J-10 Thread III (Closed to posting)

[TerraN_EmpirE]

If that's true then it will be a decision that the Americans now live to regret. Then it seems that the J-10 is derived and influenced by the Lavi after all.

why is that? Assuming that the US did allow it that is. I mean China had Flankers and Fulcrums as alternatives so its not like the US could have stopped the PRC from getting Generation 4 Fighters. Additionally J10 is rather late in the Gen 4 game. So even if the Lavi program had a massive influence on J10, by the time it came to flourishing its what 30 years dated? Sorry Franklin but Frankly the American people Have no regrets on this.
J10 may have some influence but it still took 30 years to really hit the skies that means that the PRC had to do more then copy the answers. And if that's the case then even if Lavi had not existed they could have cooked up a J10 eventually.

 

[Deino]

I think the problem is not the fact that it became like it is: rebuild due to changed requirements and technical issues and as such several years too late and that finally China managed to develop and field a decent fourth generation fighter on its own, the problem is some circles in the USA and Israel simply to not want to be reminded that Israel has shared any kind of US know-how used for Lavi with China.

Deino

 

[Franklin]

why is that? Assuming that the US did allow it that is. I mean China had Flankers and Fulcrums as alternatives so its not like the US could have stopped the PRC from getting Generation 4 Fighters. Additionally J10 is rather late in the Gen 4 game. So even if the Lavi program had a massive influence on J10, by the time it came to flourishing its what 30 years dated? Sorry Franklin but Frankly the American people Have no regrets on this.
J10 may have some influence but it still took 30 years to really hit the skies that means that the PRC had to do more then copy the answers. And if that's the case then even if Lavi had not existed they could have cooked up a J10 eventually.

We don't know for sure if its true. But the US at the time was funding 40% of the Lavi's development costs so if there is a Chinese delegation inspecting the Lavi it would have likely been approved by the US. Especially when you consider that China and Israel didn't have formal ties untill 1992.

The J-10 has now become the J-10B a 4+ gen fighter that will be at the frontlines of China's air force for the next few decades. And the J-10 lessons may even have directly or indirectly helped the J-20 design. Back then the Soviet Union was the main adversary of the US and the US at the time was trying to prop up China as a counterweight to Soviet power in Asia and the rest of the world. Now almost 30 years later the Soviet Union is gone and China has become the main economic and strategic rival of the US. Giving this shot in the arm to China's aviation industry is now coming back to bite the Americans. And considering that in that period lets say the mid 1980's China had very tense relations with the Soviet Union and there was no way that China could have gotten SU-27's or MiG-29's from the Soviet Union. China could have build a 4 gen fighter even without the cooperation from the IAI but it will have taken much longer and would have cost a whole lot more. With no cooperation with the IAI today we may not see the J-10B or even the J-20 at the stage they are in now. They maybe years behind from their current development.

And the irony is that Taiwan didn't make full use of the skills set they got from the Americans to build the FC-K-1 since they cancelled the entire program after just 130 planes when they were able to buy the F-16's and the Mirage 2000's. And the Taiwanese are now facing a whole fleet of modern J-10's and soon the even more modern J-10B across the straits while they can't no longer build their own planes and are on their knees begging the Americans for a few F-16's.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

That is Valid Deino, but to argue that the US should regret it is not. The Israelis made the choice. And one way or another the PLAAF was going to end up with a indigenous fourth Gen fighter. Either through the J10 program and input from the Israelis or from cloning the Russian Flanker as they also did. So one way or another the PRC was going to get a fighter in the fourth Gen class.
In other words there is nothing the US could have done to stop it, ergo nothing to regret. Arguing that "The Americans may have lived to regret" is to insinuate that US should have or even could have stopped it. Its also to insinuate that this is a major threat to the US.
we know that frankly its a fighter that at best plays par for the course its not a super weapon
we also know that its not something that the US could have stopped. IAI made the call and gave the advice, but it just as easily could have been the Russians or Iranian with the Tomcat.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Franklin, the FK1 was created because the Taiwanese lost the opportunity to Get F16A thanks to Jimmy Carter. So they fell back and built Fk1 but in the process the cost of the aircraft pushed them to go lighter and lighter. The finished product being more or less a Flight trainer with delusions of grandeur.
the Taiwanese stopped buying when they were given a second chance at F16s which are superior fighters. If F15 is a Ferrari, F16 is a Porsche then FCK1 is a civic hot rod. They bought over a hundred of them and felt it was enough.

 

[Skywatcher]

We could settle the whole "J-10 is/isn't a Lavi clone" debate by calculating and comparing the centers of gravity for the Lavi, the various J-9 and other pre-1990 Chinese single engine canard fighters, but I'm not that good at math.

 

[Franklin]

Franklin, the FK1 was created because the Taiwanese lost the opportunity to Get F16A thanks to Jimmy Carter. So they fell back and built Fk1 but in the process the cost of the aircraft pushed them to go lighter and lighter. The finished product being more or less a Flight trainer with delusions of grandeur.
the Taiwanese stopped buying when they were given a second chance at F16s which are superior fighters. If F15 is a Ferrari, F16 is a Porsche then FCK1 is a civic hot rod. They bought over a hundred of them and felt it was enough.

