J-15 carrier-borne fighter thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
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Skeptical how might I ask? AL-31s are darker without the WS-10's obvious silver tint (AL-31s sometimes almost look like something straight out of the bronze age).
Another hint is that the nozzles doesn't extend beyond the horizontal tails. J-15B with AL-31s have nozzles that protrudes beyond the horizontal stabs, while the WS-10s are shorter and ends before the tails.
Another hint is that the nozzles doesn't extend beyond the horizontal tails. J-15B with AL-31s have nozzles that protrudes beyond the horizontal stabs, while the WS-10s are shorter and ends before the tails.
The point is, you are again using the images from the video we saw some weeks ago and here I agree, it's a WS-10, however here ... I'm not entirely sure to open the bottle of Champagne already.
Looks like Al-31 to me when looking at nozzle length.
For images of this quality, differentiation between WS-10 and Al-31 should require both nozzle length and nozzle colour in the same picture to provide guidance.
For confirmation of engine status, we really should be awaiting higher quality images like these (one of the original J-15 prototypes, which was powered by WS-10):
Or this:
It's very very important that a call on J-15B's engine status isn't called without definitive confirmation, considering the J-15 family are arguably the only remaining in production family of PRC fighter aircraft which are not yet powered by domestic powerplants. Once that milestone is confirmed to be reached, they would reach the status where all active in production PRC fighters are powered by domestic engines, but that is why it should be treated with the appropriate caution it deserves.
Could be a WS-10 with a different, longer set of nozzles for testing?. Though to be honest, it looks a lot like the AL-31 in the way they are narrowed down
In fact this is the only reasonable explanation - maybe the WS-10B Series 3 as on the J-16 - but as @Blitzo explained! We should be very careful with a confirmation of this indeed major achievement.
I reckon it's lighting, angle and quality. AL-31s are quite long. If you look closer, it's definitely shorter than AL-31s.
The lighting and quality means that it is very much short of definitive.
I'm of the feeling that until we have proper quality imagery confirming that J-15B is using WS-10s, it's important to not circulate the idea that J-15B may be using them.
Preemptively pulling the trigger without confirmation just leads to a risk of having to then circulate corrections if people outside of this forum start thinking that J-15B is using WS-10s.
There really is no harm at all in waiting for actual better images, even if it takes months or a few more years.
(Of course it would be slightly different if there were credible individuals on the Chinese language side directly asserting J-15Bs were powered by WS-10s)
We do know that at least one J-15B uses WS-10s though.
Unless you plan on suggesting somehow the engines on that airframe were still AL-31 and the nozzles were shortened significantly for whatever reason.
It's obviously an entirely different thing to suggest production models will definitely use WS-10s. I'm not saying that.
Sure, this photo is too blurry to be completely certain. But might I add pessimistically too, misconceptions surrounding PLA equipments are so widespread they're like weeds. You can't completely root them out. They'll always spread faster than you can correct them, regardless of what you do. Being cautious? They'll simply hear it from another source. Corrections will need to be circulated regardless.
Being cautious for the sake of accuracy is entirely understandable and good, but justifying it as to stop the spread of misinformation is simply, and I quote a Chinese idiom, "wrapping fire in a paper."
Obviously. But there already exists images that confirms that at least one J-15B uses WS-10s. The most important question is whether they'll come with in the production aircrafts, but no one is claiming that yet.
No we don't.
Until we have imagery of the quality similar to what I posted in 4694 above, or if there are credible individuals on the Chinese grapevine directly stating that a given airframe or aircraft type (whether it's a specific J-15B airframe or the type as a whole), at best we can say that we have imagery of a J-15B which possibly might have shorter nozzles than a standard Al-31 but where the effect of artefact or imagery angle cannot be ruled out in producing it.
I'm saying that the image with the nozzles on that particular airframe you're referring to could have its nozzles appear shorter due to a variety of reasons from the angle of the photo, or artefact.
The correct way of interpreting that photo is "neat, still not confirmation".
I'm saying that people need to be very judicious and cautious about associating "J-15B" and "WS-10" together, especially outside of this forum.
Even in this forum, there are a whole bunch of things that can be posted and speculated on, on the basis of incomplete indicators, for the purposes of discussion or interest. I have a half dozen topics myself with similar extents of circumstantial indicators that have been posted before in various places that can easily spawn a case of "XYZ may be the case" but I'm choosing to actively not talk about it
That's because being judicious about what is actually discussed and exercising the obligation to stfu is actually quite important, because it means readers of this forum without the discipline or experience to not circulate things, won't run off away with discussions they've seen here.
If something is unconfirmed, especially for a topic that is "significant" (such as a fighter previously using foreign engines potentially using a domestic engine), then standards for confirmation should be high, and if confirmation does not meet standards then there is an obligation and a responsibility to ensure that unintentional misinformation doesn't occur.