Chinese Engine Development

MiG-29 said:

I understand perfectly your position, however i do not think that your explanation is accurate, first because i pointed out J-10B as well J-11B can use both Al-31 as the WS-10 therefore i do not think the Chinese designed the WS-10 only for J-10B because they can interchange Al-31 and WS-10 in the same airframe which means J-10As can be re-engined with WS-10s.

Eventually China will perfect the WS-10, perhaps a few years from now, but the reason in my opinion the Chinese still buy Al-31 is simply modern Al-31 have better reliability than WS-10.

Will WS-10 fix all the issues and shortcomings it has? i think so, they will fix it but i do not think they have fix them.

You can keep your opinion, but as Flateric posted Al-31 is still used due to reliability, therefore i do not agree that WS-10 is only for J-10s or J-11Bs.

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How hidebound can a man be? Now I have the answer.

China build some prototyp of J-10B, and at least one is constructed an tested for the use of WS-10.
The same for the J-11B, J-15 and J-16.

China didn't constructed and tested any J-10A prototyp for the use of the WS-10.
The same for the J-11A, because WS-10 wasn't available at that time.

And for sure China doesn't and didn't have any prototyp of SU-27SK, SU-27 UBK and SU-30MKK.

airsuperiority said:

sometimes im quite surprised mig is still in this forum, or that we havent build a special "ignore" button just for him. if SDF needs donation to build this function, please do so. i'll definitely love to chip in

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There is an ignore button I've been using it for NikeX and a few other members. Click on profile of person you want to ignore and click add to ignore list.

MiG-29 said:

I understand perfectly your position, however i do not think that your explanation is accurate, first because i pointed out J-10B as well J-11B can use both Al-31 as the WS-10 therefore i do not think the Chinese designed the WS-10 only for J-10B because they can interchange Al-31 and WS-10 in the same airframe which means J-10As can be re-engined with WS-10s.

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I did not say J-10B is only designed for WS-10. I said they can equip either and if AL-31FN offers better performance, China should go with WS-10. Please read what I write and don't mistaken me for other posters.

And there is a difference between being able to build J-10B for both WS-10 and AL-31 vs able to re-engine. Same with J-10As. I haven't even seen any picture of J-10As with WS-10. I've heard it does exist, but all production J-10As have been with AL-31FN. It's far cheaper and easier to replace AL-31FN with another AL-31FN rather than re-engine WS-10. On top of that, you'd have to do more flight testing to ensure that the flight control softwares and such work with a different types of engine. I don't think it makes sense to do so and PLAAF is clearly not doing that.

Eventually China will perfect the WS-10, perhaps a few years from now, but the reason in my opinion the Chinese still buy Al-31 is simply modern Al-31 have better reliability than WS-10.

Will WS-10 fix all the issues and shortcomings it has? i think so, they will fix it but i do not think they have fix them.

You can keep your opinion, but as Flateric posted Al-31 is still used due to reliability, therefore i do not agree that WS-10 is only for J-10s or J-11Bs.

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China can choose to use WS-10 on new aircraft even if they are less reliable than AL-31. At the present time, all the new J-11Bs and J-15 and J-16 we've seen have been using WS-10. If you can find a picture that contradict this, please do so. Otherwise, you are just wasting everyone's time here.

As for J-10, I've already said all of production J-10As use AL-31FN and we don't know what J-10Bs will use at this point. It could go with either AL-31 and Taihang. Again, PLAAF has to be comfortable with Taihang on a single engined aircraft before using it. We don't know if this is the case yet, but we will find out when pictures of production J-10B comes out. But at the present time, there is a definite project for this.

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say or proof here. You don't seem to have evidence. You keep on repeating the same two claims of 410 and then 1000 AL-31, which all of us have already agreed to. A lot of us spend our lives here looking at pictures of J-10 and J-11, so I think we have a pretty accurate assessment of where things are at.

paintgun said:

that's the bottom line of problem, you have made all these accusations in one fell swoop :

1. Russian news and sources are all but trustworthy on Chinese matters
2. Russian aerospace industry and officials are actively spreading false information to promote superiority over Chinese counterpart
3. Russians are pathological liars

Not only will we lose respect with Russian readers or contributors like flateric with this, but it is a violation of our impartiality and integrity as a forum.
We might as well start openly bashing Russians, or Indians instead.

