Looks quite PSed. And it doesnt make sense that chinese would have it in service (shouldnt some testing pics be available before that?) when even the european variant hasnt entered serial production?
I must say the glacial pace at which z15 project is going is quite unnerving. And we still dont even have any guarantee that it would actually serve in the armed forces. What if chinese companies wont get unlimited licenced production of the engine? Perhaps copying the engine is something that is still holding that programme back...
What is good is news of better performance than expected, it was written awhile back that its mtow has gone little over 7 tons, and that its range figures are really in top of its weight class.
But realistically, at this pace, I don't see z15 entering active service (first 20+ airframes) before 2014/2015.
edit: just found this:
which may be old news to some but i managed to miss it. So Harbin chose to develop a whole new engine, possibly from scratch, in cooperation with turbomeca. That is sure to take a while, even if it was started back in 2010. or even 2009. 2015 is looking more likely to me now though, on the bright side, this pretty much confirms z15 is planned to be used for the military.
