Chinese Engine Development

If they claim J20 will be fitted with WS15 by 2019, or 2020, its prototype got to be introduced officially by now. Currently, its still too much smoke and mirror, beating around the bushes.

There's not much time left till 2020 !!

Maybe by the time 2020, they will say its postponed till 2025... and then 2030..

Make it happen. Just do it!

tidalwave said:

If they claim J20 will be fitted with WS15 by 2019, or 2020, its prototype got to be introduced officially by now. Currently, its still too much smoke and mirror, beating around the bushes.

There's not much time left till 2020 !!

Maybe by the time 2020, they will say its postponed till 2025... and then 2030..

Make it happen. Just do it!

Click to expand...

That depends on whether you mean fitted to production planes or fitted to a prototype. Not sure anyone's ever made such claims about 2020 for the former.

latenlazy said:

That depends on whether you mean fitted to production planes or fitted to a prototype. Not sure anyone's ever made such claims about 2020 for the former.

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WS15 fitted to a prototype in 2020?? That would be horribly slow.
I think they meant WS15 in service in 2020.

tidalwave said:

WS15 fitted to a prototype in 2020?? That would be horribly slow.
I think they meant WS15 in service in 2020.

Click to expand...

More likely prototype in 2020 than in service.

tphuang said:

Believe what you will, this was discussed a lot on Chinese forums with people who know the situation. You don't ground a fleet and not install them for a year on minor issues. Your F100 examples doesn't work, since WS-10 was not being installed on J-10 at that time, only J-11B.

China included service life to 1500 hours.

Click to expand...

Some correction & addition about J-11B and WS-10.

1. There has NOT been any CRASH accident happened on aircraft thrusted by WS-10 and its variants. The poor stability and quality it showed during ground and air tests made PLAAF and AVIC vigilant enough to utilize WS-10 with substantial care and limit.
Besides, J-11B is dual-engine with a lifting-body fuselage. Such a plane fall out of sky because of only engine malfunction? The possibility is neglectable.

2. The J-11B fleet was "grounded" in 2011 not for accident. It was not that simple.
WS-10 sprayed turbine blade, it had been haunted by surge problem. Its thurst power had to be limited to 12.5t from 13.2t. The dull reaction of the mechanical speed control system was not even a problem comparing to those.
Since WS-10 was suffering unreliable performance, unstable quality, they also caused low producing efficiency. The assembled J-11B's were hold on ground, what's more is that many of them was actually withering on the tarmac without engines.


I believe numbers below are reliable (dont ask me why, I wont say anything about the source) :
3. Some breakthrough was archieved in 2011 or 2012, making the WS-10 became reliable. Those later engines were usually named WS-10A in Chinese military forums.
It was not just saying, J-11B took part in DX freestyle aircombat exercise, became the major patrolman in ECS-ADIZ, pursuited P-8 with risky maneuver over SCS, etc.
WS-10A: Failure-free interval = 300h, Time before 1st Overhaul = 1200h, lifespan = 2000h.

4. On the Zhuhai aerospace exhibition in 2014, AVIC exposed a new variant of WS-10. During an interview, the engineer claimed that new WS-10 gets FADEC, and a maximum thrust at 14t. It was called "14t Tai Hang".
"14t": Failure-free interval = 300h, 1st overhaul = 900h, Lifespan = 1500h.

Phoenix_Rising said:

Some correction & addition about J-11B and WS-10.

1. There has NOT been any CRASH accident happened on aircraft thrusted by WS-10 and its variants. The poor stability and quality it showed during ground and air tests made PLAAF and AVIC vigilant enough to utilize WS-10 with substantial care and limit.
Besides, J-11B is dual-engine with a lifting-body fuselage. Such a plane fall out of sky because of only engine malfunction? The possibility is neglectable.

2. The J-11B fleet was "grounded" in 2011 not for accident. It was not that simple.
WS-10 sprayed turbine blade, it had been haunted by surge problem. Its thurst power had to be limited to 12.5t from 13.2t. The dull reaction of the mechanical speed control system was not even a problem comparing to those.
Since WS-10 was suffering unreliable performance, unstable quality, they also caused low producing efficiency. The assembled J-11B's were hold on ground, what's more is that many of them was actually withering on the tarmac without engines.


I believe numbers below are reliable (dont ask me why, I wont say anything about the source) :
3. Some breakthrough was archieved in 2011 or 2012, making the WS-10 became reliable. Those later engines were usually named WS-10A in Chinese military forums.
It was not just saying, J-11B took part in DX freestyle aircombat exercise, became the major patrolman in ECS-ADIZ, pursuited P-8 with risky maneuver over SCS, etc.
WS-10A: Failure-free interval = 300h, Time before 1st Overhaul = 1200h, lifespan = 2000h.

