FarkTypeSoldier
Junior Member
MOrning guys... PSed???
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread IV (Closed to posting)
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Engineer
Major
An AESA is an AESA. The J-20 being a long way from IOC is not due to some technology issues such as not using GaN for AESA. Rather, the J-20 has to go through its natural engineering process just like any other project.
Given China is always tight lipped about its military programs, not hearing anything about the WS-15 implies there is no big problem. Had the WS-10 not had quality issues during initial production, you wouldn't have heard about that engine either.
The WS-10 is China's first production turbofan engine, for which China pretty much had to develop every engine technology from scratch. On top of such challenge, the development was done at a time when China has limited money. So, of course the WS-10 encountered difficulties. However, today's environment is completely different, so whatever track record you are drawing from the WS-10 development is simply not applicable to the WS-15 development.
The US encountered similar difficulties with their TF-30 engines as China did with the WS-10. After the TF-30, development of turbofan engines went pretty smoothly for the US. This goes to show the development track record of the country's first turbofan engine is quite meaningless.
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SamuraiBlue
Captain
MOrning guys... PSed???
It's an obvious photoshop.
You can see the sun within the clouds on the far top side of the plane meaning that both the missile and the pennant number should be in the shade in which case the missile should be more darker in tone similar to the pennant number.(Even that is too bright to be on the shaded side in my opinion. )
Skywatcher
Captain
With regards to the WS-15, China will probably have an engine capable of 18 tons of thrust by 2015.
The key variables are how many will there be, what is the reliability rate/time between overhauls and whether or not the PLAAF would be willing to put up with that for 2017 IOC or just wait longer (most people don't like concurrency).
It would be rather easy to switch out the current AESA for GaN at a later date.
The key variables are how many will there be, what is the reliability rate/time between overhauls and whether or not the PLAAF would be willing to put up with that for 2017 IOC or just wait longer (most people don't like concurrency).
It would be rather easy to switch out the current AESA for GaN at a later date.
It's not the thrust that is difficult, it's thrust to weight ratio. Al-31, f-100 and WS-10 are in the 7-7.5:1 range, state of the art for late 1970s. F-119, without vectoring nozzle, can do perhaps 9-9.5:1. The Russians claim a similar t/w for abortive AL-41 and latest derivative of Al-31 used in the T-50. But that's state of the art in early 1990s. When AIAA correlated jet engine performance to state of the art in related metallurgical and fluid dynamics, they came up with 13:1 as the t/w that a fighter jet engine should be capable of if designed from ground up in 2000-2010 range, with the aid of 3d flow modeling and latest high temperature materials.
So whether WS-15 will make j-20 competitive doesn't rely solely whether it can put out 18 tons of thrust. It depends even more on what its t/w is when it is putting out 18 tons of thrust. If WS-15 has t/w similar to WS-10, then two of them will make the j-20 around 700Kg Heavier than if J-20 is powered by a f119 class engine, and maybe 1400 kg heavier than if j-20 is powered by a truly state of the art engine. This does not consider the added structural weight ended to lift or support the heavier engines. So t/w performance of WS-15 will have up to a 5% impact on j-20's overall thrust weight ratio, a significant margin in AA WVR combat.
So whether WS-15 will make j-20 competitive doesn't rely solely whether it can put out 18 tons of thrust. It depends even more on what its t/w is when it is putting out 18 tons of thrust. If WS-15 has t/w similar to WS-10, then two of them will make the j-20 around 700Kg Heavier than if J-20 is powered by a f119 class engine, and maybe 1400 kg heavier than if j-20 is powered by a truly state of the art engine. This does not consider the added structural weight ended to lift or support the heavier engines. So t/w performance of WS-15 will have up to a 5% impact on j-20's overall thrust weight ratio, a significant margin in AA WVR combat.
I think it has been established that WS-15 is the next generation engine with T/W ratio of around 10:1.
Question is what will they use before WS-15 is ready and in mass production.
Right, the off boresight targeting with the Helmet mounted sights, and aircraft systems giving a nearly 360 degree field of fire, are the primary reason that OVT and other avenues of supermanueverability are no longer considered an absolute must have option on an airsuperiority aircraft. brat
For the off bore sight targeting with missiles, particularly the IR missiles, this is true.
But there is no off bore sight targeting for guns. If you have to really get down in the weeds and go mano er mano with guns, you better keep that manueverability.
You can expend all of your missiles, you can have more adversaries than you have missiles...and may need to get down to 20 mike mike (or whatever mike mike you carry), so I'd keep that super manueverability for that for sure...and for evading some of those missile critters too while using all the counter measures in your bag of tricks.
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