Chinese Engine Development

ReneDad:

I don't know how long you've been following the PLA, but you have for a long time then you would know that you can't rely only on the released pictures. As you mentioned, some are PS'd, and many are unclear. You can draw an infinite number of conclusions based solely on concrete evidence.

No, you need to find the knowledgeable posters, take their information into account, and integrate them with all the fuzzy pictures you see. For example, it was revealed to us the construction of an 052C+ destroyer when the only concrete evidence we had to go on was a dark silhouette of the bow of some ship. You can't even tell if the ship is military or civilian at that point, but if you listen to the knowledgeable posters, then you'd know that it's most likely a new 052C+ destroyer. Heck, take the J-10 for example, look at the posts from a few years back, and see how much skepticism there was!

Unless, of course, you're one of those who didn't believe in the J-10's deployment until 2006. Then, I'm just wasting my breath.

dingyibvs said:

ReneDad:

I don't know how long you've been following the PLA, but you have for a long time then you would know that you can't rely only on the released pictures. As you mentioned, some are PS'd, and many are unclear. You can draw an infinite number of conclusions based solely on concrete evidence.

No, you need to find the knowledgeable posters, take their information into account, and integrate them with all the fuzzy pictures you see. For example, it was revealed to us the construction of an 052C+ destroyer when the only concrete evidence we had to go on was a dark silhouette of the bow of some ship. You can't even tell if the ship is military or civilian at that point, but if you listen to the knowledgeable posters, then you'd know that it's most likely a new 052C+ destroyer. Heck, take the J-10 for example, look at the posts from a few years back, and see how much skepticism there was!

Unless, of course, you're one of those who didn't believe in the J-10's deployment until 2006. Then, I'm just wasting my breath.

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Thank you for the information anyway.

I agree with most what you said except the part of "knowledgeable posters". It seems like your guys really believe that today(if you are talking about some knowledgable posters before 2006, when was the turnning point that Chinese government began to realize western obsevers had pried too many information from internet, I agree with you.) there still are some posters coming from the inner circle of Chinese military industry and research institutes to tell you the information that Chinese government forbids them to tell and I have to tell you that you are wrong.

Nowadays, a "knowledgable poster" could be a college student on aronautical engineering so he is very good on terminology of aviation and can tell you that the nozzle of WS-10A is an ejector nozzle not what someone else think. Such kind of posters are truly very useful because they can help you screen out the junks and false information made by you-know-who in those Chinese fans' forums. But they can not tell you what those Chinese website do not tell them because they just don't know.

The other problem is how can you identify a "knowledgable poster". What I said and cataloged by tphuang as "ridiculous" is knowledgable if you ask anybody you known who really works in the place like SAC in your country though my posts sometimes take the form of jokes(I'm not sure if these jokes angered tphuang, if it is, I say sorry to him.). But to those who have never stepped into an mass production assembly factory but just see it from a magazine or internet, if there are something which is dismantled from a plane, it is certainly a big deal.

ReneDad said:

Thank you for the information anyway.

I agree with most what you said except the part of "knowledgeable posters". It seems like your guys really believe that today(if you are talking about some knowledgable posters before 2006, when was the turnning point that Chinese government began to realize western obsevers had pried too many information from internet, I agree with you.) there still are some posters coming from the inner circle of Chinese military industry and research institutes to tell you the information that Chinese government forbids them to tell and I have to tell you that you are wrong.

Nowadays, a "knowledgable poster" could be a college student on aronautical engineering so he is very good on terminology of aviation and can tell you that the nozzle of WS-10A is an ejector nozzle not what someone else think. Such kind of posters are truly very useful because they can help you screen out the junks and false information made by you-know-who in those Chinese fans' forums. But they can not tell you what those Chinese website do not tell them because they just don't know.

