J-15 carrier fighter thread

[Maikeru]

Maintaining an active production line for baseline J-15s would incur a cost versus fully transitioning to J-15T.

Especially as being a buddy tanker probably shouldn't be a "dedicate themselves specific fighter airframes to buddytank" way of operating but rather to "take any free airframe which is available to buddytank" in which case it is actually much more sensible to go for an all J-15T fleet.


That said even the idea of J-15/T doing buddy tanking feels like a niche role to me -- J-15/T cannot carry external fuel tanks so its fuel offload would be rather limited.

I did not mean keep building OG J-15s I meant include the existing ones as part of the CAG for tanking and other less complex tasks.

 

[Blitzo]

I did not mean keep building OG J-15s I meant include the existing ones as part of the CAG for tanking and other less complex tasks.

Oh okay. Using the word "ship" makes it sound like you mean shipping off the production line.

If you mean deploying on the carriers as part of their airwings, I think that there is probably no particular reason to keep them around on deployments if they have enough J-15Ts for the overall PLANAF air fleet.
If there aren't enough J-15Ts as a whole then sure, by necessity they would need to include standard J-15s onboard and they may more likely be allocated to less pressing roles like tanking.

But if they have enough J-15Ts I can't see them keeping J-15s around as part of carrier airwings. The same reason as mentioned on my last post applies -- unifying onboard spare parts and maintenance, possessing a larger and more flexible airwing of more capable "all J-15Ts", and the fact that typically buddy tankers are not airframe specific missions but given out to any airframe available for it.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

J-15 flying with a F/A-18E/F

5:33 in the 深蓝舰阵杀手锏 program. There aren’t any more details about this

 

[Jingle Bells]

You have to keep in mind that up until recently PLAAF was a relatively impoverished force. Valuing assets over people has some doctrinal inertia and probably won’t stop for some time.

Well, in this case, there is a very large probability that the reason he died is because of mechanical failure or trying to avoid harming other people or assets, but the details might be classified for some reason, and the state propaganda media will have to beautify everything by giving it a reason for the loss. This is typically done in China. Not that he was not a hero, but he might be heroic for different reasons (reasons that are deemed not fit for public consumption).

Or he might have just been a victim of a faulty equipment and didn't have enough time to save his own life. And it wouldn't hurt to let his family, friend and comrades hold the memory of him dying a heroic death.

I don't mean any disrespect for the pilot. I just want to make a point that the current training doctrine for pilot may well to have already changed to prioritizing the pilot's life well over a fighter jet. And still, pilot can die in accidents, and the state media will report to the public that he died because "he want to save a valuable equipment - the fighter jet", even if in reality, the training doctrine may have instructed the pilot to place his own life above a faulty fighter jet.