Chinese Engine Development

L-15 trainer project went ahead without AL-222. It's even getting export orders.

Motor Sich offered very little except a steady supply of AL-222 which was what that Chinese business wanted. Then the political stuff happened and the sale wasn't allowed by the US because they considered the Chinese side wanted tech from Motor Sich which is laughable.

It's like Porsche buying out a small supplier involved in the making of Porsche car seats. Then the US steps in to say the car seat maker represents tech that Porsche doesn't have so cannot buy it.

China developed WS-10 which is something Motor Sich and Ivchenko Progress as brilliant as they are, could not develop. This doesn't include now WS-15, WS-19, and CJ-1000, WS-20, and CJ-2000. The AL-222 is a very small lightweight turbofan which Chinese engine makers simply didn't have a bother to develop.

China's state run L-15 program (from AVIC) required a supply of small engines and since AL-222 exists the contract was awarded to Motor Sich. I suspect the Chinese business that wanted to buy Motor Sich simply wanted to control the supply of this engine to make money off the sale of the engines to the Chinese government.

Then idiots came along to warp the whole thing as if China wanted to buy Motor Sich for technology.

That's like claiming USA wanted to buy TikTok for technology. Absolutely bonkers. Again Chinese engine tech has been far ahead of Ukraine's since the 2010s at the latest.

ougoah said:

Wasn't it some small time private company in China that wanted to buy Motor Sich? They went out of business recently as reported by Caixin in some other thread.

The whole point in buying Motor Sich (manufacturer NOT developer) was for that business to secure the supply AL-222 engine which that business knows the Chinese government has orders for AL-222.

The Chinese business that paid for Motor Sich wants to own the supply of AL-222 engines that would be purchased by the Chinese government for their L-15 trainer.

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China's domestic engine developers and makers are far ahead of Ivchenko Progress and Motor Sich. It's just getting one small turbofan supplied by a foreign company because no Chinese business back in those days of L-15 development had a AL-222 equivalent and there were no AVIC projects for something like this as Motor Sich was supplying AL-222.

The sale wasn't successful but it's not some important project!

This is like how the US buys a frigate from Italian ship designers and builders. It doesn't mean much except they don't bother to develop and build that frigate themselves. It certainly doesn't mean the Italian shipbuilder is somehow ahead of the US and the US needs that.

AL-222 is an engine that both Russia and China bought from Ukraine until the supply issues and the political issues between Ukraine and Russia.

Russia now produces an AL-222 alternative which I think China simply just buys from Russia.

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Doesnt motor sich also produce gigantic turbofans for airliners? Perhaps china wanted tech transfer for that. Also turboshafts for helicopters iinm

sndef888 said:

Doesnt motor sich also produce gigantic turbofans for airliners? Perhaps china wanted tech transfer for that. Also turboshafts for helicopters iinm

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All the core turbofan technologies have been mastered by China well before even tendering for L-15 trainer engines which involved Motor Sich.

I'm not too familiar with Ivchenko Progress and Motor Sich technology levels but I regarded UK and US turbofan tech as numero uno. Followed by Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and French. Ukrainian would be in the list but their funding since soviet collapse simply didn't allow them to realistically remain in that second tier list.

All now have single crystal tech, superalloys of gen 2 and 3 by China, more from the others and niche players like Japan (which is a star player in superalloy technologies iirc the Japanese are up to gen 5 alloys?)

Furthermore China has hollow crystal blade tech and ceramic too now not long ago if I'm not mistaken (perhaps someone can correct me or verify). Manufacturing of laser "cut" cooling holes too.

WS-20 has been flying for some time. CJ-1000 is in flight testing. CJ-2000 is in development and past prototyping.

Helicopter engines I've no idea about but I've heard that Motor Sich does represent some advancement compared to Chinese own helicopter engines so in this area perhaps there is some gain in purchasing Motor Sich. But it wasn't AVIC that wanted to buy but some private business that has apparently bankrupted. So even if purchase went ahead, it's questionable how much tech transfer could be had by AVIC since it wouldn't be owned by them. Whether that Chinese business is simply a shell company instructed by AVIC to make the purchase or some private businessman thinking they can make a tonne of money from Chinese government purchases of the engines he will own, who knows. Could be either or a mix of both.

In either case, Motor Sich doesn't mean shit to China. AL-222 supply was all it was after because China needed to buy an engine for the L-15 which is a low and unimportant project relative to other aircraft that China was developing and supplying engines for itself. At most, it could potentially maybe get some know how for helicopter engines from a purchase only if done by AVIC or associated with AVIC. And the L-15 simply gets a Salyut engine and in future when Guizhou's FWS-17 is completed flight tests and evaluations, then the Chinese domestic alternative.

MS purchase drama was a whole big deal about nothing. Except the Chinese business lost billions for making the purchase but not receiving the thing that was purchased. So they got rorted by the American led Ukrainian new government back in 2018 or whenever it was that the sale was blocked.

USA acting like they blocked something significant. I don't get them sometimes. This isn't WS-10 it's a nothing engine that China itself wasn't bothered enough to develop because there are more important projects. Since the block though, Guizhou has been given the task of developing a suitably small engine. Boring trivial task that has to be done.

ohan_qwe said:

In an Ukrainian court? There may or may not be a country left soon.

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There'll be courts under the new Russian-appointed government.

ZeEa5KPul said:

There'll be courts under the new Russian-appointed government.

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The Russians are really big on court cases for war crimes. The Soviet Union were the ones who pushed for the Nuremberg Trials to happen in the first place. You can almost bet when Putin talked about "de-nazification" it will involve that.

ougoah said:

Yep. I think Japan still has an overall better industrial base for engines than China does but its military engine programs are not as well funded and spread out as China's. If Japan didn't have a military budget cap, they would be tier 1 for sure.

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How is Japan ahead of China in engines? Has Japan made a high bypass turbofan yet?

dengyeye said:

How is Japan ahead of China in engines? Has Japan made a high bypass turbofan yet?

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Japan does have some turbofan projects, like IHI F7 for Kawasaki P-1. Its bypass ratio is about 8:1. But it's not a big engine, with a thrust just about half of WS-20.

dengyeye said:

How is Japan ahead of China in engines? Has Japan made a high bypass turbofan yet?

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Think he's saying Japan is still ahead in hard sciences and overall industrial/technology base but behind in engines because they don't have proper development programmes

I think it's mostly true. Up until recently Japan was still having quite remarkable amounts of breakthroughs and scientific development for a country of their size. Though China is quickly catching up

symplectic said:

Japan does have some turbofan projects, like IHI F7 for Kawasaki P-1. Its bypass ratio is about 8:1. But it's not a big engine, with a thrust just about half of WS-20.

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It's a small turbofan engine and they famously had to put four of them on the Kawasaki P-1 to get it to fly. There's no way Japan is ahead of China in engine development in 2022.

dengyeye said:

It's a small turbofan engine and they famously had to put four of them on the Kawasaki P-1 to get it to fly. There's no way Japan is ahead of China in engine development in 2022.

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not claiming Japan is ahead of China in turbofan development. Just point out that Japan does have some accumulation. Actually Japan has nothing to match WS-10, WS-13, or WS-20. Japan is also developing a new generation XF9 low-bypass engine which should match WS-15, but no idea when it can be done.