Chinese Aviation Industry

bingo said:

I completely agree with this view .... and therefore, let's ignore those arguments (those who want to discuss that aspect can do so, elsewhere).

The question is .... if reverse engineering (RE) .... can't help for complicated things (e.g. F-22), then that's a definite constraint. And leave alone F-22, even China has failed to reverse engineer Aircraft engines, so far.

Second, even if technically feasible, but too costly to actually do it .. it again become useless.

If either of the two constraints above, were not to apply, ..... I wonder why India does not reverse engineer Su-30MKI !!!

(Just like China reverse-engineered Su-27)

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Su-27 has been successfully reverse-engineered ... that is true.
But does anyone know, the economic costs involved in doing that. Was it worthwhile ?

This question is much more relevant in light of the following facts:

1. China can buy Su-27, as it can buy A-320

2. But, China chose to reverse engineer Su-27, but not A-320

3. Reverse engineering of Mig21 has valid different reasons (which do not apply to reverse engineering Su-27.

e.g. India had no reason to reverse engineer Mig21 becaue India could have bought it. China was not offered Mig21, after 1959. So, China had the motivation (irrespective of the costs of such reverse engineering).

But the same reason as Mig21 can not be applied further to Su-27.

China can buy Su-27 (as India can buy Su-30MKI) ..... but China chose to reverse engineer Su-27, but India didn't.

The reason of this behaviour is worth exploring.

It will give insight into (i) How complicated reverse engineering is technically, and (ii) did it make economic sense for China to reverse engineer Su-27

Click to expand...

As to your question why China chose to reverse engineer Su-27 and India didn't...

Ans: China's policy is different from India. And like it or not, CHina had a bigger manufacturing industry with more money as compared to India. Plus what is there to ponder?

China took up a policy to be self-reliance, this way, they gain technical knowhow and could manufacture their aircraft without external aid (or with as little as possible). India might not want to take this approach as they might find buying aircrafts are cheaper and easier.

However India had a very establish shipbuilding problem that actually build aircraft carriers...

As to your question on cloning or reverse engineering F-22... I am wondering how could anyone come up with such an obvious question... Su-27 - China had a licence with Russia which also provided them with kits and most probably blueprints and every technical know how... F-22 - no kits, no technical know how, no blueprints - how to clone?

You really think that by looking at a aircraft, most probably from some internet photos and you can reverse engineered that aircraft. If that was the case, then China should already have huge fleet of F-22 flying.

China could buy Su-27... but they chose not just to buy Su-27, but licence built these aircraft, when they have enough knowhow they started their J-11B program, which was a radically better plane then a normal J-11.

As to A320... many had already advises and pointed out why they don't reverse engineer this aircraft, so let it rest. The only thing I can tell you is... reverse engineering something illegally, is not what CHina wanted to be accused of now. ANd it is economically not correct, because you cannot sell these patented product overseas... China's domestic market might be big... but they are not that big!

China also do not need to be first in everything. She had her own needs in different areas, as long as those needs are met, there really is no need to go into an arm race with US and the western countries.

Not that US had boeing and Europe had BAe, that CHina must have something to match them. And not that US had F-22, then CHina must reverse engineer, clone or whatever you wish to call, these excellent fighters, while throwing in billions of dollars which could actually be used to improve the country's infrastructure, non-military or civilian sectors and at the same time grow the military in an acceptable rate.

We are see what happen to the Soviet Union. Why would someone even suggest CHina took the old route, built excellent military products, fight for number one in the world... and in the end, ended out bankrupting and splitting out to who knows how many independent nations?

bingo said:

(Just like China reverse-engineered Su-27)

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Su-27 has been successfully reverse-engineered ... that is true.
But does anyone know, the economic costs involved in doing that. Was it worthwhile ?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't say they reverse Engineered Su-27, they had licensed production, and eventually they found the avionics that came with the package to be too backward and difficult to use, so they decided to switch in more modern equipment to create the J-11B.

In other words the need to produce J-11B was there because they needed a more advanced aircraft, not because of any economically reasons.

mkhan said:

Did i really just saw someone comparing Soviet shuttle buran to American space shuttle, as an example of Russians taking an American idea and coming up with something better? Hell even Somalis can come up with something better than space shuttle if all it never has to fly, might as well make it out of card board.
Take a look at the record of shuttle flights vs the Russian brain child, or disease as i see it..the buran. How many flights did it actually make?

The comparison between the heavy lift transport aircraft is also ridiculous. There is a huge difference if you need to make a handful of aircraft and if you need to mass produce it. How many An's could the Russians produce in an year? Compare this to the production capacities of the western factories and so see where everything went wrong for the soviets.
As for the awesome on the paper S-300, how many western aircraft have it actually shot down?
The reason why china might not want to follow the Russian way of doing things is pretty evident from the answers to the above question. They don't won't to end up bankrupt like the Russians did, even with their massive oil reserves.

