Chinese purchase of Su-35

tphuang said:

People on the Chinese forums are saying this is signed and that China will be able to put their own stuff on Su-35. Again as everything else, wait and see.

Click to expand...

That does make the $80+million price per plane to be rather high.

No need to be too upset about this, calm down and relax. Don't be too judgemental or emotional.

We are observers, not fanboys. Put your pride and enthusiasm aside a bit.

Su-35 is a very fine aircraft and this is welcome news to me. Sometimes I had hoped the rumor became true and felt it would. That is, as long as the term is good. Everything has a price.

Rather than wasting time debating whether this is real or not, which we'll find out sooner or later, we should think about what this means, if it turns out to be true.

So what does this mean? To me this means:
- chance for a J-20/J-31 hi-lo combo is slim. J-31 is for export only
- There will be continued evolution of J-11/J-16 series. Maybe even J-15.
- chance for a navilized J-31 is also low
- number of J-20 may not be as big as people thought
- China's leadership is not strategicially optimistic. 001A is another product of this thinking.

To me, J-20 plus a 4.5++ gen combo is more cost effective. Given what's known about F-35, this may not be a bad choice either. US military machine is overly expensive and not sustainable.

I like Su-35. WS-15 is still in the works and 117S is still better than anything China has got, at least for the moment. plus the TVC. Its airframe may also be interesting to take a look at.

Again it's about the price and terms. Looks like both sides got what they wanted, is it not? I'm sure PLA top brass knows more than what you and I do.

Chinese planners are utmostt conservative s. Reason I firmly believe 002 will be a kitty hawk. Kind of dissapointing but we are living in unprecedented chaotic in decades. Be prepared.

China can make su35s all day long and twice on Sundays. What they cannot make however is 117S with TVC. At least not at present stage.

If this purchase is real I like to think there were some compromises made with looser ToT. Maybe not 100% full but enough of it where china can learn some secrets that can be applied to their own engine industry. 2B is a small price to pay if say this deal fast forward indigenous engine development by say couple of years.

Irbis e is also a very nice consolation price thrown in.

Perhaps a concession by Russia is good enough for China to finally "help" the Russia by buying SU-35 ... well, Russia desperately need money and the only country would help her is obviously China (got $$ and friend), Russia may decide to give the source code to China, so China can modify it for domestic weapons and integration with existing system

antiterror13 said:

Perhaps a concession by Russia is good enough for China to finally "help" the Russia by buying SU-35 ... well, Russia desperately need money and the only country would help her is obviously China (got $$ and friend), Russia may decide to give the source code to China, so China can modify it for domestic weapons and integration with existing system

Click to expand...

I think what china wants more than source code is the materials science for the fan blades and the compression chamber.
Those things are very very difficult to reverse engineer

The worst thing can happen in this kind deals is that corruption is involved.

Bltizo said:

It is important to differentiate between what supercruise is and what top speed is.
Supercruise is generally described as the ability of an aircraft to reach and sustain supersonic speeds without afterburner. An aircraft can have the ability to supercruise, but may have a slower top speed compared to an aircraft which cannot supercruise.

For instance, the F-22 can supercruise, but F-22 has a lower top speed compared to the SR-71, which also cannot reach supersonic speeds without use of afterburner (AKA cannot supercruise).
So Sinosoldier is actually quite correct, because the ability of an aircraft to supercruise is not a guarantee that it has a higher maximum attainable speed compared to an aircraft which cannot supercruise.

Still this discussion is quite academic because I doubt Su-35 would be able to supercruise in any meaningful way if equipped with a moderate weapons load.
Edit: that said, I wouldn't be surprised if Su-35 had a slightly higher top speed compared to J-11D, but it really depends on how good J-11D's powerplants are and how much weight reduction it can achieve... So it should probably be said that if one of two aircraft with a common airframe is able to supercruise, then the aircraft capable of supercruising is also likely to have a higher top speed... but we don't know enough about J-11D to guess at how it could compare with Su-35 in that regard.

Click to expand...

You do not understand what is super cruise either.

