J-15 carrier fighter thread

[MwRYum]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

With a buddy store capability for inflight fueling, the J-15 could take off with minimal fuel and a heavier weapons load and then fill up after takeoff. That's one way to help do more than air defense only off of the Varyag. Also, these aircraft will also be used for later carriers that could be CATOBAR.

That'd take at least one jet off the pack for the strike package, consider the capacity of the Varyag that's not a good news by all means.

Only alternative would be "real" aerial tankers to operate with the carrier group - so long the operation stay within the 1st Island Chain it'd be fine - and it shouldn't be a problem since China won't be going further than that for the time being. Yet there's another problem: would H-6U tanker capacity up to the job for heavy fighters like the J-15? If it can't refuel more than 3 fighters in a sortie it'd be unpractical and uneconomical.

 

[Centrist]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

Deleted

 

[airsuperiority]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

Point of inquiry: the Su-33's maneuverability is <F-18E and Rafale?! I thought the Su-33 is quite equivalent of the Su-30MKI and the likes in terms of combat flight performance, excluding hardware and avionics.

 

[plawolf]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

That'd take at least one jet off the pack for the strike package, consider the capacity of the Varyag that's not a good news by all means.

Only alternative would be "real" aerial tankers to operate with the carrier group - so long the operation stay within the 1st Island Chain it'd be fine - and it shouldn't be a problem since China won't be going further than that for the time being. Yet there's another problem: would H-6U tanker capacity up to the job for heavy fighters like the J-15? If it can't refuel more than 3 fighters in a sortie it'd be unpractical and uneconomical.

Your entire point is that the J15 shouldn't be designed as a strike fighter because of the Varyag's limitations on its take off load. But that is completely ignoring the very strong evidence and compelling rationale for the PLAN to build more indigenously designed carriers, which would almost certainly be CATOBAR (thus removing the weight issue), and the fact that those new built carriers would likely fulfill the main combat missions of PLAN carriers if it ever came to that.

It would be silly and unheard off to deliberately limit a fighter because of a current platform when you are almost certain that the same aircraft will be used on future vessels with no such restrictions.

What more, if China ever develops another carrier based fighter, be it a naval J10 or an all new stealth design, it will almost certainly be superior to the J15 in AA combat, thus the main advantage the J15 would have over such a fighter would be superior range and payload capabilities, which lends itself perfectly to the strike role.

Thus it is extremely likely that the J15 would spend much of its service life in the PLAN as the primary carrier strike fighter, so not developing a strike capability is pretty silly as that would significantly hurt the continued service of the type on PLAN carriers if another carrier fighter is ever developed.

If another carrier fighter is not developed, the J15 would need to carry out strike missions anyways, so there is no plausible reason to limit them like this no matter what happens in the future.

 

[kroko]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

Point of inquiry: the Su-33's maneuverability is <F-18E and Rafale?! I thought the Su-33 is quite equivalent of the Su-30MKI and the likes in terms of combat flight performance, excluding hardware and avionics.

AFAIK su-33 hasnt been upgraded since soviet era

 

[siegecrossbow]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

Point of inquiry: the Su-33's maneuverability is <F-18E and Rafale?! I thought the Su-33 is quite equivalent of the Su-30MKI and the likes in terms of combat flight performance, excluding hardware and avionics.

The canards featured on the Su-33 are lift canards and are apparently dead weight once the plane lifts off the carrier. It also doesn't feature thrust vectoring. The J-15 will probably have far better manoeuvrability due to weight saved via composite materials and potential addition of thrust vectoring nozzles.

 

[Deino]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

AFAIK su-33 hasnt been upgraded since soviet era.

Yes, as such they are surely not comparable to the MKI, esp. since they lack TVC !

As far as I know - and also reported by the one and only "Flanker_man" at the Key-Forum, the Su-33 received a minor update (which was actually published with a lot of hype in some Russian media) mostly related to some new RWR noticable on the wing's leading edges.
Otherwise in regard to their avionics they are not even SM-standard ans as such at best comparable to the venerable, regular Su-27 in RuAF service.

Deino

 

[i.e.]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

Yes, as such they are surely not comparable to the MKI, esp. since they lack TVC !

As far as I know - and also reported by the one and only "Flanker_man" at the Key-Forum, the Su-33 received a minor update (which was actually published with a lot of hype in some Russian media) mostly related to some new RWR noticable on the wing's leading edges.
Otherwise in regard to their avionics they are not even SM-standard ans as such at best comparable to the venerable, regular Su-27 in RuAF service.

Deino

also don;t forget the bigger wing area and bigger Leading edge root extensions.

btw just found out got banned at key-forum.

 

[Blitzo]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

also don;t forget the bigger wing area and bigger Leading edge root extensions.

btw just found out got banned at key-forum.

Wow that sucks.

Wrt to buddy refueling, does the planaf or plaaf have such a system? I can't imagine it would be too difficult to develop though...

 

[Jeff Head]

Re: PLAN's first Carrier Strike Fighter the J-15 Flying shark

That'd take at least one jet off the pack for the strike package, consider the capacity of the Varyag that's not a good news by all means.

The Varyag is capable of carrying up to 24 or more J15s (if the PLAN wants to), so having a couple operate in a buddy store role for the formation of the strike group is not so terrible an anty to pay for the potential capability it could give, particularly when those buddy store aircraft can then land and be reconfigured for the air defense role.