Click to expand...

Buran was a superior design - and it did fly.

"The Buran completed one unmanned spaceflight in 1988 before the cancellation of the Soviet shuttle program in 1993."

"The shuttle orbited the Earth twice in 206 minutes of flight. It performed an automated landing on the shuttle runway at Baikonur Cosmodrome where, despite a lateral wind speed of 61.2 kilometres per hour (38.0 mph), it landed only 3 metres (9.8 ft) laterally and 10 metres (33 ft) longitudinally from the target."


1. Buran could carry more payload than space shuttle
2. Buran could do completely automated landing without human interference.
3. Buran had built-in jet engines for powered atmospheric re-entry maneuverability - while space shuttle is basically a glider only.
4. Energia was also capable of delivering a payload to the Moon. However, this configuration was never tested. The Space Shuttle was never intended to go beyond Low Earth orbit

Space shuttle does have one thing going for it though....
1. Space shuttle had a $3 MILLION DOLLAR COKE DISPENSER!!! (Coca-Cola spent $3 million dollars and couple of years R&D for the enjoyment of astronauts onboard... WOOHOO!!)




About the mass-production capability of soviet designs -Soviet did have more aircrafts and hardwares than the american! And they did it all BY HAND MOSTLY (labour vs machinery)! which is quite unlike what China is mostly doing now. And Soviet had 1/3 less manpower than American too!
The problem with Soviet was that they were beaten by manpower and an inefficient economic system. Their design was never the problem - the funding difference was vastly exaggerated too in my opinion - compare to the West during coldwar. The West poured far more resources than Soviet ever did. (And the American had the help of EU allies and Japan and virtually the rest of the world to trade with in term of resource, talents, manpower)


Now, about the "going broke" argument - this is where I don't understand.
The American should have gone BANKRUPT LONG TIME AGO if you use that same yardstick that measured the Soviet. It is only now that American is feeling the pinch (ironically, 20 years after the coldwar).
I think the reason (I am still baffle by it) why American didn't go bust - is because they had good creditors who are willing to lend them money and resources. Basically Americans has the credit to continue to borrow, and an efficient system at exploiting that, while Soviet were virtually close-in and isolated.

rhino123 said:

As to your question on cloning or reverse engineering F-22... I am wondering how could anyone come up with such an obvious question... Su-27 - China had a licence with Russia which also provided them with kits and most probably blueprints and every technical know how... F-22 - no kits, no technical know how, no blueprints - how to clone?

You really think that by looking at a aircraft, most probably from some internet photos and you can reverse engineered that aircraft. If that was the case, then China should already have huge fleet of F-22 flying.

Click to expand...

And that's exactly the contentious point here. How did the Soviet came up with better designs (as I listed previously - Tu-160 vs B-1, Su-27 vs F-15, etc..) with nothing but just photos or ideas? I am pretty sure back in height of coldwar, US military industrial complex already compartmentalized everything so it was impossible for Russians to steal a complete design so easily, the Russian had to get by with fragments or maybe just words of ideas. And yet they came up time and again superior end product than American.

Asymptote said:

And that's exactly the contentious point here. How did the Soviet came up with better designs (as I listed previously - Tu-160 vs B-1, Su-27 vs F-15, etc..) with nothing but just photos or ideas?

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The Soviets had a very effective spy network to spy for them, like in the case of the Concorde. And as mentioned before, they poured insane amounts of resources into their Defense Industry. I read somewhere that something like 17% of Soviet GDP went to their Defense Industry compared with the US, which never really went past 6%. China in comparison only spends about 5% of GDP on their Defense Industry, which is actually lower than what the US spends on theirs. Also as mentioned before China is actually leading in things like high-speed rail, electric cars, wind-power, solar-power etc. These are technologies of the future that the world wants and I think its pretty convenient you are ignoring these Chinese achievements in order to paint your picture of a "backwards China".

Asymptote said:

And that's exactly the contentious point here. How did the Soviet came up with better designs (as I listed previously - Tu-160 vs B-1, Su-27 vs F-15, etc..) with nothing but just photos or ideas? I am pretty sure back in height of coldwar, US military industrial complex already compartmentalized everything so it was impossible for Russians to steal a complete design so easily, the Russian had to get by with fragments or maybe just words of ideas. And yet they came up time and again superior end product than American.

Click to expand...

The point here is... Su27 is not a clone of F15, as you have suggested and I believe many would have disagreed (but I am not going into what versu what in this topic), I will just make the assumption that what you said is true about Su-27 being better than F15. As to Tu-160 and B1, they might share some similar feature, such as swing wings, but essentially they are not the same aircrafts.