I simply suggest we tone down such accusations, and just brand it as inaccurate, or unverified, or just plain modest disagreement.

It is no better than calling China copycat, and i believe we are above that

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To be precise, my accusation can be broken down as follow:

1. Russian news source are not trustworthy on Chinese military matters.
2. Russian media and aerospace officials are actively spreading false information, not only to promote non-existent superiority over Chinese counterpart but also to cast attention to Russian products that otherwise won't receive any attention.
3. Russian aerospace officials and media are pathological liars when it comes to Chinese military matters.

These accusations are accurate statements based on past Russian reporting. Even notable Russian engineers such as Victor Mihailovic Chepkin openly lied such as claiming WS-10A as an AL-31 copy. If Russian readers don't like it, they only have Russian media and aerospace industry to blame.

While I agree that statistically speaking more often than not news and statements from russian military industry insiders, russian media, russian government etc have been incorrect, I believe one should take the higher road and simply not comment on such news/statements. Or comment in a way that says it is unconfirmed and that it is better to wait and see what the real truth is. Then let the developments over time speak for themselves.

If, for example, after years of hoopla about possible su-35 purchase china does not buy any su-35, then that really says more than anything that could be speculated today. But one does need to be patient and wait 5 or so years.

tphuang said:

I did not say J-10B is only designed for WS-10. I said they can equip either and if AL-31FN offers better performance, China should go with WS-10. Please read what I write and don't mistaken me for other posters.

And there is a difference between being able to build J-10B for both WS-10 and AL-31 vs able to re-engine. Same with J-10As. I haven't even seen any picture of J-10As with WS-10. I've heard it does exist, but all production J-10As have been with AL-31FN. It's far cheaper and easier to replace AL-31FN with another AL-31FN rather than re-engine WS-10. On top of that, you'd have to do more flight testing to ensure that the flight control softwares and such work with a different types of engine. I don't think it makes sense to do so and PLAAF is clearly not doing that.



China can choose to use WS-10 on new aircraft even if they are less reliable than AL-31. At the present time, all the new J-11Bs and J-15 and J-16 we've seen have been using WS-10. If you can find a picture that contradict this, please do so. Otherwise, you are just wasting everyone's time here.

As for J-10, I've already said all of production J-10As use AL-31FN and we don't know what J-10Bs will use at this point. It could go with either AL-31 and Taihang. Again, PLAAF has to be comfortable with Taihang on a single engined aircraft before using it. We don't know if this is the case yet, but we will find out when pictures of production J-10B comes out. But at the present time, there is a definite project for this.

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say or proof here. You don't seem to have evidence. You keep on repeating the same two claims of 410 and then 1000 AL-31, which all of us have already agreed to. A lot of us spend our lives here looking at pictures of J-10 and J-11, so I think we have a pretty accurate assessment of where things are at.

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Let me say this, at this moment i can say i can more or less think WS-10 will be eventualy be deployed in large numbers, why? simply China is investing and pouring lots of money into jet engine design, so sooner or later they will have results, besides they have the political will to do it.

So i have no doubts it will be deployed unless an unexpected event affects it, but i doubt it won`t be deployed.

Now how easy it will be, well there is where we really differ, like i said to you, i doubt buying Al-31s is a sign WS-10 is ready, because i doubt the Chinese designed the WS-10 to let Saturn still powering their fleet of J-10s or J-11s, because number one since the start of J-10 and WS-10, the chinese designed the WS-10 to power the J-10, so J-10B shows J-10s can be powered by both jet engines without any trouble.
I know we do not share the same point of view, so that is okay because only time will tell if WS-10 is ready now or in 3-4 years.

So let us wait and see, if within a period of time of 5 years WS-10 is powering all the new J-10s build from 2013 onwards.


In my personal opinion WS-10 will be ready within 3-7 years if the engine has serious troubles, and 1 and a half to 3 if the engine is ready or almost ready.

