XA103 and GE ACE Engine won't be ready for service at least till early 2030's.
XA103 major testing will begin in late 2020's.
both GE/PW also took more than two decades in ACE development. from demonstrator to service.
Chinese Engine Development
- Thread starter jackbh
- Start date
XA103 major testing will begin in late 2020's.
both GE/PW also took more than two decades in ACE development. from demonstrator to service.
To be honest, think should given them some slack. Building a reliable functioning advanced turbofan engine for 5th generation fighter is not easy. It’s one of the most complex things to do in the world. So it’s normal there will be delays. So a delay of a couple of years is not that bad especially for a new player in the modern fighter jet engine industry like China. So you guys should be more understanding in this aspect. China needs time to really mature her modern engine industry in all aspects
your general assessment regarding turbofan engine is fine.
but the real information is, WS-15 Engine is completed and in production but yet to reach the point, where they can scale it up in hundreds.
today we get the news from our source, he said, Engine need polishing. so little delay is expected.
if you see China's gas turbine industry. it is pretty much mature now. but still need to do more work.
Now with that being said, I can only hope that the development of China's own ACE/VCE-based WS-XX engines meant for the J-36 and J-XDS wouldn't suffer the delays of similar (or worse) magnitudes compared to its WS-10/15 predecessors. Best would at roughly the same rates as the XA102/103, but I'd suppose that possibility is out of the window now... So the only next best would be the WS-XX's development progress being somewhat behind the Americans.
Last edited:
The WS-15’s current problem is a mass production issue. That’s not a 5 year problem and doesn’t reflect on R&D capability. No need to get dramatic about the set back. People need to stop drawing conclusions based on vibes and more on appropriately scaled practical assessments.
The level of hysteria on this forum about WS-15 being a little delayed is off the chart.
No one actually knows the timeline for sure or any possible revised timeline.
Also what this 6th gen engine actually looks like, I think we are making too much assumptions.
Back in 2010, I remember Maya said WS-15 would be ready by 2020 in the best case scenario. But then it turned out that they got WS-10 program into a place where it was sufficient for J-20, so then WS-15 requirement seems to have jumped and it got redesigned.
We are too far away from 6th gen engine to know what it would end up as.
No one actually knows the timeline for sure or any possible revised timeline.
That again is impossible to measure. Nobody knows their timeline. 6th gen clearly won't go into service with 6th gen engine.
Also what this 6th gen engine actually looks like, I think we are making too much assumptions.
Back in 2010, I remember Maya said WS-15 would be ready by 2020 in the best case scenario. But then it turned out that they got WS-10 program into a place where it was sufficient for J-20, so then WS-15 requirement seems to have jumped and it got redesigned.
We are too far away from 6th gen engine to know what it would end up as.
Yeah it seems Blitzo's policy of always assuming the less advanced engine will be used until the more advanced engine is clearly in production for a year or two is right bet with PLAAF. There does seem to have been a lot of delays with WS-15 in particular but to be honest PLA is just way more opaque than other militaries. We mostly rely on rumors for upcoming stuff so we don't really know for sure what the actual internal plans are and when they get changed. So who knows what the real plan was. As for the "polishing" yeah my read is the same as gelgoog, it seems they can't produce it at scale just yet.
by78
General
The engine was flight tested on an unmanned platform.
