J-10 Thread IV
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Taiwan is looking into upgrading their fairl old f16 with brand new avionics, basically of f16v level. It is entirely doable. If plaaf wants to pay for upgrading those planes it can. Question can only be were they designed with 4, 5, 6 or whatever number of thousand of hours in their air frames.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I think there might have been some crossed paths and misunderstandings with the original rumours.
It makes zero sense for the J10A to not be designed for future upgrades.
What is more likely is that the J10B and J10C designs were not constrained with easy, backwards compatibility with the J10A in mind, which would make sense to leverage the maximum performance gain for the J10B/C.
As such, if you wanted to upgrade the J10A, you cannot simply swop a few pieces and suddenly have a J10C. Any J10A upgrade programme would need to be purpose designed for the J10A, so you are going to need to spend more time and money, and still end up with a plane less capable than the actual J10B/C.
To balance this, the J10As were massively overworked with multiple pilots assigned to each plane.
A 30 year designed life is 30 years at 200 hours per year. But if you fly 300 or even 400 hours per year on those planes, you are going to use up those airframe hours much quicker than the originally intended 30 years.
Given that engine tech has always been the Achilles’ heel of Chinese military aviation, and we know the J10A has to be redesigned due to issues and delays with the original WS10, it’s easy to see why the J10A might not have had the over-engineering of western contemporaries, which would have had much more margin to eat into in life extension programmes.
We need to remember that most of the life extension programs with western 3rd gen fighters weren’t really baked into the design originally, and came about as a combination of budget cuts and procurement cancellations that forced existing aircraft to serve far longer than originally planned; and many of the life extension programmes themselves were less designs and more discoveries in that they took existing airframes and put them through additional static fatigue testing, and the life extension process was just about patching/replacing the (minor) parts that failed. That was mostly down to luck where the original designs were over engineered compared to the design specs, so they were able to clear the planes for more hours without significant internal modifications. Had they needed to make such modifications, the costs would have been prohibitive and the life extension programmes a non-starter.
The J10A is in the unusual position of having much finer margins in its design to allow to cheap life extensions; and also still being in production when the first planes built to about to run out of airframe hours.
As such, in this scenario, it makes far more sense to order additional, new built J10Cs rather than faff about with a J10A upgrade programme that may only extend J10A service lives by a few short runs at disproportionate costs.
It makes zero sense for the J10A to not be designed for future upgrades.
What is more likely is that the J10B and J10C designs were not constrained with easy, backwards compatibility with the J10A in mind, which would make sense to leverage the maximum performance gain for the J10B/C.
As such, if you wanted to upgrade the J10A, you cannot simply swop a few pieces and suddenly have a J10C. Any J10A upgrade programme would need to be purpose designed for the J10A, so you are going to need to spend more time and money, and still end up with a plane less capable than the actual J10B/C.
To balance this, the J10As were massively overworked with multiple pilots assigned to each plane.
A 30 year designed life is 30 years at 200 hours per year. But if you fly 300 or even 400 hours per year on those planes, you are going to use up those airframe hours much quicker than the originally intended 30 years.
Given that engine tech has always been the Achilles’ heel of Chinese military aviation, and we know the J10A has to be redesigned due to issues and delays with the original WS10, it’s easy to see why the J10A might not have had the over-engineering of western contemporaries, which would have had much more margin to eat into in life extension programmes.
We need to remember that most of the life extension programs with western 3rd gen fighters weren’t really baked into the design originally, and came about as a combination of budget cuts and procurement cancellations that forced existing aircraft to serve far longer than originally planned; and many of the life extension programmes themselves were less designs and more discoveries in that they took existing airframes and put them through additional static fatigue testing, and the life extension process was just about patching/replacing the (minor) parts that failed. That was mostly down to luck where the original designs were over engineered compared to the design specs, so they were able to clear the planes for more hours without significant internal modifications. Had they needed to make such modifications, the costs would have been prohibitive and the life extension programmes a non-starter.
The J10A is in the unusual position of having much finer margins in its design to allow to cheap life extensions; and also still being in production when the first planes built to about to run out of airframe hours.
As such, in this scenario, it makes far more sense to order additional, new built J10Cs rather than faff about with a J10A upgrade programme that may only extend J10A service lives by a few short runs at disproportionate costs.
@PiSigma are you able to clarify your statement a little?
There is a difference between saying early J-10As may not receive upgrades because they were very heavily flown and therefore may not be worth upgrading due to remaining airframe hours --- versus saying all J-10As may not receive upgrades because they are all heavily flown and not designed to be easily upgradeable.
off-topic
The airframe hours remaining on J-10As and the ease at which J-10As can be upgraded are definitely important factors for whether J-10As may receive AESA upgrades or not.
But I'm also cautious about whether it would be more cost efficient to buy new build J-10Cs in lieu of upgrading J-10As -- that really depends on the specific costs and benefits of each, but also IMO it depends on how long CAC plans to continue J-10C production for.
IMO, CAC should look to stop J-10 production in general by 2025 and convert the J-10 line to a J-20 line to further expand their J-20 production capacity, which should be an additional potential factor to weigh up when considering the potential upgradability of J-10A vs buying new build J-10Cs.