I find calling the FC-K-1 a trainer with grandeur is somewhat condescending. The performence of the FC-K-1 is somewhat similar to the JF-17 Thunder. Its a decent plane especially when you compared it with the planes that China had at that time. Which was mainly J-6 (MiG-19) J-7 (MiG-21) and J-8 (comparable to the SU-15). The FC-K-1 was superior to all those mentioned before. You can argue that the F-15 is a Ferrari and the F-16 is a Porsche and that the FC-K-1 is merely a Civic Hot Rod. But to me that's not the point. Taiwan at that time (early 1990's) had the capability to design, develop and produce a fighter jet that although not top of the world it was certainly better than anything China was able to produce at that time. If they had continue to develop the platform and continue to make improvements the Taiwanese could have been in the same position where the Swedes are in today with the Saab Gripen. The knowledge to build those planes is worth many times more than the planes itself but the Taiwanese gave it all away. In my view that's the biggest strategic and economic blunder that Taiwan has ever made.

The Israeli's at the time didn't have any official relations with China and the US was funding 40% of the Lavi project. Under these circumstances I cannot imagine the US didn't know about the IAI and CAC contacts. And I even doubt the Israeli's would have dared to do this if they didn't have permission from the US to do so. So even if the US didn't facilitate these contacts between IAI and CAC they could have easily stopt it. But they didn't. And as a result China was able to cut many years in the development of their 4 gen fighters. There was no way for the US to stop China from developing a 4 gen fighter but by not stopping or perhabs even facilitating the contacts between the IAI and the CAC they have made it considerably more easier for China to do so. Its like helping China to get the first spark of fire going and now the Chinese are able to build flame throwers themselves.

P.S. The reason why the Lavi program ended was because the US stopt the funding for it and the Israeli's couldn't afford to continue the project on their own. And the reason why the US ended their funding for the Lavi was because of the fear that the Lavi would become a competitor in the export markets for their F/A-18 and F-16.

 

[ladioussupp]

I find calling the FC-K-1 a trainer with grandeur is somewhat condescending. The performance of the FC-K-1 is somewhat similar to the JF-17 Thunder. Its a decent plane especially when you compared it with the planes that China had at that time. Which was mainly J-6 (MiG-19) J-7 (MiG-21) and J-8 (comparable to the SU-15). The FC-K-1 was superior to all those mentioned before.

At first, the official designation is F-"CK"-1, not FC-K-1. CK is the abbreviation of RoC President, Chin-Kuo Chiang, who sponsored the project.

From scratch, F-CK-1 is designed to conformally carry or semi-bury two medium range AAMs, "Tien-Chien 2" with active radar seeker underbelly. J-10 did not have such design for air-to-air combat. It needs to carry PL-12 under wings in trade of increased drags. F-CK-1 is good when performing scramble and intercept mission. F-CK-1 units enjoyed higher sortie generation rate during cross strait tensions than F-16A/B and Mirage 2000-5 units. Although the engines of F-CK-1 are initially under powered, Taiwan AIDC can increase the thrust from 8000lbs to 10,000lbs+. J-10A still totally relies on AL-31FN and the power plant of J-10B is not sure yet.

In an article I read about IAI and CAC, the most important contribution of IAI is teaching CAC about modern fighter design and validation process. Receiving fishes from Jews cannot satisfy CAC people. They wanted to learn how to catch fishes. Once CAC digested and created its own process, CAC can deliver JF-17 and J-20 while SAC is busy copying Su-27, 30, and 33. Comparably, it is sad for Taiwan AIDC to lose precious experiences and manpower after F-CK-1 production number was cut in half.

 

[antiterror13]

It was a sound decision at that time (mid 80s) to allow China to "look" a prototype Lavi as the main "enemy" of the USA was USSR and China was also the enemy of USSR ... so China was considered a "friend" by the USA.

Nobody, I again say.... nobody ..... expected the collapse of USSR and the the progress of China to the current stage ..... so NO REGRET

 

[Speeder]

A side note on FC-K-1: some Taiwanese claimed that almost entire design & engineering team of S Korea's recent suceessful trainer programme(Made-by-Taiwan) are actually Taiwanese who were wroking on FC-K-1 before being bought out to Korea.


On J-10 and Lavi:

The fact that US didn't stop the contact between Israel and China CAC on Lavi was based on, IMO, the underestimation of China's capability, because it's highly likely that the US thought

i. Lavi was an unfinished product that was of no critical value for China to make a complete 4th gen fighter, and

ii. There was a, or even some, lethal design drawback/s in Lavi prototype that possibility of cloning it by China would lead to a failed product anyway, as like Lavi.

Becasue of the ii mentioned above, I don't buy any suggestion that Lavi failed only because the US cut off the funding. Israel's overall capability of 1992, even now in 2014, was and is far away from designing, engineering and producing a complete modern 4th fighter from A to Z on its own without massive and turnkey technologies input from the US. So It's logical to conclude that the failure of Lavi was most likely due to both lacking of funding and lack of technical capabilities without further US assistances.)

I am not an expert on this, but the suggestion that somehow "J-10 is, or almost is, a clone of Lavi" is just borderline retarded, or absolutely clueless on anything related to aviation, due to varities of reasons at rather elementary levels.

e.g. even a layman knows that a seemingly slight change on shape, size, or weight of planes, let alone materials involved or internal layout and the corresponding weights, could logically change the entire characteristics of centres of gravity, performances at super and subsonic levels, turn rates etc etc a host of fundamental issues related to flying characteristics. This is even before taking into consideration that fact that obviously J-10 and Lavi use completely different engines. Even though by looks J-31 is much more a "clone" of F-35 than J-10 to Lavi, you bet that the J-31 and F-35 are completely different planes.

I can imagine that some design features of the Lavi prototype could give a spark to J-10 designers on what constituted a moden authentic 4th gen fighter, or even some raw flying data of Lavi prototype theoritically verified J-10's design and helped shortening J-10's development cycle. Anything beyond that sounds more like a fairytale to me.