But here the question will be, will it be competitive with other foreign engines that can be offered to the PLAAF? and Saturn is beting 117 could have a window of oportunity if the WS-10 has serious problems

So since i know we do not share the same point of view and we need to let time to pass to see if WS-10 is ready or not, let us wait and in few months or even a year comment about it.

It is all a matter of curve. Is ws10a good enough for some roles/uses? It is. some 200+ engines are serving on some 100+ j11b. It is good enough to serve on prototypes, as seen on j15 and j16. One can conclude it was deemed good enough for twin engine use.

Is it currently good enough for single engine use? Despite the one lone j10b with ws10a variant, one can not tell for sure is it ready.

Issues that have been reported, like longer spool up times and lesser reliability, can serve as perfectly adequate reasons why the engines are not yet serving on j10. Since 3 or so years have passed since j11s began getting their engines, ws10a variant for single engine planes has been worked on for 3 or so years. Perhaps the engine seen on j10b was exactly a next build. Or it wasn't. Hard to tell.

Truth of the matter, it is only a matter of time when all j10b will be powered by ws10a variant. Will the j10a be retrofitted? That is a question of cost effectiveness. We've seen a couple of tests of ws10a on earlier j-11, but we haven't seen them all changed. We don't know the reasons. It could very well be that it was deemed not worthy changing the entire fleet, as the two engines aren't THAT similar. There are surely some minor variations in interface or perhaps even internal structure of early j11s. Perhaps the first j11b have those same variations and we won't ever see them reengined with ws10a. Same goes for j10a fleet.

Old planes are best left with old engines. Most examples in the world support that. Yes, newer variants of same planes do often get new engines, but those are usually new builds. Those new plane variants have slight structural differences to accept those new engines.

At the same time, there will still be hundreds of earlier j11 and j10 needing replacement engines during their lifetimes. Which explains the purchases and may explain even some future purchases. Once early j11s and j10s are retired though, I'm pretty sure most of the PLAAF fleet will be flying on exclusively chinese engines. Of course, we're talking about 2030. or later.

MiG-29 said:

Let me say this, at this moment i can say i can more or less think WS-10 will be eventualy be deployed in large numbers, why? simply China is investing and pouring lots of money into jet engine design, so sooner or later they will have results, besides they have the political will to do it.

So i have no doubts it will be deployed unless an unexpected event affects it, but i doubt it won`t be deployed.

Now how easy it will be, well there is where we really differ, like i said to you, i doubt buying Al-31s is a sign WS-10 is ready, because i doubt the Chinese designed the WS-10 to let Saturn still powering their fleet of J-10s or J-11s, because number one since the start of J-10 and WS-10, the chinese designed the WS-10 to power the J-10, so J-10B shows J-10s can be powered by both jet engines without any trouble.

I know we do not share the same point of view, so that is okay because only time will tell if WS-10 is ready now or in 3-4 years.

So let us wait and see, if within a period of time of 5 years WS-10 is powering all the new J-10s build from 2013 onwards.


In my personal opinion WS-10 will be ready within 3-7 years if the engine has serious troubles, and 1 and a half to 3 if the engine is ready or almost ready.

But here the question will be, will it be competitive with other foreign engines that can be offered to the PLAAF? and Saturn is beting 117 could have a window of oportunity if the WS-10 has serious problems

So since i know we do not share the same point of view and we need to let time to pass to see if WS-10 is ready or not, let us wait and in few months or even a year comment about it.

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My view is very straight forward and been more than fair enough to Saturn and Salyut. You seem to be insulted by what I've concluded based on pictorial evidences, so feel the need to keep re-stating your belief over and over again. There is actually no pictorial evidence in any of the conclusion you are reaching.

It's almost like the concept that if an aircraft is built for one engine + user not wanting the extra cost & delay of re-engine to something else is too difficult of a concept for you to understand. We haven't seen any picture of such a replacement on any J-10 aircraft.

Do you realize that J-11B are not using AL-31F, because Russia put the squeeze on them making sure the new AL-31F can only go on older jets. They don't want more J-11B produced, so they completely cut the supply of these engines for future flanker units from SAC. J-11B and J-15 have to use Taihang. J-11B were built without engines for a couple of years, because Taihang was not up to par. We have pictures to show this. They only begun to join service when the initial production issues were sorted out. Do you understand this? 117S is not an option for J-11B or J-15 or J-16.

