Chinese Engine Development

siegecrossbow said:

The Ukrainians just commenced in combat against the Russians and China is a quasi-ally, no surprise there. I doubt they’ll pay anything.

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Ukraine is preparing to initiate military action in the Donbass and Crimea. With Biden in office, establishment foreign policies are continuing.

Conflict in the region is likely to flair up again. Ukraine announced its strategy to retake Crimea.

Internal consolidation is starting with purging of pro Russia officials.


This time around Ukranian is better armed and more prepared for conflict with Donbass rebels. Russia will likely step in once Ukrainian forces gets the upper hand. NATO will condem Russia for interference with new rounds of sanctions and military maneuvers put in place to pressure Russia to back off from Donbass and withdraw from Crimea. Pressure of international partners is stated as part of Ukarine's strategy. China will likely not participate in sanctioning Russia. Knowing this Ukraine will reduce partnerships with non-NATO aligned nations but trade will likely still continue as usual.

Yeah they have also purged the main opposition party in Ukraine which seeks to make Ukraine a neutral country.

If Ukraine attempt to invade Crimea perhaps Russia will grab some more of that sweet Black Sea coastline.
With luck they'll leave Ukraine with the bits close to Poland. Perhaps Lviv can then become Ukraine's capital.

I think Chinese investors in Motor Sich have a fair chance to get their investment back by going to an international tribunal. In the meantime I think China should sanction Ukraine and rip the contract to buy Al-222 engines.

Can someone honestly sum up what gains there are with a Motor Sich purchase? Apart from increased and safer supply chains.

WS-10 has been mature for years and been operating for over 10 years now. Design long over and upgrades wrt digital controls plumbing etc are more design engineering problems than manufacturing and material science ones. Upgrades to material included as China's domestic engine industry improves over time.

WS-15 design (even the second clean sheet one) is done. Manufacturing and final phases are being worked out.

CJ-1000 and WS-20 designs are done and even test flights performed. Maybe there are improvements to be gained with Ukrainian engine manufacturing tech and know how but they would be pretty minor since the no-MS gain versions have been flying for years already.

China's already done the following that are all related to the traditional weak aspects of Chinese engine industry - materials and processes.

Single crystal blades

Blades that can withstand operation stresses temp etc

Hollow blades tech

Laser drilling tech

Exotic alloys... I think here China even has more than Ukraine and Russia iirc. Even the leaked "under the belt" exotic alloys basically include the full set.

So apart from helicopter engines which China has not devoted as much effort in catching up and is likely still very far behind the best, what else is there to gain? Factory processes? Machinery? Tooling?

If we're talking about China gaining full spectrum access through partial ownership of an organisation like GE or P&W or RR, then yes, totally so much to learn and gain but Motor Sich deals mostly with the manufacturing side (yes this is the harder part) and isn't exactly world leading like those western organisations. Russia has reorganised this sector and with or without French partnership projects, they will have much more resources to regain their edge in the future. While the western players are well ahead now, this is actually an area that can easily be overcome with time and resources spent. The only issue is that those western players have a massive time gap and will likely maintain that lead for a while because they have not been slowing down at all or don't plan to either. Luckily for China, catch up is a quicker and easier thing to do than break through.

gelgoog said:

Yeah they have also purged the main opposition party in Ukraine which seeks to make Ukraine a neutral country.

If Ukraine attempt to invade Crimea perhaps Russia will grab some more of that sweet Black Sea coastline.
With luck they'll leave Ukraine with the bits close to Poland. Perhaps Lviv can then become Ukraine's capital.

I think Chinese investors in Motor Sich have a fair chance to get their investment back by going to an international tribunal. In the meantime I think China should sanction Ukraine and rip the contract to buy Al-222 engines.

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@gelgoog Do you think that Ukraine had sold the tech blueprint and knowhow years ago? the Chinese are not dumb to rely on foreigners especially on a major jet trainer program like the JL10.

ansy1968 said:

@gelgoog Do you think that Ukraine had sold the tech blueprint and knowhow years ago? the Chinese are not dumb to rely on foreigners especially on a major jet trainer program like the JL10.

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In engineering of any practice (and especially true for high tech and complex things) blueprints themselves are worth very little. They are the executive summary of the technology world and honestly absolutely nothing much more... useful for certain parts but only with all the design/test phase work done and understood by the supply chain. Good for references and records.

They make up such a small part of the entire project. Blueprints also DO NOT reveal many aspects of design. They certainly don't give much if any insight into materials, material fabrication and more importantly the overall steps, timing, methodology, procedural checks/tests, equipment used, tools, machinery etc that are behind making something real. What temperature to set the autoclave? What density within a certain chamber? What gases to apply and their concentrations for this and that? Few factors out of hundreds if not thousands. To sell or supply all the above in a way that makes it possible for another party to execute and implement, there would be 1000 more things on top of blueprints that naive people like to think is the be all end all of advanced technologies. You could give the best minds and organisations the blueprint of an advanced alien integrated circuit board and we wouldn't be able to reproduce it without many more peripheral breakthroughs and probably decades if not many centuries.