The other problem is how can you identify a "knowledgable poster". What I said and cataloged by tphuang as "ridiculous" is knowledgable if you ask anybody you known who really works in the place like SAC in your country though my posts sometimes take the form of jokes(I'm not sure if these jokes angered tphuang, if it is, I say sorry to him.). But to those who have never stepped into an mass production assembly factory but just see it from a magazine or internet, if there are something which is dismantled from a plane, it is certainly a big deal.

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No, I don't believe they're posters who're posting forbidden knowledge at all. Those things get deleted in no time flat. I mean, do you really believe that they'd allow random enthusiasts get a fence away from a J-10 still in the factory?(check the J-10 thread) It's just the way PLA releases some of their information they feel is no longer top secret. It's kind of like the Jia Gu Wen they release every time a significant milestone is reached. Pictures are released, knowledgeable posters start divulging info. It's not a coincidence that the "proven" guys know that a fuzzy picture of a bow of a ship is a new 052 class destroyer, or that we get word of a new 056 class corvette before we ever even see a picture of it.

Take your argument for example. Sure, anything could've happened to those engineless J-11's, but the fact that the picture was released means that somebody is sending a message, and it's highly unlikely that the message is "we had a fire in one engine."

A.Man said:

You Will Find An Good Answer From This Report:

2010年11月13日 09:20:32 　来源： 证券时报

据介绍，我国第三代战机中的发动机有一吨多重，涉及一万多个部件，其中有一个不可或缺的部件由钢研高纳生产。该部件以前我国不能生产，但由于涉及军工机密，国外不卖给我国，研发该部件的任务落在了钢研高纳，公司最终不辱使命。目前，国内仅钢研高纳能生产此部件。刚开始每年仅生产几公斤，供一台或两台发动机用，到2007年，该部件需求突然放量，需要供给60多台份，2008、2009年需求更是达到了100多台份。公司紧急筹集资金、上设备，但生产线都有建设周期和生产调制合格期，需要一个漫长的过程。

在此后的3年时间里，从材料所到下属课题组的成员投入了大量的精力，3年时间很少有休息。同时，因为国家的项目批复需要时间，钢研高纳就自己先行垫钱自主研发。功夫不负有心人，2009年公司的供货量达到了国家预期的产量，满足了用户要求。

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Thank you very much. I have got what you suggested.

It sounds like talking about monocrystalling turbine blade.

But I'm not sure the third generation fighter engine the article refered is only WS-10A or both WS-10 and WS-10A.

I remember I read somewhere that the turbine blades of a WS-10 uses directionally solified alloy, that was the best superalloy China could make in the years when WS-10 was developed, so the artilcle may be referring WS-10A. It is a variant of WS-10 so it is supposed to use more advanced technology such as monocrystalline alloy to increase the thrust or lengthen the lifespan.

I'll try for a different approach

ReneDad said:

I'm sure PLAAF has a store of AL-31Fs as spare engines just for in case a war breaks out. The Shenyang factory may also has some as a buffer for their mass production line. But do you think PLAAF would consume all its spare engines to support Shenyang factory's mass production? What would happen if they had done this and the war really broke out? And I don't think the buffer of AL-31Fs for J-11A can support 5 year's mass production of J-11A/B?

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Given the governments hopes for SAC to be competitive I wouldn't be surprised if they did use up all their stock AL-31Fs. Stalls in the production process result in cost overruns from supply storage and labour costs, which would hurt the governments intentions for SAC to be competitive. There's also a good possibility that manufacturing of planes proceeded with the assumption that the WS-10A would be ready by then, and news of its delay came out when assembly of some planes were already under way.

The entire preparation for war argument also doesn't make much sense. Having a surplus of spare engines during war time would make little difference at such low numbers, and if we assume surplus parts were required in the event of a war it would require that SAC not only have stocks of spare parts but the ability to produce those parts, which SAC, as far as we know, cannot do for the AL-31Fs. Furthermore, China is not really looking at any real potential conflicts at the near term, and any conflict that might require adequate supplies of spare parts would probably be at scale where considerable build up towards a war would have to be imminent first.

