how much higher? Is the Russian 2x or 3x better at manufacturing engines?
For China, its ship building capability has surpassed Russian but not at jet engine manufacturing.
Chinese Engine Development
- Thread starter jackbh
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how much higher? Is the Russian 2x or 3x better at manufacturing engines?
For China, its ship building capability has surpassed Russian but not at jet engine manufacturing.
Russia has had a good three decades to build up capacity, so it would be odd if it couldn't turn out more engines per year...
like I mentioned, why china able to turn up their ship capacity so suddenly in such short time(they surpassed Russian already) whereas engine capacity is different story? That itself says a lot.
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The dissolution of the Soviet Union left Russia with differing industries. Their military aviation nudged aerospace engine industry was in better shape than their shipyards.
So it doesn't actually say a lot.
No. Spell it out. What is your point? China's engine development is wayyyy behind Russia? China met problem with WS-10A? What is your point? You have no need to beat around the bushes.
And many included myself had stated in this thread before the reason for the lower production rate... and I vaguely remember one of them being -there are not many planes right now (export or own use) that are using WS-10A, so what is the use of pumping out excess engines to be store in the warehouse? That doesn't mean that the engine is not ready. If the engine is not ready, why would the Chinese put them on first line aircraft, that is not that clever, ain't it.
For one, producing engines requires far more technological specialization and expertise than building ships. Second, let's not pretend that Chinese shipbuilding turned around all in one night. Third, you're comparing one engine design to an entire ship building industry. It's not a proportionate comparison. They've been working at increasing their shipbuilding capacity for three decades. They've only been producing WS-10s consistently for 3-4 years. A fairer comparison would be between an engine design vs a ship design (like the WS-10 with the 52D or the WS-10 with the Type 093).
If the engine is ready, why was it swapped out for AL-31's in the J-15's testing on the carrier?
Same question can be asked, if the engine is not ready, why put the engines on all later production J-11 (eg. J-11B)? Plus the first J-15 prototype flew in 2009. At that time the WS-10A is not ready yet.
So the main question now is... is the production J-15 using the Russian AL-31 or variants of WS-10A? And even if they are using the AL-31, can you immediately dismissed that the WS-10A is not ready? or simply that the Chinese engines are not suitable for carrier borne operation? And that there is no Chinese engines in advance development to be place on Chinese aircraft in near future?
My point is... WS-10A is ready, it is used widely in the J-11 fighters despite what many would have gladly dismissed and coming out with weird analogy to support their wishes.
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It is possible that WS-10A did not fare well with corrosion (but that depends on whether most engines are able to be used on both land and carrierborne roles, and there haven't been many rumours to support the idea of WS-10A being either susceptible or resilient in that regard)
Or, maybe it has nothing to do with corrosion or the specific effects of the naval environment, and it is just the PLAN being prudently cautious. To say, despite having the confidence to install WS-10A on all new build SAC land based flankers, they want to stick with an engine with a longer proven service (decades versus a few years in this case) just to further mitigate risk for the carrier project, even if that risk might only be a little bit higher for J-15s using WS-10A versus Al-31s
There was also discussion about spooling time a while back, and whether that may have made WS-10A less suitable for carrier operations given the need to rapidly increase thrust during arrested landings. That was followed by speculation about whether solving the spooling time issue for WS-10A to a degree that would allow land based fighters to use them effectively during their typical flight regimes would mean it could also be capable in the various carrier based landing and take off needs as well.
But I think the take home point is that the lack of WS-10A onboard J-15 could be due to a variety of plausible reasons other than the rather vague notion of it being "not ready" (not saying this is your position, however tyroneG has made similar remarks about WS-10A before which were all promptly responded with). WS-10A Being present on some 100 J-11Bs (meaning a production run of at least 200 engines) certainly looks to me like an engine which is accepted and has reached its necessary performance, for those fighters at any rate.
j10b, j15, j16