So where does reverse engineering of a products came about? At the height of COld War, the west concentrate not just on military hardwares, but in their civilian structures too. It is something like 50%-50%, that is how their economic held on, while the Russian or at that time Soviet Union, took on a policy to 100% develope their military systems. Sure, they might achieve some very interesting and impressive feats, but their economy don't hold and so they almost went into bankrupcy... and broke out.

So do you actually want China to follow that old route?

With any growth... be it Aerospace Industries, automobile industries, shipbuilding industries, money is what is essentially pushing these industries alone the way. China had make big progress in recent decades, but do you really think that the economy of CHina is limitless? Don't forget, CHina is a massive country with the world's largest population. She is also one of the countries that faces some of the worst natural disasters yearly... a huge portion of her annual income would be and will be channeled yearly to the growth and welfare of her people and also as rescue and rebuilding effort of the natural disaster.

Therefore she really did not have that much in term of money to charge for the prestigous number 1 place as Asymptote so wanted her to, because of some unfounded worries.

She is making progress in all aspect obviously and I think her leadership is not that stupid as to risk China and her 1.3++ billion population into some fictacious arms race that might bankrupt the whole nation, just because the west is technologically superior (we don't know if that is true anymore) than herself and is selling hardwares to her neighbours.

As long as China is relatively safe from someone attacking her, and was assured a place in the global market, she is quite alright and could continue her own pace (which I assure you is extremely fast, as compared to the progress of Europe).

I can only infer some hints which try to answer my question !!!

But there is no clear answer ... yet.

Firstly, to clear things.... no body needs to be apologetic about reverse engineering. Is there a single instance where reverse engineering of a foreign product actually hurt Soviet Union ... or for that mattter China ? The answser is NO.

Obviously, there is NO disadvantage of doing reverse engineering (... on such stupid grounds as "illegality", "immorality" and other such bull).

The real question is .... what stops other nations from doing reverse engineering. That was real crux of my questioning. And I got only a few hints .... but no clear answer.

Possible Answer 1:

Someone above gave a hint that reverse engineering is NOT EASY. Presumably, you need to have a great manufacturing base to be able to do it (.. and only China has it, as of now).


Russia, US, Europe or Japan also have that kind of a manufacturing base .... but as of now, they don't need to do any reverse engineering.

In other words, India needs to further build up it's manufacturing base.... before it can successfully reverse engineer, say for example, the Su-30MKI.

Same constraint could be deterrent for Brazil or South Korea too (e.g. they have failed to develop space rockets, thus far).

Possibly it needs even further level of development to be able to reverse engineer aircraft engines.

So, Capability to Reverse Engineer is a real issue.


Possible Answer 2:

Reverse Engineering is not Cheap.

China possibly intends to induct 500 reverse engineered Su-27.

Thus, saving on license feel payable to russia = 500 x License Fee per Su-27 (for every license manufactured aircraft).

If this total license fee is much more than cost of Reverse Engineering, only then it makes economic sense to do it.

India has a requirement of only 250 Su-30MKI. It may be economically better to pay the license fee on 250 aircraft, rather than spend much more money on reverse engineering Su-30MKI.

Reverse Engineering fails on economic grounds, if original copies come cheaper.

Possible reason 3:

Reverse Engineering can help in self-sufficiency.

Even if it's costlier than buying original copies .... it will remove dependence on, say Russia.

However, true technological independence comes .... only if subsequent planes can be developed from scratch. Otherwise, in future also you would need a blueprint, sample of a later technology to be able to reverse engineer.

Reverse Engineering can only help "catch-up", not leadership. That suggests that even China will like to stop this reverse engineering business and focus on basic R&D.

Reverse Engineering can help make copies of, e.g. Su-27, but does not give calibration charts on technical parameters ... which would be vital to next phase of developments.


Summing Up:

1. Capability to Reverse Engineer is a real issue. Everybody doesn't have that capability, as of now.
2. Reverse Engineering can be economically viable if you have a large volume demand for reverse engineered copies (better so, if you can export it as well).
3. Reverse Engineering can have some gain for understanding contemporary technology.

Some combination of the above factors could also be the reason why India does not intend to reverse engineer A-320.

Anyway, these are only what can be inferred from above comments. There could be further issues involved (like reliability of a reverse engineered A-320).

Quality of Reverse Engineering is Much More Important for Civilian applications, than for military applications.

A lot of nonsense has been said about Reverse Engeneering. J-11 is not a reverse engeneered Su-27, just as AV-8 is not a reverse engeneered Harrier, nor T-45 a reverse engeneered Hawk. The US don't buy weapons from foreign countries, not even from a client state like UK. In another country it would be called protectionism.
Btw, reverse engeneering is either making a part you find in a machine your way, or inventing your way to make it, or even reverse engeneering the way it was made originally, and doing that for every part of the machine.
Also the US exports AV-8, to Spain and Italy, in the UK's backyard.