Chinese Engine Development

Hendrik_2000 said:

But that can be said for all newly inducted engine. It is normal that you have teething problem. But what rankle me is when it come to China the critic will heap scorn, ridicule or get off tangent and imply political reason as the cause. When in fact it is normal phases development that every new engine has to go thru. Specially for China that has very weak industrial base and subject to stringent embargo. Basically a third world, agrarian country on shoe string budget attempt to built high performance engine with no help.

It is gargantuan effort . Even highly industrial country with long tradition of Aero engine manufacturing suffer teething problem

Airbus A 400 engine suffer various crack

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PW F100-200

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So does F35 engine

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there is also nothing wrong to say that Chinese newspaper embellishes the performance of these projects or gloss over certain failures, because they do. A lot of the insiders on Chinese bbs would tell you the same thing. China has a lot of technical expertise and a lot of money. We should expect a lot from them. Even the Chinese forums are really critical of the performance of Shenyang Liming.

I have followed the long back-and-forth argument this time around. It all started by Blackstone with the notion of "WS-10's lack of reported accident is "solely" due to government cover up". While the counter arguing people's point is providing a reasonable alternative explanation that is, for one WS-10 is only installed on Flankers making an accident impossible to be noticed by outsiders without a crash. In no time, did I see any counter arguing people denying the possibility of WS-10 having problems.

Although, the "solely" part was not in Blackstone's original words, but it does not surprise me at all if majority of others here do interpret his words to mean "solely". We all know why.

So both sides have a valid point, but the prolonged argument would not has happened if

• Either, Blackstone phrased his words by adding "one of the possibilities of ... is perhaps due to ..."
• Or, other members here did not assume that he meant "solely". But I am afraid that is more up to Blackstone. After all, misunderstood by one or two is common, but by many is rare.

If there is an "obsession", I do see it, but NOT in Biltzo.

tphuang said:

My point is whether or not J-11B crashed due to WS-10 is not that important in the original context of what blackstone was saying. The point is that WS-10 was extremely unreliable in the beginning. Numerous SAC insiders stated that the main reason for all the delays in J-11B program was due to issues they found in WS-10 equipped J-11Bs. It was so bad that they had so many flankers without engines parked outside of the factory. What's the point of saying WS-10 did not cause crash in J-11B when it was so unreliable that they couldn't even install it on J-11B before these issues were fixed? And I remember distinctly that the big shrimps (who were SAC supporters) did say at least one flanker crashed due to WS-10 issues.

You can say those people were putting the blame on WS-10 so that SAC doesn't take all the blame. And that a flanker crashed because it couldn't handle problem in one of the WS-10 engines. Either way, the bigger point is that WS-10 was very unreliable back then and now it's reliable. It's taken many years, so we should expect a lot of progress.

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I have no problem with Blackstone's assertions that WS-10 may have been unreliable initially or if it may have had accidents, if it was merely a discussion about the WS-10 in general as a result of curiosity.

However, instead he brought up the issue of potential accidents in response to the specific claim in the article about no aircraft being lost to engine failure, with an air of skepticism towards the article's claim in the first place. Therefore I think it was necessary to clarify that the article's claim was actually quite reasonable.


I think you may have read my original post and for some reason produced the impression that I believe that I don't know about the difficulties that WS-10 faced during its development or that I don't know it was initially reliable. However my position all along was only limited to the specific discussion related to the article's claim about no aircraft being lost to engine failure.
That's all I have to say on the matter.

taxiya said:

I have followed the long back-and-forth argument this time around. It all started by Blackstone with the notion of "WS-10's lack of reported accident is "solely" due to government cover up". While the counter arguing people's point is providing a reasonable alternative explanation that is, for one WS-10 is only installed on Flankers making an accident impossible to be noticed by outsiders without a crash. In no time, did I see any counter arguing people denying the possibility of WS-10 having problems.

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As I mentioned quite a few pages ago.....

1.WS-10 did experience failures and accidents
2.WS-10 related accidents did get reported in open publication, which is why we can be certain about point 1.
3.Nobody claimed that WS-10 never had any accident, not form Chinese media, not from AVIC, nobody said that. The AVIC company report was saying that WS-10 did not result in any crash.
4.Based on points 1-3, any argument about "WS-10's lack of reported accident......government cover up" is moot.
5.Blackstone can't really question statements about "no accidents", because there are no such statement. He was actually doubting AVIC's claim that "WS-10 did not result in any crash".
6.Many people don't agree with him because his doubt was simply based on political preconception related to communism, instead of technical analysis or evidence.
7.When there are no solid evidence pointing to a WS-10 induced crash, is it so hard to believe AVIC's claim? At least I don't think so.

That's what it is.

alright, no reason to bring Western news into this. When there is any questioning over accuracy of Chinese news, please argue based on what we know whether or not the news is accurate. It really doesn't matter to me whether any other country's news media lies or covers up, since the point of this forum is discuss Chinese defense news, not whether or not Chinese media is more of less truthful than other country.

superdog said:

As I mentioned quite a few pages ago.....