4. On the Zhuhai aerospace exhibition in 2014, AVIC exposed a new variant of WS-10. During an interview, the engineer claimed that new WS-10 gets FADEC, and a maximum thrust at 14t. It was called "14t Tai Hang".
"14t": Failure-free interval = 300h, 1st overhaul = 900h, Lifespan = 1500h.

Click to expand...

WS 10 pass 1000 hr test in 2005

Interview with Mr. Dong, a exhibitor of China aviation research 606 institute on production of WS-10 engine :

Taihang engine really capable? Standing next to Taihang turbojet engine WS-10 Mr. Dong said that WS-10 engine is now fully operational and matured.

WS-10 engine is Chinese Aviation Research Institute 606's product, Mr.Dong is exhibitor of China aviation research 606 institute, these days every day he stood in the hall, elaborate WS-10 engine story to professional and non professional vistors. Mr.Dong said, he graduated from Nanjing University majoring in Aeronautics & Astronautics and started to participate in the development of WS-10 engine since his graduation.

WS10 pre-study started from year 1978, project set up in year 1987. Mr.Dong said, WS10 had been massively mounted on the J-10 B and J-11B fighters.

Online some articles reveal, Taihang engine outer culvert box, using the composite, which greatly reduce the weight, also improves the strength and the ability of resistance to high temperature. Mr. Dong with a reporter standing besides Taihang engine, pointing to the black pitch appearance of the engine that said: ‘this is our unique characteristics,previously used here is steel or titanium alloy. Now with this newly developed composite material, which is much lighter/higher temperature resistance/higher strength’.

Mr.Dong said WS-10 thrust to weight ratio at about 8 (the ratio of thrust to weight refers to the Trust power per unitary weight). The fourth generation engines, are all around 8 TW ratio. He also revealed, several China aviation research insitutes now are jointly developing the 5th generation fighter turbojet engine with TW ratio 10. The Chinese military fans called it the WS-15 峨眉 ,which fugures stealthy layout.

The J-10B as a lightweight fighter capable of carrying nearly 8 tons of weapons and excellent mobility performance, all credit to having a strong China 'heart' of WS-10 series.

Following is the Dialogue details about WS-10 indigenous engine with Mr.Dong:

Sino US engine gap less than 10 years

Reporter: 120kn-140kn what is the meaning?

Mr. Dong: Taihang developed many kinds of DERIVATIVES, the newest WS-10 series engine has reached 140 KN thrust. (Su-35 engine thrust of 145 KN)

Reporter: Achieve this thrust, that is to say the Taihang engine and Su-35's 117s engine thrust being roughly equivalent?

Mr. Dong: Yes, and we are still moving forward, the past few years has been to improve and develop. This is the new WS-10 engine, which have shaped up.

Reporter: It has started MASS production?

Mr. Dong: Mass service on the J-10B, J 11B.

Reporter: why the J-10, such as PLAAF eight one aerobatic team still with Russian engines?

Mr.Dong: China had bought so many Russian engine, We still utilize those engine until the life span expired.

Reporter: Can you please shed some light on the life sapn of WS10 compared with Russian and United States fouth generation engine?

Mr. Dong: We are slightly inferior in that part,while we have a larger room for progress. Such as some of the material shows good performance data in scientific research test, but in practical application, is still not satisfactory. It is the difficult part of aero engine development, It takes decades to improve its stability and even so with USA, not including the conceptual phase of the engine.

Reporter: Online question said that WS10 ENGINE has less than 300 hours life hours, whether this is true?

Mr.Dong: This is wrong, WS10's life is over 1500 hours, completely in accordance with the design requirements. 300 hours is the span between each regualr maintenance .

Reporter: Our engine gap with the US is there for 10 years?

Mr.Dong: Less than 10 years.

My comment just like a car it need regular maintenance like change of oil and filter so 300 hr is not MTBO it is regular maintenance and 1500 hr is the design life but in reality it can exceed that

You must remember most of the WS-15 schedule has been extrapolated from initial leaks, rumors, etc. Maya/aliasmaya a member at SDF said the WS-15 had completed "High altitude core testing" in late 2008. To get a fully functional prototype WS-15 flying on a future 5th prototype lets assume J-20 P2001 & P2002 would take another 10 years at least (Thats 10 year from the beginning of 2009). So a prototype WS-15 should start flying around 2020 time period. If the project is 2 years ahead of schedule like some rumors have put, that means 2018 for the fully functional prototype. When will the WS-15 actually enter service? Thats a completely different thing. PLAAF has to be fully confident with the engine.

There is another catch. Initially the WS-15 was slated to be similar in thrust to the P&W F119 (154 - 157 kN) but overall TWR slightly inferior to the F119. But now rumors are flying around that the WS-15 initial testing goals were bumped of to 165 kN with an ultimate version of 180 kN.