I think you did not notice I was talking of a department which job is to guard its "national secret" by means of conspiracy. If someone told me that he was sure that there wasn't any conspracy made by CIA, KGB and their Chinese counterpart, I would be more impressed.

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I think you're overplaying the misinformation card. The last era where misinformation about military strength was the predominant information tactic was WWII. These days countries purposefully leak information both on military progress as a deterrent and setbacks as a way to reduce their perceived levels of threat.

There is no such thing as "Taihang" delayed anything because "Taihang" is, as maya has pointed out, an official nickname of WS-10 series engines, include WS-10, WS-10A and maybe some variants unknown for public. I'm sure WS-10A is for J-10 but not sure it is also for J-11B.

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Splitting terms. The fact is that for whatever reason we had pictures of J-11s being engine less, implying that production of its engine was delayed.

"We"(if you are not a Chinese, I suppose) could not see anything on the airfields of SAC because there are guards out there and you would get arrested. We only can see blurred photos posted by would-be Chinese fans and struggled to figure out which of them might be real and which were just PSed.

If "we" did see there were some fuselages of J-11 on the airfield without engines, what could we conclude? It could be caused by anything. If J-11B are undergoing mass production, it is obvious the fuselages are produced in a different workshop apart from the assembly workshop, so what you see may be the buffer of two workshops. Or maybe there was a WS-10 caught fire when it ground tested on a J-11B so PLAAF demanded all engines demounted for check----and they soon found out it was caused by sucking in a cover of camera lens which some of Andrei Chang's friend casually left in the inlet of the plane when they sneaked in to shoot photos. Maybe it is just some normal procedure, the technical files demand the engines should be demounted for check after their first test flights.

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I hope you know which pictures we might be referring to, because those would have to be very good photoshops for those pictures to be wrong. We can reasonably suspect from the pictures we've seen that there has been an engine delay given that a number of engine-less fighters were sitting outside covered up and in the snow. The counterfactual (that engines were in fact not delayed) would mean that SAC has a strange and inefficient assembly process, where instead of having the engines ready at the point of assembly they finish building the airframe first and leave the planes sitting outside and covered up before putting the engines in.

The dismentlement of engines may be caused by some minor problem. Such as a connector of fuel line leaked several drop of fuel(it may caused by a careless worker who casually scratched the surface of the connector by his screwdriver), so each plane's engines has to be taken off for check.

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A diagnostic requiring disassembly wouldn't result in a large number of airframes sitting outside in the snow. If there was an engine inspection I would imagine it occurring plane by plane, which would not result in a large number of airframes sitting outside covered up. In any case, the more specific your scenario is, the smaller chance the coincidence of it being likely.

But I can also guarentee you that he is a good citizen if he is a Chinese for none of his single post has leaked any Chinese "national secret" which can not be found in various Chinese fans' website or has not been publicized by official media before

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Leaked information is not supposed to be unique, and who's to say that maya is a primary source? The whole point of an information leak is to hide the primary source anyways.

ReneDad said:

Thank you for the information anyway.

I agree with most what you said except the part of "knowledgeable posters". It seems like your guys really believe that today(if you are talking about some knowledgable posters before 2006, when was the turnning point that Chinese government began to realize western obsevers had pried too many information from internet, I agree with you.) there still are some posters coming from the inner circle of Chinese military industry and research institutes to tell you the information that Chinese government forbids them to tell and I have to tell you that you are wrong.

Nowadays, a "knowledgable poster" could be a college student on aronautical engineering so he is very good on terminology of aviation and can tell you that the nozzle of WS-10A is an ejector nozzle not what someone else think. Such kind of posters are truly very useful because they can help you screen out the junks and false information made by you-know-who in those Chinese fans' forums. But they can not tell you what those Chinese website do not tell them because they just don't know.

