I thought that flight was already yesterday in the FC-31 31001.
Chinese Engine Development
- Thread starter jackbh
- Start date
I thought that flight was already yesterday in the FC-31 31001.
antiterror13
Brigadier
wowww, it is FC-31 ... does it mean PLAAF is embracing it? or ready for export
Where are the pictures???
In mind of the nearly complete hiatus of images on nearly any project I think it will take some time until we will get an image ...
we have seen one JF17 with WS-13 conducting high speed taxi test some time ago.
not necesserily. like FC-31, WS-13 is a project financed by the company, not the military, at least at the begining. So far, if FC-31 and JF-17 remains pure commercial projects, PLAAF has no use of it on their jet fighters except the Lijian UCAV.
So WS-13 may be embraced by PLAAF for LIjian, FC-31 is not as far as I know.
ready or not (right now) is hard to say. But it is sure in the near future because it is its purpose in the first place.
By "this image" I assume the image of "JF-17+WS-13".
From what I gather WS-13 is reengineered RD-93, so it would be very difficult to tell them apart, let alone confirming it.
However, at least one internet article (this time) that claims the FC-31+WS-13E maiden flight states that WS-13 was put on a JF-17 for high-speed taxi run in 2009/2010, but didn't took off due to issues with WS-13 back then. If we are to trust the whole package of this latest claim, then it is "confirmed" that JF-17+WS-13 picture was real.
A note, the engine on the JF-17 was supposed to be WS-13 (essentially RD-93 clone), the one on FC-31 is WS-13E, an improved version. The improvements are
Thrust: 8700KG to over 9000KG wet
Weight: 1135KG to 1050KG
T/W: over 8.5
Last edited:
Translation of the texts in the banner on the background:
Large commercial (turbofan) engine demonstrator passed initial (phase 1) assessment, enters detailed development phase (2) July 5th 2016 Shanghai
Summary of the article:
Finished design and test of all componets for the engine core in the phase 1. Phase 2 is to build, verify and test the core, then the whole engine.
Some people suspect this is CJ1000.