as straight forward as we think
2: J-11BG upgrades exist, and are the "single seat advanced Flanker"
3: J-16s offer more useful growth potential into the near future of air combat due to the benefits of its second pilot
4: J-20 already exists as a single seat heavyweight twin engine fighter in production that is superior to J-11D in every single way, and uses the same engines, to boot
Given all that, I think there's just no real good argument for why the PLA "needs" to build new single seat advanced Flanker airframes (like J-11D). So the best choice is continuing to build J-16s which have an existing large scale support/logistics system, will enjoy a long term support/upgrade pathway, and performs good enough for the A2A and strike mission, and has the second pilot that can offer benefits for future command/UAV roles.
Now, there have been some rumours that the PLA might be interested in J-11D, but to date over the years we've not seen evidence of this.
If the PLA does buy J-11D, then it might mean that they value the slightly more capable performance and air to air focus that J-11D may offer compared to J-16, to be willing to introduce a new Flanker variant into the fleet... but at the moment, in context of where the PLA is headed (large scale procurement of 5th generation fighters and new build 4.5th gens taking a backseat), I can't see the benefits of introducing J-11D outweighing its complexities and costs.
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While this looks impressive, the parking apron outside looks a bit sus, and I wonder if it is all real aircraft in the single shot.
This should be from a video, so I imagine if it's real we will know soon enough if or when the video comes up.
Also, that floor looks rather wet, and seems like a bit of a slip hazard
From that new movie?
there's one more reason mentioned by Yankee during his potcast with Shilao, that plaaf didn't fully realize the benifit of twin pilot fighter until they started to massively deploy J-16 over south china sea. Two pilots together could greatly ease the load of some very complecated mission and extend the length to even more than 10 hours, which plaaf rarely operated in this way before.
From CCTV...
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