Chinese Engine Development

@manqiangrexue just ignore the western fanboy.

Saying nonsense like the Flanker’s engines are “hopelessly
behind western engines” shows he knows nothing about aviation.

Pmichael said:

No one is setting up a dedicated team just to improve an old foreign engine.

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Notice how the word “dedicated” is missing in my comment but present in yours? Work on that reading comprehension buddy. If I wasn’t misunderstanding you, your main point is that they would have had to devote an unreasonable amount of resources for the amount of improvement to do their own work on the AL-31. My point, regardless of how you’ve chosen to nitpick my choice of words, is that it actually may not.

Pmichael said:

I think it's hard to believe that China is capable of improving a foreign engine with the state of their engine expertise.

J-20 is mostlikely powered by the M2 variant.

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The original was from Gongke, who was confirmed to work at Liming (or another firm) and was recently silenced from Chinese forums. That was the closest thing we can get to an official source on the forums.

I guess this being a "Chinese board" must mean any post that doesn't agree with his conjecture is a fanboy post despite some evidence given. What does this guy want? Someone from the engine research team to thoroughly explain everything to him? Pffft... yeah we don't understand how engineering works. I suppose this bloke is a super genius and a mind-reader. He knows how ALL engineering teams and organisations work or rather should work lol thanks for educating us numbskulls.

Engineering is complex. Different developments have different nuances. Improving a foreign OLD engine that you are very familiar with is certainly within the realm of engineering work for teams working on other projects not directly related to solely improving this foreign engine. Engineering team structures CAN run different to the organisation you're working at!

Advances in material science and fabrication techniques can find application on this foreign engine. You can swap out certain components with more suitable materials or assembly techniques you have learned from your other projects. Knowing that China does its own servicing and build of AL-31 and given its track record of studying and reverse engineering every bit of technology that was available from the 60s to even today (much less to learn from outside technologies these days), I'd be surprised that improvements couldn't be made to the standard export AL-31s that are sold to China and every part replicated like the RD33/93 has been in the WS-13. These specific models and export versions aren't the best engines the Russians have that are based on AL-31 series so it's not even a case of Chinese teams having one upped the Russians on improving the base AL-31s so relax. Reminds me of the Mig-21 case where the entire fighter that was received from the Soviets had to have dozens of design amendments to correct intended design flaws for Chinese kits.

manqiangrexue said:

You're the one who's delusional. I just posted an example of the Chinese improving a foreign engine and you just ignored it. The article is 2011, citing another article published August 2010 (citation 18) on China improving AL-31 from 900 to 1500 hours. Search for 900 and you'll find the relevant section. Here's the link:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

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Well, I remember what a nightmare the WS-13 integration was, something the article ignores.

latenlazy said:

Notice how the word “dedicated” is missing in my comment but present in yours?

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What? I copy pasted it from your post.

siegecrossbow said:

The original was from Gongke, who was confirmed to work at Liming (or another firm) and was recently silenced from Chinese forums. That was the closest thing we can get to an official source on the forums.

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So what did he say? Not that the claim was that the J-20 is using an upgraded AL-31 engine which the M2 variant would be, which is the latest version of the Al-31 family.

Pmichael said:

Well, I remember what a nightmare the WS-13 integration was, something the article ignores.

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What does that have to do with anything at all? You said you didn't believe that Chinese engine expertise would allow them to upgrade a foreign engine and I gave you direct proof that you are wrong. There is nothing about the WS-13 that would save your incorrect statement.

Pmichael said:

This is a rather long post to say nothing.

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don't be too rude, please be respectful

manqiangrexue said:

What does that have to do with anything at all? You said you didn't believe that Chinese engine expertise would allow them to upgrade a foreign engine and I gave you direct proof that you are wrong. There is nothing about the WS-13 that would save your incorrect statement.

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And your linked article didn't provide much about your claim. In fact the source for that 800h lifetime claim is not existing anymore, which is also a rather dubios claim because MTBO of the AL-31 is 1000h with an engine lifetime around 3000. No one would fly with engines with an lifetime of 800h.

Pmichael said:

And your linked article didn't provide much about your claim. In fact the source for that 800h lifetime claim is not existing anymore, which is also a rather dubios claim because MTBO of the AL-31 is 1000h with an engine lifetime around 3000. No one would fly with engines with an lifetime of 800h.

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You really wanna do this to yourself on a Friday in a public forum, don't you? OK, humiliation's all yours. It's 900, not 800. You can't even search for a number correctly and you want to pompously tell people what the Chinese engine industry is and isn't capable of? Here's the quote:

"China’s 5719 Jet Engine Repair Plant has allegedly found a way to extend the operating life of Russian-made AL-31F engines from 900 hours to 1,500 hours.[18]"