manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Indians screwed up the Kaveri cus it's not usable and doesn't power anything. Chinese screwed up WS-10?? It's on over 200 aircraft and being continuously upgraded for the J-20. How's that a screw up? Initially, there were issues but initial trials don't mean something's screwed up.I'm wondering if it would have been easier to work in the Kaveri / F414 class instead of the Al-31 / F110 class to begin with, with the Chinese turbofans. Going to a dual engine design with the J-10 would have been beneficial in that engine reliability issues would have been less dangerous. Instead, we get a case where the Indians, with less funding, screw up with the Kaveri, and the Chinese, with more funding, screw up with the WS-10. Smaller engines tend to have higher engineering tolerances, and given that China's biggest weakness is in the engine field, it might have been more interesting to attempt to do a quad engine design (like American-proposed Sixth-Gens) for a heavy fighter. Remember, if we're comparing the J-10 to the Rafale; the former will likely peak between 140 and 160 kN, while the latter has already reached 180 kN for a T/W of 1.2 loaded and 1.4 at combat weight.
Aim high. A small RD-93 class engine might have been easier (on the material science at least; I don't know about the higher tolerances) but the utility is significantly less as well. You can power small fighters with it but to use 3 or 4 on a heavy fighter makes the jet very maintenance-heavy for the crew and can affect aircraft readiness/ sortie rate. Also, while a higher number of engines in maritime training is better because it makes the aircraft more recoverable in the event of single engine failure, it is actually a disadvantage in heated conflict because essentially, you rely on all of them working to power your plane properly and if even 1 fails out of 2 or 3 or 4, you will at least have to abort mission, possibly get shot down like a sitting duck. So higher the number, more likely you will get 1 failure.
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