The other problem is how can you identify a "knowledgable poster". What I said and cataloged by tphuang as "ridiculous" is knowledgable if you ask anybody you known who really works in the place like SAC in your country though my posts sometimes take the form of jokes(I'm not sure if these jokes angered tphuang, if it is, I say sorry to him.). But to those who have never stepped into an mass production assembly factory but just see it from a magazine or internet, if there are something which is dismantled from a plane, it is certainly a big deal.

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do you expect me to take you seriously after writing stuff like this? You gotta do better than just say that China is trying to misinform the rest of the world, so your theory could be true.

Where are these newly-built J-11 photos using AL-31F that you have seen recently? And you don't think China is using a lot of the AL-31FNs as spares for J-10? I could go on, but your arguments to the original claim needs better support.

Of course it is not that simple, but I also think it isn't too deficult if PLAAF wants to do that. As everyone has known, China cancelled a lot of engine project in the past, but there was not a single one cancelled because China failed to resolve its nozzle problem.

It is just a assumption without prove. But I do feel it is odd that there are too many newly-built J-11 photos showed that they still use "AL-31F" engines though China has stopped importing AL-31Fs since 2005.

The stock pile is also a possibility, but it can hardly explain why J-10 doesn't have so many spare engines so China has to import about 100 AL-31FNs for J-10 annually.

The another possibility is that all these internet photos and posts(almost all of them are fakes and nonsense) we have seen from Chinese military fan's forums after 2006 are just some misinformation made by Chinese internet counter-intelligence departments. China government has tightened its control of internet since then and I doubt there still are some insiders dare to leak any true information of Chinese weapon system without governmental permission. They just want western intelligence to believe that China is still in struggle of developing third generation fighter's engines like WS-10, so nobody may believe that China will be able to build a engine for the fourth generation fighters.

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tphuang said:

do you expect me to take you seriously after writing stuff like this?

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Do you really expect me or most members here caring whether you take us seriously or not? What do you think you are and we are? Obviously you are not Kim and we are not North Karean. Do you really think you have the right to dictate what we should say and what we should think.

If you think my latest joke offensive, I will appologize to you. But I guarantee you that I have never been thinking you are such kind of person because I would never reply their posts.

I cracked a joke at you just because I thought it was funny that you trusted those big shrimps' posts so much and thought that everybody should take them in without thinking. When I visit those Chinese forums, I'm also like to read these "knowledgeable posters"--just because I don't want to waste my time on others' nonsense. I just can not accept the method that I should take them all in without any analysis and independent thinking.

Up till now I still can not see what's wrong with my first post. I just followed another poster's thread and said it was an assumption which I had been thinking for a long time. It's just an assumption or a speculation. I even didn't say that I believe in the assumption. But what's wrong to make a speculation?


As for those misinformation stuff, I never expected it would matter so much under this WS-10 thread. I just clicked it in casually, if anyone who didn't agree, he could ignore it. It wasn't an insult on China or Chinese government. If an intelligence department of a country trys hide and keep its military secret from foreign observers, isn't it doing the job which it is supposed to do? Even if I was mistaken, I still can not see why should we spend time to argue on this.

ReneDad said:

Do you really expect me or most members here caring whether you take us seriously or not? What do you think you are and we are? Obviously you are not Kim and we are not North Karean. Do you really think you have the right to dictate what we should say and what we should think.

If you think my latest joke offensive, I will appologize to you. But I guarantee you that I have never been thinking you are such kind of person because I would never reply their posts.

I cracked a joke at you just because I thought it was funny that you trusted those big shrimps' posts so much and thought that everybody should take them in without thinking. When I visit those Chinese forums, I'm also like to read these "knowledgeable posters"--just because I don't want to waste my time on others' nonsense. I just can not accept the method that I should take them all in without any analysis and independent thinking.