So unfortunately, we have very little in terms of official info on the WS-15. They are keeping quite silent. I think the WS-10 despite its earlier problems had plenty of exposure, plenty of details, rumors, etc. But the WS-15 along with the WS-12, WS-13 seems to have gone into stealth mode.

tidalwave said:

If they claim J20 will be fitted with WS15 by 2019, or 2020, its prototype got to be introduced officially by now. Currently, its still too much smoke and mirror, beating around the bushes.

There's not much time left till 2020 !!

Maybe by the time 2020, they will say its postponed till 2025... and then 2030..

Make it happen. Just do it!

Click to expand...

Making high performance Turbo fan engine is not like making cell phone. it is hard and take a lot of money and patient. Specially if you make leap from T/W ratio of 8 to engine with T/W ratio of 10
Last time China did was moving from T/W 6 to T/w. 8 It officially started in 1986 but China spend the next 10 years writing the source code for the Turbine. You cannot buy source code Nobody will sell you source code. Without the source you can't build the engine. Then spend the next 10 building it until it pass the 1000 hr test in 2005. Then it spend the next 10 yr to increase the reliability of the engine.

All with the budget of 1 billion dollar
You think China is slow well read this article below Pratt and Whitney who build jet engine like sausage spend 30 years and 10 billion of dollar developing cutting jet engine

To people outside the aircraft business, what may be most remarkable about the engines is that they took almost 30 years to develop. That’s about 15 times as long as the gestation period of an elephant and unimaginably longer than it takes to pop out a smartphone app. Could Pratt have gotten the hardware out faster? Probably. But industrial innovation on the scale of a commercial jet engine is inevitably and invariably a slog—one part inspiration to 99 parts perspiration.

In Pratt’s case, it required the cooperation of hundreds of engineers across the company, a $10 billion investment commitment from management, and, above all, the buy-in of aircraft makers and airlines, which had to be convinced that the engine would be both safe and durable. “It’s the antithesis of a Silicon Valley.

Here is another example It take Pratt and Whitney 12 years to reach their reliability goal going form F 100-PW 100 to F100-PW 220

Phoenix_Rising said:

Some correction & addition about J-11B and WS-10.

1. There has NOT been any CRASH accident happened on aircraft thrusted by WS-10 and its variants. The poor stability and quality it showed during ground and air tests made PLAAF and AVIC vigilant enough to utilize WS-10 with substantial care and limit.
Besides, J-11B is dual-engine with a lifting-body fuselage. Such a plane fall out of sky because of only engine malfunction? The possibility is neglectable.

2. The J-11B fleet was "grounded" in 2011 not for accident. It was not that simple.
WS-10 sprayed turbine blade, it had been haunted by surge problem. Its thurst power had to be limited to 12.5t from 13.2t. The dull reaction of the mechanical speed control system was not even a problem comparing to those.
Since WS-10 was suffering unreliable performance, unstable quality, they also caused low producing efficiency. The assembled J-11B's were hold on ground, what's more is that many of them was actually withering on the tarmac without engines.

Click to expand...

read my quote "You don't ground a fleet and not install them for a year on minor issue"

Does that sound like I'm saying J-11B was grounded for one accident? Stop making stuff up. There were many issues at the time, which is not abnormal for a newly developed engine. And I do remember there was a crash with at least one flanker equipped with WS-10. Believe what you will.

I believe numbers below are reliable (dont ask me why, I wont say anything about the source) :
3. Some breakthrough was archieved in 2011 or 2012, making the WS-10 became reliable. Those later engines were usually named WS-10A in Chinese military forums.
It was not just saying, J-11B took part in DX freestyle aircombat exercise, became the major patrolman in ECS-ADIZ, pursuited P-8 with risky maneuver over SCS, etc.
WS-10A: Failure-free interval = 300h, Time before 1st Overhaul = 1200h, lifespan = 2000h.

4. On the Zhuhai aerospace exhibition in 2014, AVIC exposed a new variant of WS-10. During an interview, the engineer claimed that new WS-10 gets FADEC, and a maximum thrust at 14t. It was called "14t Tai Hang".
"14t": Failure-free interval = 300h, 1st overhaul = 900h, Lifespan = 1500h.

Click to expand...

why do you need to say (dont ask me why, I wont say anything about the source)?

This is all over Chinese forum. Nothing you are putting here is a secret.

Hendrik_2000 said:

WS 10 pass 1000 hr test in 2005

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Mr. Dong: Taihang developed many kinds of DERIVATIVES, the newest WS-10 series engine has reached 140 KN thrust. (Su-35 engine thrust of 145 KN)

Reporter: Achieve this thrust, that is to say the Taihang engine and Su-35's 117s engine thrust being roughly equivalent?

Mr. Dong: Yes, and we are still moving forward, the past few years has been to improve and develop. This is the new WS-10 engine, which have shaped up.

Click to expand...

wait da minute, so saying the new version of WS10 can have 140KN, heck, that could be used on the J20 for a long while. At least 5 yrs.