J-10 Thread III (Closed to posting)

[samawat]

Siegcrossbow, dinngybvs, thank you, now I see. It would be nice for complete testing to be finished, so B version could hit production next year. I hope, value of this plane is to be recognized in international market

 

[Quickie]

Yep...it's an WS-10 engine with pink afterburner. The other thing I notised is the larger diameter of the J-10B nozzle and the short take-off.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Yep...it's an WS-10 engine with pink afterburner. The other thing I notised is the larger diameter of the J-10B nozzle and the short take-off.

Just imagine how crazy the J-20 takeoff would be when it equips WS-15 with TVC!

 

[franco-russe]

India is not dependent on Russia, they can pick and choose from whatever arms supplier they desire (including now also the US), as they have done profusely. Just look at the strange mix of Russian, German and French submarines that forms India's submarine force. It is rather Russia that is seeking to keep India as close as possible as a major ally, especially now that the US has entered the fray of course.

I have little doubt that Russia, like India, views Pakistan as an adversary (they have been on opposite sides in Afghanistan for 30 years or more). So I persist in thinking that Russia had to convince the Indians - actually you mention Monmahan Singh's voyage to Moscow - that the FC-1 would have no effect on the balanced (or rather disbalance) between Pakistan and India.

 

[Blitzo]

From the same set of photos by quantum fx (hyperwarp over here on SDF?)

I like that profile shot of the J-10B -- and have we seen the 1035 prototype before? I thought we've only seen to 1033?

 

[airsuperiority]

Well well well, the day has finally arrived! It is a very important milestone for the WS10A and China's aviation industry that we have finally seen it on a J10, and this may explain why we haven't seen or heard much about the J10B for a while - they were waiting for the engine and doing integration work on her.

However, it is still important that we keep things in prospective as the WS10A only offers a small thrust increase compared to the AL31, and we do not know what the weight change between J10A and B is, so chances are there may not be much of a performance boost at all from switching engines.

However, in terms of maintenance costs and aircraft availability, switching to the WS10A should make a
huge improvement.

I think that the main reason a lot of people are saying the 1st batch of J10Bs will not use WS10A is because of the recent 123 AL31 engines China just bought from Russia.

Obviously this could mean that CAC planned to continue pumping out J10A/Bs using the AL31 while they test fly with the WS10A and build up engine production capacity.

However, given that CAC's J10 production capacity is around a regiment a year, that 123 engines would be able to cover around 4 years of production. That seems like an unusually long time for integration tests considering that both the airframe and engine are pretty much mature at this point.

Since the PLA has obviously been willing to wait this long for the J10B to be finalised and continued with J10A production, it would appear that they prefer to have the J10B as the finished article instead of just ordering J10Bs with AL31s to change the engine to WS10A later.

This makes me think that the 1st batch of J10Bs will use WS10A, as that would appear to be the definitive J10 version with 100% Chinese content and all the bells and whistles like IRST, ESA radar and integrated EW suit etc.

However, it could easily be that the next batch of J10s to come out of CAC could still be J10As, as CAC finish testing with the WS10A. Having waited this long, I do not think the PLAAF will not wait till the end.

Personally, I think that the 123 AL31s are intended for maybe another regiment or two of new built J10As, and the rest as replacement engines for older J10As.

China already has a massive maintenance and repairs infrastructure built up for AL31s to support their Flankers, so I don't think they will need that many replacement engines. With the AL31 being an imported engine, I think they would spend more effort repairing them than air forces that have their engines made domestically, and this might be how they managed to extend the life of the engine.

The J10B is worth watching even more closely now since it is almost like a trial run for the J20, with the majority of test flight done using an interim engine while the final article is intended to fly with a different engine.

Would be interesting to see how long it will be before the first regiment of J10Bs are ready.

I think the export J10s for Pakistan might be worth watching as well because the PAF would want Chinese engines for no risk of disruption on spares and replacements. That means that the export J10s will either be J10Bs (the F7PG and J7E case has set the precedent where the PAF got a new version before the PLAAF) or it could be J10As re-engined with WS10As.

We forgot the twin-engined ones.

Actually I think the quantity purchased could be used to fill for a series of other items as well, from export orders of J-10s to Pakistan to domestic maintanence of Su-27, J-11, J-10A, or other series of earlier orders that's been made but the delivery has yet to be fulfilled. 123 units aren't a lot when you look at how many aircraft in the PLAAF inventory were using them prior, and considering some are twin-engined . Hopefully this order is the last batch of Al-31F to be ordered. While the units would be sufficient for 3-4 years before with plawolf's estimation, I'd say the units are only sufficient for 2 year's "supply" of engines. Some might even be put in the freezer as backup systems..? (forgive my ignorance if they don't do that)

 

[plawolf]

I believe the 123 engines were all AL31FN, which have the gearbox on the underside compared to on top with the AL31F, this means the latest engines are not suitable for use on anything except J10s.

I supposed they could re-manufacture the engines to fit in Flankers/J11/J15s, but that seems like a massive waste of effort and they might as well have adapted the airframes to take WS10As instead.

Cannibalising the new engines for parts is also unlikely given the extensive AL31 maintenance facilities China has already set up and established.

It is possible but unlikely. Especially since it is SAC's arch rivals CAC that bought the engines. I just do
not see SAC being so incompetent as needing to go cap in hand to CAC to ask them to bail them out with new engines from Russia. SAC would probably sooner make up with Sukhoi and get the engines directly from Russia themselves.

With the WS10A being tested on the J10B now, I seriously doubt that SAC or CAC would now need to buy more Russian engines if they didn't want to.

 

[Blitzo]

Now that the shock and exitement has worn off a little, has anyone wondered how the J-10B 1035 prototype with WS-10 does not look very different to the Al-31 equipped prototypes before it?

One of the previous assumptions was that they might have difficult integrating WS-10 into J-10B because their inlet was already optimized for Al-31... I don't know enough about engines and inlets (or aerodynamics for that matter) so can anyone explain how they can change engines like so without major (visible) change of the inlet?
Or is change not necessary at all? (J-11B looks identical to Su-27, but they obviously use different engines...)
Anyway WS-10's nozzle looks much better than Al-31's nasty black eurgh.

 

[nosh]

From
h t t p://lt.cjdby.net/thread-1196889-1-1.html

 

[plawolf]

Inlet re-design would only be needed if the new engine is significantly more powerful than the old one/ what the airframe was designed to take.

Since the J10B got a new DSI, it could also be that the DSI was designed with both AL31 and WS10A in mind.

What would be more interesting is to know if the WS10A is backwards compatible on J10As without needing significant re-design on the airframe.

My guess would be 'no' at this point, or else CAC would not have needed to place such a large new engine order with Russia.