Up till now I still can not see what's wrong with my first post. I just followed another poster's thread and said it was an assumption which I had been thinking for a long time. It's just an assumption or a speculation. I even didn't say that I believe in the assumption. But what's wrong to make a speculation?


As for those misinformation stuff, I never expected it would matter so much under this WS-10 thread. I just clicked it in casually, if anyone who didn't agree, he could ignore it. It wasn't an insult on China or Chinese government. If an intelligence department of a country trys hide and keep its military secret from foreign observers, isn't it doing the job which it is supposed to do? Even if I was mistaken, I still can not see why should we spend time to argue on this.

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As a moderator on this forum, my job is to ensure good flow of discussion and steering discussions in the right direction. I don't like seeing persistent fanboy posting, because that really annoys the heck out of me. I've told different members to do different things to improve their posting, but that's because this is needed so that SDF does not sink into something like strategypage forum.

I respect anyone on this forum that can carry out a good argument and have a lot of experience and knowledge. That would include maya who pops in occasionally, crobato who has followed plaaf for years, bd popeye who has served in US Navy for many years, Golly who served for Finland, pointblank who I think served for the Canadian navy and basically anyone who has shown the ability to consistently put out informed postings. Now, I told you to take a look at Maya's posting to learn something about posting professionally rather than spreading outlandish ideas. You can also look up crobato or jeff head or anyone else who has been around for a long time. When you post a new idea, you need to put real supporting evidences for that.

tphuang said:

As a moderator on this forum, my job is to ensure good flow of discussion and steering discussions in the right direction. I don't like seeing persistent fanboy posting, because that really annoys the heck out of me. I've told different members to do different things to improve their posting, but that's because this is needed so that SDF does not sink into something like strategypage forum.

I respect anyone on this forum that can carry out a good argument and have a lot of experience and knowledge. That would include maya who pops in occasionally, crobato who has followed plaaf for years, bd popeye who has served in US Navy for many years, Golly who served for Finland, pointblank who I think served for the Canadian navy and basically anyone who has shown the ability to consistently put out informed postings. Now, I told you to take a look at Maya's posting to learn something about posting professionally rather than spreading outlandish ideas. You can also look up crobato or jeff head or anyone else who has been around for a long time. When you post a new idea, you need to put real supporting evidences for that.

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i wonder why crobato hasn't post in a while. i am a big fan of his analysis. hope he is fine.

At the Zhuhai Air Show, the lead designer of Taihang said, "The gap between us and the West is growing smaller and smaller. In perhaps 10 years, China will become an superpower in engines."

“我们现在与欧美发达国家差距越来越小，也许只需十年，中国就能成为发动机强国。”

It does look like past investments are coming to fruition. We see the J-11B and J-11BS being mass produced with FWS10 (future J-11BH too). As indicated in this thread, a breakthrough has been achieved for mass producing mono-crystalline blades for the FWS10A. So, we should expect to see J-10 with FWS10A very soon.

The FWS10 is comparable to early model 4th generation fighter engines and FWS10A is comparable to late model 4th generation fighter engines. In fact, FWS10A has even higher thrust than the F100's in late model F-15 and F-16. It seems China will jump a half-generation of turbofan technology in 5 years.

The designer's statement shows that China expects to achieve parity with the West by 2020. This indicates that the J-20's engine, in the same class as PW F119, should be manufactured by 2020. Maya stated earlier that FWS10A will an interim engine for the J-20. So, should the J-20 enter service before 2020, it will be using the FWS10A at first. Then it might not be able to supercruise.

What is really curious is the status of the high-bypass engine. This is critical bottleneck for strategic reasons. The West could make high-bypass turbofans by the time they had fighter engines comparable to FWS10. But there is very little news about the high-bypass turbofan even now. Is China experiencing extraordinary difficulty? Is China simply not focusing its resources on them? Or will high-bypass turbofans, just like FWS10A, be ready very soon?

If so, the heavy and medium transports and H-6K will be ready very soon.