thunderchief
Senior Member
To use your analogy , speculations would end when they 'show the beef' i.e. when they show Chinese engines in Chinese planes , flying regularly and operationally .
Chinese Engine Development
- Thread starter jackbh
- Start date
To use your analogy , speculations would end when they 'show the beef' i.e. when they show Chinese engines in Chinese planes , flying regularly and operationally .
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
And they did with 4 or 5 regiments of J11 B flying with no mishap or falling from the sky I guess you guys want information that you are not going to get. China never release the result of test or other engine performance. Until I see J11B dropping from the sky the case is close
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Planes don't have to fall out of the sky for there to be lingering performance Issues of course.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
As i said before China is very secretive when it come to performance data You are not going to get period. Put it this way is they have issue with performance they are not going to built J 11B with WS10A knowing they have to face the best in combat. Anything else just bias, condescending, and rumor mongering
well, WS-10A is a new engine and still going through tests and trials. It's definitely not as reliable as AL-31F right now. According to the big shrimps on Chinese bbs, the first batch of J-11B equipped with AL-31F are still the best ones. The reliability and performance have improved in the recent years and they should continue to improve. But at this point, WS-10A J-11Bs still have not participated in PLAAF's marquee DX exercises. That should tell you something.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
I never heard that participation in drill is the benchmark of jet Engine performance. There are myriad of reason why they don't use J11B with WS 10a in air drill. It could be anything from conservatism to familiarity of the test pilot with J11A or It could be that only J11A regiments participate in the drill. It is completely unrelated to the performance of WS 10A engine period
What better time than peace time to fly out all the bugs. After a certain point you can't find and resolve issues without mass adoption and use.
new engine? how old it really is?
None of the reasons you gave are credible. The fact that the best of the fighter jets pilots only use AL-31 is clearly indicative of something. Not using WS-10A in those exercices doesnt make sense unless the plane using it would be in a disadvantage, and they go there to give their best and push to the limit, not to be armstrung by the engine.
AFAIK, since the russians didnt aprove of J-11B, they refused to sell AL-31 to china to equip mass production of J-11B. So china was forced to equip those planes with WS-10A. At least thats the story i got from internet forums.
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
As i say before there is myriad reason why they didn't use WS10A and they don't need to explain it to you.
Yet they have no problem fitting J15 and J10B with AL-31 engine .So much for for that false theory.Even if China want to use AL31 engine what is the Russian going to do withhold the spare part.?
Well No problem because China can manufacture almost every component or part of Al31 engine in Sichuan overhaul plant that basically can duplicate any AL-31 engine or even extend the MTBO of AL31 engine
Another thing J 11B is still being produced and more advanced version Like J116 also used WS 10A That should tell the world that the trust the engine performance
China did make modification on the AL 31 engine to extend the MTBR from 900 hr to 1500 hr. Here is the article by Reuben Johnson and Photo of the facility from pakistan defense forum
ASIA PACIFIC
Date Posted: 08-Sep-2010
Jane's Defence Weekly
China makes modifications to Russian Salyut AL-31F jet engine
Reuben F Johnson JDW Correspondent - Kiev
Key Points
The PLAAF has developed its own upgrade for the Russian-made Salyut AL-31F jet engine
The development demonstrates that the Chinese have achieved near autonomy in supporting their fighters' Russian-made engines
The Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has developed its own service life extension modifications for the Russian-made Salyut AL-31F engine, a Moscow-based defence and foreign policy think-tank has reported.
The modifications to the AL-31F/FN P.2 series engine increase its operational limits by more than 65 per cent - from 900 to 1,500 flight hours, according to the privately owned Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST).
The AL-31F engine is the powerplant for several types of aircraft in the PLAAF inventory: the Sukhoi Su-27 (which is also licence-produced at the Shenyang Aircraft Works as the J-11), the Su-30MKK and the Chengdu Aerospace Corporation J-10. The AL-31FN is a special derivative of the original AL-31F design that was developed by the Salyut plant in Moscow for a single-engine application to be fitted to the J-10.
The service life modifications were reportedly developed at the PLAAF Overhaul Plant Number 5719. The key to the service life extension is a specific set of improved, Chinese-made components that are part of what is described as a "re-manufacturing kit" that is introduced during the process of a full-scale remanufacturing and overhaul process.
The plant is located near the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province, employs 2,000 personnel and is reported to be a model of innovation within the PLAAF's network of repair plants. During the past several years the facility has initiated 63 different research and development programmes and has been awarded more than 20 state prizes for achievements in technological innovation. In the same time period, the plant's assets have more than doubled from CNY1.1 billion (USD147.2 million) in 2004 to CNY2.9 billion today.
The plant's officials credit the success of their overhaul process to a decision taken in 2004, when some of the first AL-31F engines were presented to the plant by the PLAAF for overhaul. A decision was taken, according to the Chinese news sources originally cited, to completely reorganise the overhaul process. This streamlining of the overhaul disassembly and servicing line resulted in a 27.3 per cent decrease in the time required to complete an overhaul and increased the plant's production capacity by 60 per cent.
This level of improvement in the engine's design demonstrates that the Chinese have achieved near autonomy in the support of these Russian-made engines. Russian specialists who spoke to Jane's state that this is "another example of how the technology sold to the Chinese during the 1990s has now been fully assimilated by them. It is only a matter of time before the engines that China produces will be as good as or better than anything designed here in Russia".
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The WS-10A itself was certified around 2008, if I'm not mistaken.
Yes, that must be it! China must depend on an inferior product because Russia won't sell them the superior...wait no. Russia just sold 200 AL-31s to China two years ago. People need to check their fact patterns.
China isn't equipping their planes with the WS-10A because they have no other options. They're equipping their planes with the WS-10A because it's a viable engine that they intend to be their mainstay. If what tphuang says is right it enforces my presumption that they're working out the kinks through mass adoption and regular use, something all products go through eventually.