The cruise speed is the economical one, is the flight regime the aircraft flies in a low consumption of fuel on an average mission and speed.
Supercruise is the ability to fly supersonic without afterburner, so the J-11 to reach mach 1.5 will use afterburner meaning it will spend its fuel in less time therefore reducing its flight time at that speed.

A su-27 can not fly more than a few minutes at Mach .1.5, however the Su-35 will double or even triple that time, this translates into it can fly faster longer time.

Its military application is an F-15 flies 5-7 minutes at Mach 1.5 while the Supercruising Rafale or Su-35 will fly 25-30 minutes at that speed, if they fire missiles at each other the aircraft flying faster longer has the edge.

Add the TVC nozzles and the Su-35 adds better supersonic turns than regular Su-27/J-11

Afterburner= Wet Thrust, Higher Instantaneous Speed, Advantage A2A.
Supercruise= Dry Thrust, Higher Average Speed, Advantage Hit&Run.

a1a2a3a4a5a6a said:

Afterburner= Wet Thrust, Higher Instantaneous Speed, Advantage A2A.
Supercruise= Dry Thrust, Higher Average Speed, Advantage Hit&Run

Click to expand...

The Al-41 has higher military settings. it means it has higher thrust with lower fuel consumption in military power, so to put it simply the J-11/Su-30/Su-30MKI/Su-34 can not keep supersonic speeds longer than Su-35 does, the 117S has afterburner setting? yes it does in fact it has even higher afterburner thrust.

China by buying the Su-35 will have the fastest cruising fighter except the F-22s and the Russian owned Su-35s　in the west pacific, only the Indian Rafale will be the other fighter in Asia that can do it

b787 said:

You do not understand what is super cruise either.

The cruise speed is the economical one, is the flight regime the aircraft flies in a low consumption of fuel on an average mission and speed.
Supercruise is the ability to fly supersonic without afterburner, so the J-11 to reach mach 1.5 will use afterburner meaning it will spend its fuel in less time therefore reducing its flight time at that speed.

A su-27 can not fly more than a few minutes at Mach .1.5, however the Su-35 will double or even triple that time, this translates into it can fly faster longer time.

Its military application is an F-15 flies 5-7 minutes at Mach 1.5 while the Supercruising Rafale or Su-35 will fly 25-30 minutes at that speed, if they fire missiles at each other the aircraft flying faster longer has the edge.

Add the TVC nozzles and the Su-35 adds better supersonic turns than regular Su-27/J-11

Click to expand...

No, it is you that clearly does not understand what we were talking about.

Here is what I wrote in my last post: the first part is the same as what you wrote, but the second part underlined is what you do not understand.

Supercruise is generally described as the ability of an aircraft to reach and sustain supersonic speeds without afterburner. An aircraft can have the ability to supercruise, but may have a slower top speed compared to an aircraft which cannot supercruise.

Click to expand...

We were talking about the relationship between supercruise and maximum top speed, fuel consumption has nothing to do with the previous discussion, even if your points in this post are valid.

In other words, an aircraft A which can supercruise for 15 minutes at Mach 1.5 will obviously be able to have a very good tactical advantage compared to an aircraft B which cannot supercruise, but that doesn't mean aircraft A necessarily has a higher top speed compared to aircraft B.
Hypothetically, if aircraft A can supercruise for 15 minutes at mach 1.5, but if aircraft A's top speed with afterburner is still only mach 2.0 and if aircraft B's top speed with afterburner is mach 3.0, then it is indisputable aircraft B has a higher top speed, even if it can only be maintained for a few seconds. This isn't to say aircraft B's higher top speed means it is "better" than aircraft A, and I never made that claim in my previous posts.

Technically speaking, if aircraft A can supercruise for 15 minutes at Mach 1.5 and has a top speed of Mach 2.0 with afterburner, and aircraft B cannot supercruise, but can reach Mach 2.1 with afterburner and only sustain it for a few seconds, that would still make aircraft B have a higher top speed than aircraft A. Such a capability wouldn't be tactically useful, but it merely goes to demonstrate the principle which I was arguing for.


I am also not sure what TVC has to do with our previous discussion.
You seem to be more interested in trying to compare the Su-35 with various other flankers... but that was not the point I was addressing in my last post.