Chinese Engine Development

Bltizo said:

I think for the last few years it's been accepted that WS-15 won't be entering widespread service until ~2025.

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I think you'll agree that 5 engines per year in 2025 doesn't exactly qualify as "widespread service."

Bltizo said:

The idea of producing 5 engines per year for a few years is not crazy

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If this came out in 2015 I would agree, but 5 per year now is really cutting it thin - 5 per year in 2026 is a catastrophe. If that's the case people should be going to prison for defrauding the government.

Bltizo said:

I'd be interested in waiting to see what if any of the usual insiders have to say about this.

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I hope we'll hear from them soon.

taxiya said:

But you forget that this is a product for PRE-volume production. Along with the maturity of the production specification, the pre-production volume will decrease or even cease earlier than 2026. It is not the number of volume production predicted after 2025/2026 which is 300 per year.

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That would make a lot more sense, but could you point to any evidence in the document that supports this?

Bltizo said:

I think for the last few years it's been accepted that WS-15 won't be entering widespread service until ~2025.

The idea of producing 5 engines per year for a few years is not crazy --- however I find it a bit strange that they are producing the same number of engines each year for six whole years.
It is possible that there may be some kind of bottleneck that is projected, but I also find it a bit dubious that production would remain static for six straight years.


I'd be interested in waiting to see what if any of the usual insiders have to say about this.

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The "they" may be just CISRI who is one among other suppliers. The report says some share of 20 to 50%. So we may be seeing 10 to 25 engines per year through 2026.

We should also keep in mind that, this is a projection (wish) of the said company regarding their own share of the work. It does not reflect the overall WS-15 pre-production volume.

Bltizo said:

I think for the last few years it's been accepted that WS-15 won't be entering widespread service until ~2025.

The idea of producing 5 engines per year for a few years is not crazy --- however I find it a bit strange that they are producing the same number of engines each year for six whole years.
It is possible that there may be some kind of bottleneck that is projected, but I also find it a bit dubious that production would remain static for six straight years.


I'd be interested in waiting to see what if any of the usual insiders have to say about this.

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This schedule might be dictated less by capacity than demand. It could be the PLAAF or CAC only plans about 1-2 new airframes a year to fit the engine for the next 5-6 years, which would be consistent with the development and LRIP of a new designation.

ZeEa5KPul said:

That would make a lot more sense, but could you point to any evidence in the document that supports this?

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Document? It is a common practice in industry. I knows this from my own company's practice. We setup pre-production lines to define, test and verify procedures, write software for automation (robots). After everything is set, we build full sized production line in other countries to increase the volume.

Before we go off in a thousand different directions, someone qualified should do a careful translation of the documents so we can all be on the same page about at least the facts. There's already ambiguity about the number of engines (5 per year through 2026 or 25 -> 10 per year).

ZeEa5KPul said:

I think you'll agree that 5 engines per year in 2025 doesn't exactly qualify as "widespread service."

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I agree, the dates mentioned also aren't too far off from the date we've been working with for the last few years.

If this came out in 2015 I would agree, but 5 per year now is really cutting it thin - 5 per year in 2026 is a catastrophe. If that's the case people should be going to prison for defrauding the government.

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Well there's a difference between what is desirable and what has been expected or projected.

Personally I take the numbers with a dose of salt, but they also do not sound un-believable compared to what we've been expecting.

Bltizo said:

Personally I take the numbers with a dose of salt, but they also do not sound un-believable compared to what we've been expecting.

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We've all been expecting mass production of the WS-15 in 2025. 5 engines/year then is a couple of planes and a spare - it might as well be zero. It most certainly is the farthest thing possible from what we've been expecting. SDF has an unfortunate habit of granting a degree of acceptance to every piece of information it gets regardless of the source (I've seen users here take Minnie Chan's lemons and try to make lemonade out of them.)

I hope to see better in this case. The documents should read carefully by someone (preferably more than one) who is familiar with all the technical and legal terms and can translate them accurately.

ZeEa5KPul said:

Why would total production fall from 25 WS-15 engines in 2020 to 10 in 2026? We're among friends so I don't mind stating aloud that the Chinese stock market is a fraudulent pile of crap, so its regulators don't impress me.

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I quote my post #5263

Along with the maturity of the production specification, the pre-production volume will decrease or even cease earlier than 2026.

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From my experience in my company, the pre-production phase is another kind of R&D process where the focus is to fine tune the best practice to guarantee quality consistency in quantity. The time may be short or long. If everything goes well, it is short and need less pre-production pieces, so the decrease over time. Although not guaranteed, it is how planner's do.

taxiya said:

I quote my post #5263

From my experience in my company, the pre-production phase is another kind of R&D process where the focus is to fine tune the best practice to guarantee quality consistency in quantity. The time may be short or long. If everything goes well, it is short and need less pre-production pieces, so the decrease over time. Although not guaranteed, it is how planner's do.

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And from my company experience, I can say if you don’t do this step carefully you’re welcoming a lot of headaches down the road.

ZeEa5KPul said:

Before we go off in a thousand different directions, someone qualified should do a careful translation of the documents so we can all be on the same page about at least the facts. There's already ambiguity about the number of engines (5 per year through 2026 or 25 -> 10 per year).

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Before we go off into a thousand directions, why didn’t you wait for a proper translation before jumping the gun...