Chinese Engine Development
- Thread starter jackbh
- Start date
Can anyone else validate this? I thought one thing the WS-10/A has going for it was a much greater MTBO than the Al-31F.
EDIATH
Junior Member
I suspect Challenge mixed up "life span" with MTBO.
But even for MTBO, 500h may not be an accurate figure for now.
My error, you are right,trying to translate chinese character to hard english could be confusing.
Hey Maya,
I was reading on Chinese forums recently that the WP-14 project has basically failed now for Shenyang Liming. Is it just because they are just concentrating a lot more on Taihang or is Liming really that incompetent? Cause it seems to me that we have seen a lot of J-11B/BS recently with Taihang, so that would indicate Taihang is under mass production and might be ready for production certification soon.
And also, what is J-10B going to use if AL-31FN is a little underpowered imo and WS-10A is probably not ready for it yet?
WP-14 was specially design to power F-8,but the aircraft may already obsolete,therefore it is much economical to cancel the program.
Semi-Lobster
Junior Member
I think they just failed, IIRC last year we saw pictures of J-8FR reconnaissance aircraft equipped with WP-14 turbojets but since then it seems that those engines have been removed due to reliability issues and replaced with older WP-13B2 engines and we haven't seen any more since. Also from what I understand it seems that WS-12 Taishan now is the engine that will used for J-8 upgrades from now on such as the J-8T fighter (which in my opinion would benefit more from a FBW system than a newer engine) which is supposed to be the penultimate J-8 variant if rumours are to be believed...
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any data for WS-12?, about 2 years( I not sure) an article claim WS-12 program was abandone.or the project been revive?
But if the project been revive solely just to power F-8 do not make any sense,giving the F-8 near retirement age....
Could also imply that the PLAAF and maybe Shenyang are more confident about the progress of future fighters to not need further upgrades to older ones.
Semi-Lobster
Junior Member
Hmmm, you might be right now that I looked into it more, last year IIRC at an air expo (Sept. 2009) when Shenyang was trying to export the J-8T, the aircraft was listed as as using the old WP-13B2 and I haven't heard a word since last year about the WS-12B for the JH-7 so perhaps both engines have failed?