Probably documentation requirements for WS-10. He claims that the WS-10 is heavier than the AL-31 by 110Kg.
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VI
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Probably documentation requirements for WS-10. He claims that the WS-10 is heavier than the AL-31 by 110Kg.
Huh, news to me. What I get for not frequenting Chinese forums anymore. Still, 4 pl-15 and 6 pl-12 seems a bit peculiar, given the similar dimensions of the missiles (the thread does discuss how that might be). If this really is the case I wonder if there will eventually be a version of the pl-15 that can fit 6 into the J-20 (couldn’t be that hard?), or if perhaps the J-20 can do a load out of 4 pl-15s and 2 pl-12s, and the PLAAF has determined that 6 LRAAMs is suboptimal or unnecessary.
I thought he said to consult with the GE F110 for the WS-10’s weight, not that the WS-10 was 110 kg heavier than the AL-31.
Another pessimist in the thread claimed that it was 110kg heavier, not Gongke. I misread it.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
It'll be hard to fit another two PL-15 into the bay since the weapon already has no fins.
I thought the PL-15’s body diameter was about the same as the PL-12’s? And unless I’m mistaken and this is not the PL-15, looks like it has fins here.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
I thought the PL-15’s body diameter was about the same as the PL-12’s? And unless I’m mistaken and this is not the PL-15, looks like it has fins here.
I'm a bit confused now. There was a photo of the J-20 with two dummy PL-15s on one side of its weapons bay (one had a fin and one did not), but I'm not so sure if they're the PL-15s at all.
That photo was of the demonstrator version with a different weapons bay design, and is so early into the J-20’s development I’m not sure we should be using it to make any determinations about the production version’s loadout. My guess is that the finless missile was a weighted dummy to test mechanical loads on the carriage system. I think we’re all pretty certain that finned missile was the PL-15 though, especially since we’ve seen it mounted on other planes in subsequent years.
The consensus was it's not the width that's the problem, it's the length. Because the missiles need to be staggered to avoid intruding on the adjacent missile's fins, the weapons bay needs to be considerably longer than the missile itself to allow for the staggered offset. The PL-15 is too long to be offset and still fit within the weapons bay while the PL-12 is considerably shorter and can be offset to allow the two sandwiched missiles to fit.
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