PiSigma
"the engineer"
I heard about the 2-3 pilots training on a single J10A in 2007, so I have no idea if that was continued after 2007. But the policy was to get as many pilots to be comfortable with a 4th gen single engine jet as possible.
The J10A internals are not as well designed as B/C ,also what I heard due to technology limitations and manufacturing limitations. The directive from the top was to build it and get it out, improve in future. It was almost practice/learning exercise.
I remember being told that there were a lot of design ideas that they want to implement on the A, but can't manufacture either due to lack of worker training or machine tooling. So there is a good chance the internals of B/C was completely gutted then redesigned.
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Right, and a lot of that sounds reasonable.
I wouldn't be surprised if the airframe hours on early build J-10As may already be reaching their limit, and may not be worth upgrading. That is very reasonable.
However, the production run of J-10As was quite sizeable before CAC shifted over to J-10B/C, so the question becomes one of what the airframe hours for the majority of the J-10A fleet is like, as well as how costly or difficult it would be to upgrade J-10As with say, a new AESA and an improved avionics system and cockpit.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I’m sorry that I wasn’t clear before, my last reply was aimed at the initial batches of J10As.
J10As were built over a decade, so there are going to be plenty of planes with plenty of airframe life left to be worth an upgrade programme.
The main issue is a matter of resource prioritisation and timing - ie, will such an upgrade and life extension package be ready before the first J10As run out of airframe hours.
If, as I mentioned above, the J10B/C programmes didn’t let themselves be limited by backwards upgrade compatibility with J10As, then any J10A upgrade programme would need to essentially be a clean sheet project rather than being merely a J10B/C roll back.
That takes time, money, and most importantly, skilled designers that CAC may just not have to spare with the J20, J10C improvements, numerous UAVs as well as a rumoured medium weight 5th gen all going full speed.
It should also be noted that retired does not automatically mean scrapped. The US has its world famous boneyard, and I would wager good money that the PLA has its equivalents.
The initial batches of J10As could easily be retired but not scrapped, and instead be sent to the PLA’s boneyards to be preserved.
After a few years down the line, when CAC has the capacity to develop a J10A upgrade, and potentially also an airframe life extension programme, those initially retired J10As could be sent through the programme and reactivated should there be a case for doing so.
However, since such an upgrade is not yet available, and airframe life extension is far from a sure thing as I mentioned before, I can also see justification to press for say 50-100 additional J10Cs to be ordered, just in case airframe life extensions on J10As prove more difficult and costly then hoped.
I see, so to clarify, you're saying that new build J-10Cs would make more sense than an upgrade for early build J-10As (i.e.: the J-10As in the fleet flown heavily and now are approaching the end of their airframe life)?
If so, then I agree.
However, the PLA have built hundreds of J-10A/AS, and even if we assume that the first quarter or first one third of the J-10A fleet are not worth upgrading due to their limited airframe life, IMO if the rest of the J-10A fleet has the airframe hours left then I think upgrading them could make sense.
It doesn't even necessarily have to be that comprehensive -- replacing the radar with one of the modular easy to replace units like the LFK601E that was offered for JF-17, and adding a single improved large display in the cockpit and replacing some data computers could still substantially improve the combat capability of J-10A/AS at minimal cost.
No structural modifications needed.
Such an upgrade package will be relatively simple to develop IMO and easily within the capacity of CAC to do with minimal resource consumption.
When that upgrade is done over multiple hundred J-10A/AS, you can get meaningful economy of scale as well.
As for the early build J-10As which are currently approaching their design life, I think it could make sense to straight up retire them or put them in a bone yard, or even use their airframes them for limited test purposes, or a combination.
I expect J-10C production to continue for another 4-5 years (and SAC Flanker production for 6-7 years), and that is accounting for some retirement of some of the PLA's 4th gen fighters that may be approaching airframe life (the mix of Flankers and early J-10As).
To sum up, my opinion regarding J-10As -- assuming that it is the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the fleet that are "not worth upgrading" due to reaching their airframe life soon:
1. Continue production of J-10Cs for the next 4-5 years, before CAC switches over to full J-20 production. (Note, I don't think CAC will be building the PLA's medium fighter project, I think there is a better chance that a land based variant of SAC's J-XY/carrier based FC-31 ends up filling that role instead)
2. Retire the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the J-10A fleet that have been heavily flown, as those aircraft approach their airframe life. Scrap them or boneyard them or allocate for test purposes, or a combination of those options.
3. For the remaining 3/4 or 2/3 of the J-10A fleet that still have substantial airframe hours remaining, develop an avionics oriented upgrade package with minimal structural modifications, primarily oriented around converting the radar to an AESA, upgrading the cockpit with a more modern display, and changing some mission computers and some EW systems. This upgrade should be designed to have as much done outside of the factory as possible, at standard maintenance depots instead.
(Possibly 4. -- if it is economical to return any of the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the J-10As preserved in boneyard to service with an airframe renewal and the same avionics upgrade described in 3., then they can also choose to do this. But IMO the benefits derived from this step may not be worth the resources involved)