Chinese Engine Development

Skywatcher said:

I think China would be better served by developing something similar to the Tu 160 or B-1B. It's more immediately available than a stealth bomber (and if why three engines, then why not mount on four?)

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I think the key weakness for the Chinese aviation industry is not stealth technology, but engines. I think China is still very far away from developing a usable engine for a supersonic strategic bomber.

China doesn't have a real jet engine industry. Previous engine were mostly copied from russian designs. WS10A its first indiginous effort,and it has so much performance and reliability querks. These issue are tied to chinese aviation's main weakness lack of qualified personel in material engineering and digital electronics design. Don't get me wrong, they have qualified personel, but not enough experienced scientist and engineer currently on a project to compete with russian and American aviation.

Defense industry in china are owned by the state, they don't hire engineer by putting out job ads and hire the most qualified. They hire engineers with the most connections in the communist party. Polite bureau make recommandations about who should get this job and usually that person in hired. They are usually not as qualified as should be. A example of this can be found state side as well, monica goodling was hired by bush administration for her connection to the republican party and not her qualifications as a attorney. (I am talking about the recent prosecutor firing scandal which end the career of attorney general gonzales.)

I doubt a jet engine designer would need political connections to get hired - a lawyer, maybe. If that's really the case, I doubt China would have any working indigenous jet engines now.

I know of a relative who graduated in the 1980's from Harbin polytechnic institute. His father was retired PLA colonel, (old enough to be apart of longmarch) and he was assigned to shengyang as engine test engineer with 0 experience and his brother who also graduated from Harbin was assigned to the chinese space program. It isn't coincidence that they were both assigned to good positions right off the bat, they had connections.
Yes, back then jobs were assigned. If you were assigned to a bad job in shing jiang you can't just quit and look for another job, because no one will hire you.

dh19440113 said:

I know of a relative who graduated in the 1980's from Harbin polytechnic institute. His father was retired PLA colonel, and he was assigned to shengyang as engineer with 0 experience and his brother who also graduated from Harbin was assigned to the chinese space program. It isn't coincidence that they were both assigned to good positions right off the bat, they had connections.

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==Is it possible that those relatives yours were assigned to Shenyang actually because they were competent in their fields?

Maybe, but I never said they were incompetent, I merely stated that connections matter more than actual talent during the late 70's early 80's. The first batch of engineering college graduates after the cultural revolution.
At the time, your chances of attending a university depend on your birth right. If you are talented and briant, but your father was a capitalist, large landowner or a ROC party member than you have no chance of attending a university. If you father was a senior communist party member and you did poorly in high school than your chances of attending university are quite good.

I guess these things do happen, even now, in any organisation, more so in some departments than others. OTH, putting a capable R & D team together from an already limited talented pool of people is a different matter. One just can't afford to be bias in such situations and put the project at stake.

I agree that fair competition based on merits should be the way to go.

dh19440113 said:

Maybe, but I never said they were incompetent, I merely stated that connections matter more than actual talent during the late 70's early 80's. The first batch of engineering college graduates after the cultural revolution.
At the time, your chances of attending a university depend on your birth right. If you are talented and briant, but your father was a capitalist, large landowner or a ROC party member than you have no chance of attending a university. If you father was a senior communist party member and you did poorly in high school than your chances of attending university are quite good.

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But that is all water under the bridge now .We are in the year 2007 I don't believe the student selection these days are based on one political affiliation

There was a struggle after mao's death between dung sho ping semireformist and radical maoist (party of four). Dung wins the struggle and went ahead and reform the whole education system, the 1988 student riot at tienmen square furthered student rights. Finally a system that resemble admission base on merit is established.
I firmly believe this leap forward is what made engineering project like J-10 and WS10a possible.