China can still purchase the originally intended low thrust Ukrainian JL-10 engine can they not?

Preventing Chinese state from purchasing Motor Sich doesn't mean preventing China from purchasing the engines off the shelf right?

The engine itself is nothing spectacular or difficult but it does take time and resources to develop. If China cannot realistically afford to wait years for domestic industry to develop a suitable engine for the JL-10 trainer, they can purchase a suitable engine from Russia (that exists btw already off the shelf) if Motor Sich won't even sell their product?

ougoah said:

In engineering of any practice (and especially true for high tech and complex things) blueprints themselves are worth very little. They are the executive summary of the technology world and honestly absolutely nothing much more... useful for certain parts but only with all the design/test phase work done and understood by the supply chain. Good for references and records.

They make up such a small part of the entire project. Blueprints also DO NOT reveal many aspects of design. They certainly don't give much if any insight into materials, material fabrication and more importantly the overall steps, timing, methodology, procedural checks/tests, equipment used, tools, machinery etc that are behind making something real. What temperature to set the autoclave? What density within a certain chamber? What gases to apply and their concentrations for this and that? Few factors out of hundreds if not thousands. To sell or supply all the above in a way that makes it possible for another party to execute and implement, there would be 1000 more things on top of blueprints that naive people like to think is the be all end all of advanced technologies. You could give the best minds and organisations the blueprint of an advanced alien integrated circuit board and we wouldn't be able to reproduce it without many more peripheral breakthroughs and probably decades if not many centuries.

China can still purchase the originally intended low thrust Ukrainian JL-10 engine can they not?

Preventing Chinese state from purchasing Motor Sich doesn't mean preventing China from purchasing the engines off the shelf right?

The engine itself is nothing spectacular or difficult but it does take time and resources to develop. If China cannot realistically afford to wait years for domestic industry to develop a suitable engine for the JL-10 trainer, they can purchase a suitable engine from Russia (that exists btw already off the shelf) if Motor Sich won't even sell their product?

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@ougoah thanks bro for the explanation, I'm not belittling Motor Sich but Al-222 engines is within the tech competency of the Chinese, the Chinese is adhering to international trade rules and laws but with this Ukraine action China can now legally make copies without the consent of Motor Sich as compensation? remember they had a engine plant in Chongqing in collaboration with Motor Sich.

India already has engine cooperation with Russia and France.
Still I suppose with Russia and China out of the loop, other than India I can't think of any major client for Ukrainian engines yes.

China is supposedly developing the WS-17 engine to replace the Al-222. But given the recent contract with Motor Sich to purchase Al-222 engines for the L-15/JL-10 I doubt they expect to start production of it any time soon. Other than that I don't know of any current contracts China has with Motor Sich. They also manufacture helicopter engines and military transport aircraft engines.

China AFAIK manufactures their own helicopter and military transport aircraft engines for the most part. The exception might be a couple of Ka-27/28/31 or Mi-8/17 helicopters operated by the PLAN and PLA. But honestly the numbers for those should be small, like a couple dozen each at best, and Russia has a replacement VK-2500 engine manufactured by Klimov anyway. The most numerous of those I think is licensed serial production of the Mi-17 in China at Sichuan Lantian but that production should be using Russian Klimov VK-2500 engines. Most other Chinese helicopters use engines produced in China. All the old Soviet engines in Chinese military transport aircraft have been cloned and are produced in China.

AFAIK the situation with the naval engines, which also were imported Soviet/Ukrainian designs but from Zorya-Mashproekt, is that all of them have been cloned and are manufactured in China.

ansy1968 said:

@ougoah thanks bro for the explanation, I'm not belittling Motor Sich but Al-222 engines is within the tech competency of the Chinese, the Chinese is adhering to international trade rules and laws but with this Ukraine action China can now legally make copies without the consent of Motor Sich as compensation? remember they had a engine plant in Chongqing in collaboration with Motor Sich.

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No idea on those laws but to be honest I don't think Chinese state will care if there is an easy solution like all the means to build the Al-222 is within China already, they will just do it and consider the billions paid already to Motor Sich not refunded as the moral cost of building their engine without license and approval. Every country that got anywhere has done similar if not worse in their time. China's already paid over a billion USD for the purchase that fell through and they aren't refunding it right? These engines aren't worth a billion dollars plus it's not even like MS has to build them now. The rights CERTAINLY are not worth a billion dollars.

Sorry I should correct myself from earlier. The Russian version is basically a licensed version of the Ukrainian Al-222. So if Motor Sich doesn't sell off the shelf to China to supply those trainer planes, China cannot source it from Russia unless Russian decides to do it without Ukrainian approval. Or something like that... again not a lawyer or politician.

Maybe there's some IP licensing path through Ivchenko Progress?