SteelBird
Colonel
Great video! I hope they satisfy with the thrust of J-10B's WS-10A.
J-10 Thread III (Closed to posting)
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Great video! I hope they satisfy with the thrust of J-10B's WS-10A.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I haven't watched the full vid yet because it is just so slow to load, but something that caught my eye was the presence of the K8.
Is CAC actually also working on an improved version of the K8 in collaboration with Hongdu, or is that just acting as a chase plane for the J10s and J20s?
I cannot remember there being a K8 chase plane used before. IIRC, the J10s and J20s had pretty much always gone up alone before. The few times when the J20 went up with a chase plane it has always been J10s (for the first flight definitely, was there a J10 chase plane in any of the other test flights?).
When I have the time, I will try and watch the rest of the vid to see if it yields any answers.
But if the K8 is acting as chase plane for the J10B or J20, then that could indicated that there was been something significant changed to them to warrant needing a chase plane when they were flying solo before.
Is CAC actually also working on an improved version of the K8 in collaboration with Hongdu, or is that just acting as a chase plane for the J10s and J20s?
I cannot remember there being a K8 chase plane used before. IIRC, the J10s and J20s had pretty much always gone up alone before. The few times when the J20 went up with a chase plane it has always been J10s (for the first flight definitely, was there a J10 chase plane in any of the other test flights?).
When I have the time, I will try and watch the rest of the vid to see if it yields any answers.
But if the K8 is acting as chase plane for the J10B or J20, then that could indicated that there was been something significant changed to them to warrant needing a chase plane when they were flying solo before.
what do you mean they are only half way through lot 06? It seems like all of the lot 6 have been produced now and the delivery should complete sometimes in the first half of this year.
franco-russe
Senior Member
6-22 is the highest number seen, I would expect something like 6-35 or 6-36 to be the last. But of course we have not seen all the J-10A's at Chengdu, there may well be more.
The K8 has been there since before the J20 maiden flight, it acts as the chase plane when no J10S is available. I've seen photo of it flying on the flight line with J10B over a year ago. Different flight tests have different requirements, some will need chase plane some will not. They are testing six planes this day so it's probably the best to have a chase plane in the sky.
I see, I was expecting this batch to just contain 24 J-10As and 4 J-10Ss for the 43rd regiment and that will be the end. I saw 602 out of CAC as late as November 2011, so I don't think any of the batch 06 were used for previous regiments.
franco-russe
Senior Member
In your excellent blog entry on 21 February 2011, which is a very good introduction to J-10, you wrote:
”…CAC produced a 4th batch of J-10s to 70th regiment of 24th division (30x5x) and the special August First flight demonstration squad of 24th division. In this past year of 2010, CAC produced a 5th batch of J-10s of 37 single seaters + a good number of twin-seaters to fully convert the 25th regiment of 9th division (20x0x) and a good portion of the 12th regiment of 4th PLANAF division (83x4x). Since late last year, we have started seeing test trials of a 6th batch of J-10s from CAC.”
I believe all six lots are the same size as Lot 5, i.e. 40+ each, producing a total of 250+ J-10.
AS for Lot 05, it was not distributed exactly as you then wrote. The Naval 12 Regt got 24, but 12 went to 1 August Demonstration Wing (known c/ns are 01 = J10AY-0508, 05 = J10AY-0512, 08 = J10AY-0515, 10 = J10SY-0208, 12 = J10SY-0210) and some went to fill up the other unit at Yangcun, 72 Regiment (known c/n 30654 = J10A-0502).
The J-10A’s for 9 Div 26 Regt must have come from earlier lots.
Lot 06 6-2 is used by CAC itself with the odd number 950602.
I'm not sure what to make of the 72nd regiment actually. By 2009, we already had pictures of 50 to 63. At the same time, a small number of the flight demonstration team had it too. And even by middle of 2010, we still had pictures of 522 and 524 making test flights from CAC. By this point, we were seeing 84 in the 72nd regiments. Even by the end of the year, we were still seeing the last of batch 05 making test flights. So, I think most of the 72nd regiments came from batch 04. Some of batch 05 went to the flight demonstration team, which received the twin seaters before the single seaters and the remaining went to the PLANAF regiment and filling up either the 72nd regiment or the 26th regiment. I would say 26th regiment is more likely, because I recall reading an article saying that 4 J-10s arrived at 26th regiment at end of 2009. By then, 72 regiment was almost completely converted.
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