1.WS-10 did experience failures and accidents
2.WS-10 related accidents did get reported in open publication, which is why we can be certain about point 1.
3.Nobody claimed that WS-10 never had any accident, not form Chinese media, not from AVIC, nobody said that. The AVIC company report was saying that WS-10 did not result in any crash.
4.Based on points 1-3, any argument about "WS-10's lack of reported accident......government cover up" is moot.
5.Blackstone can't really question statements about "no accidents", because there are no such statement. He was actually doubting AVIC's claim that "WS-10 did not result in any crash".
6.Many people don't agree with him because his doubt was simply based on political preconception related to communism, instead of technical analysis or evidence.
7.When there are no solid evidence pointing to a WS-10 induced crash, is it so hard to believe AVIC's claim? At least I don't think so.

That's what it is.

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Except as I said there are big shrimps on chinese bbs that have specifically said that flankers have crashed due to WS-10 problems. The distinction of whether the engine or rest of aircraft caused a crash is not necessarily black & white issue.

I have no problem with Blackstone's assertions that WS-10 may have been unreliable initially or if it may have had accidents, if it was merely a discussion about the WS-10 in general as a result of curiosity.

However, instead he brought up the issue of potential accidents in response to the specific claim in the article about no aircraft being lost to engine failure, with an air of skepticism towards the article's claim in the first place. Therefore I think it was necessary to clarify that the article's claim was actually quite reasonable.


I think you may have read my original post and for some reason produced the impression that I believe that I don't know about the difficulties that WS-10 faced during its development or that I don't know it was initially reliable. However my position all along was only limited to the specific discussion related to the article's claim about no aircraft being lost to engine failure.
That's all I have to say on the matter.

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what I saw was several members all going after blackstone on an issue that simply isn't that important. Imo, it wouldn't have been a big deal even if a flanker did crash due to WS-10 issues. Which makes me think the real reason is people are offended when progress and success of WS-10 gets attacked. So i'm going to fully remind and point out how unreliable WS-10 was at for about 5 years there.

tphuang said:

Except as I said there are big shrimps on chinese bbs that have specifically said that flankers have crashed due to WS-10 problems. The distinction of whether the engine or rest of aircraft caused a crash is not necessarily black & white issue.

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When there are conflicting claims, and without further evidence to support either side, I trust AVIC corporate statements and China Aviation News (中国航空报) more than so-called "big shrimps" on Chinese forums.

tphuang said:

what I saw was several members all going after blackstone on an issue that simply isn't that important. Imo, it wouldn't have been a big deal even if a flanker did crash due to WS-10 issues. Which makes me think the real reason is people are offended when progress and success of WS-10 gets attacked. So i'm going to fully remind and point out how unreliable WS-10 was at for about 5 years there.

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Your thought of the reason is correct.

And I must add that people won't feel offended IF the "attack" is based on something concrete such as photos, analysis based on numbers, or even rumors from Chinese internet with people on the ground seeing with their eyes, instead of purely based on some kind of political ideological conviction that goes like "Chinese official source must be coverring up or lies" which was what blackstone did in this round.

I also don't think "offended" people here are defending Chinese government in anyway, but rather just demand a valid counter-argument supported by technical or statistical facts. I don't imply you think "people here defending Chinese government", I just want to tell what people really want.

Seems to me one or two members decided they wanted a fight and so found one.

The original post that kicked all this off was pretty much out of the blue and not relating to anything posted before as far as I can recall. The general tone was also pretty hostile and condescending.

Little wonder that got people's backs up.

tphuang said:

what I saw was several members all going after blackstone on an issue that simply isn't that important. Imo, it wouldn't have been a big deal even if a flanker did crash due to WS-10 issues. Which makes me think the real reason is people are offended when progress and success of WS-10 gets attacked.

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There are some people who will always be offended no matter whether a programme is attacked or criticized in a just or unjust way.

But in this case, the sheer consensus and chorus of counter arguments made against Blackstone is a reflection of the poor logic and premises of his conclusion, and his position became further inflamed by his unsupported and frankly stereotypical assertions of "government cover up" and "media control" etc, all of which put together was condescending and a few steps away from being outright inflammatory.

In other words, the furor due to Blackstone's post was not only due to a result of the conclusion he made, but the underlying logic and premises in which he reached that conclusion, and it is those underlying things which has caused such a comprehensive dissection of his argument by so many members.

Don't lump and blindly mix knee jerk "CHINA STRONK!!111!" posts and members, with those which are actually interested in looking at an argument's logic and premise logically and critically.

So i'm going to fully remind and point out how unreliable WS-10 was at for about 5 years there.

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Well do it in response to someone else's post or make a separate post about it, and don't do it as a reply to my post, because nowhere have I made any claim saying that WS-10 did not face difficulties or did not face accidents during its development... otherwise it makes it seem like you're putting up a straw man.