As for J-10B, I don't see why you are asking me if WS-10 will be competitive to other engine offered to PLAAF. Since I wrote, PLAAF should pick the one that is better option for it. You have to stop mixing me up with other posters here. This is getting really annoying.

I will let you have the last word on this and move on. We already saw your comment on 410 and 1000 many times. There is really no need to keep posting it. Since, it seems like your mind won't change on this one and no one else are going to change either and this debate has become a waste of space.

tphuang said:

My view is very straight forward and been more than fair enough to Saturn and Salyut. You seem to be insulted by what I've concluded based on pictorial evidences, so feel the need to keep re-stating your belief over and over again. There is actually no pictorial evidence in any of the conclusion you are reaching.

It's almost like the concept that if an aircraft is built for one engine + user not wanting the extra cost & delay of re-engine to something else is too difficult of a concept for you to understand. We haven't seen any picture of such a replacement on any J-10 aircraft.

Do you realize that J-11B are not using AL-31F, because Russia put the squeeze on them making sure the new AL-31F can only go on older jets. They don't want more J-11B produced, so they completely cut the supply of these engines for future flanker units from SAC. J-11B and J-15 have to use Taihang. J-11B were built without engines for a couple of years, because Taihang was not up to par. We have pictures to show this. They only begun to join service when the initial production issues were sorted out. Do you understand this? 117S is not an option for J-11B or J-15 or J-16.

As for J-10B, I don't see why you are asking me if WS-10 will be competitive to other engine offered to PLAAF. Since I wrote, PLAAF should pick the one that is better option for it. You have to stop mixing me up with other posters here. This is getting really annoying.

I will let you have the last word on this and move on. We already saw your comment on 410 and 1000 many times. There is really no need to keep posting it. Since, it seems like your mind won't change on this one and no one else are going to change either and this debate has become a waste of space.

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I think you should write a blog about recent Chinese engine development, because you already put the effort into it already lol.

tphuang said:

My view is very straight forward and been more than fair enough to Saturn and Salyut. You seem to be insulted by what I've concluded based on pictorial evidences, so feel the need to keep re-stating your belief over and over again. There is actually no pictorial evidence in any of the conclusion you are reaching.

It's almost like the concept that if an aircraft is built for one engine + user not wanting the extra cost & delay of re-engine to something else is too difficult of a concept for you to understand. We haven't seen any picture of such a replacement on any J-10 aircraft.

Do you realize that J-11B are not using AL-31F, because Russia put the squeeze on them making sure the new AL-31F can only go on older jets. They don't want more J-11B produced, so they completely cut the supply of these engines for future flanker units from SAC. J-11B and J-15 have to use Taihang. J-11B were built without engines for a couple of years, because Taihang was not up to par. We have pictures to show this. They only begun to join service when the initial production issues were sorted out. Do you understand this? 117S is not an option for J-11B or J-15 or J-16.

As for J-10B, I don't see why you are asking me if WS-10 will be competitive to other engine offered to PLAAF. Since I wrote, PLAAF should pick the one that is better option for it. You have to stop mixing me up with other posters here. This is getting really annoying.

I will let you have the last word on this and move on. We already saw your comment on 410 and 1000 many times. There is really no need to keep posting it. Since, it seems like your mind won't change on this one and no one else are going to change either and this debate has become a waste of space.

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Look
Let us do this, let us wait, my point is not only mine, it is share by many other reports, and Russian Saturn designers like Victor Chepkin claim similar things, however like in any thing you can have your opinion as i can have mine.


Time will say if the WS-10 is ready or it is not, time will tell if the production of J-10s will switch to WS-10s or will remain with Al-31s in the near future.

Both of us are just opining and especulating, i know is better simply let time show who is right.


Like i said to you let us wait a few more months or a year and a half and we can comment.

Regards


(by the way i am not insulted, i just consider the article Flateric posted is a widely held opinion on many Russian sources, and i base my opinion upon what the Russian engine industry and media claim)