J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VI

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latenlazy

Brigadier
Gongke did see the nozzle of the WS-15. AVIC brought WS-15 parts to various engine institutes and manufacturers around the country as a show-and-tell a few years back. Mockups of the WS-15 are also more accessible than the actual thing meaning quite a few people would know what it looks like without having seen it.
I know he did. I’m just going through scenarios where people can know what the nozzle design looks like without requiring it to be actually installed in a J-20.
 

Inst

Captain
Re military thrust; it looks like the military thrust comments on the thread were deleted, or perhaps I had misread.

Re: active verb, ummm. If I'm reading it as "installed on the J-20", that's not an active verb but an adjectival phrase containing a verb. And importantly, Gongke could have chosen to be terse and just say you'll see the petals, without having to include the unnecessary description that it's the nozzle on the J-20's WS-15.

@Tirdent, if you look at Chinese leakers, they're in a rather weird situation. The Chinese government has people monitoring these sites, just as the USAF monitors F-16.net and people disappear if they leak classified information. Gongke leaking information implies that he's being allowed to leak information, so it's sort of a controlled government PR outlet in China.

Moreover, if we've seen internal leaks from Chinese facilities, most of them seem to be photographs taken for other purposes, such as to commemorate a milestone or to illustrate a scientific document. We are asking Gongke to snap a photograph of a classified project in a classified facility for the purposes of posting it on the internet. Irrespective of whether the subject itself is still highly classified, overseas, wouldn't this result in firing, loss of security clearances, as well as prosecution for espionage?

As to the nozzle count, if we read what Gongke has literally said, his point is that if there's 16 petals, it's an AL-31, if there's 18 petals, it's a WS-10, and if you count the petal number, you'll know if it's the WS-15. Implicitly, you'll know because it's an engine on the J-20, and is not a WS-10, or AL-31.

By implication, since we've already seen the Chinese TVC nozzle prototype, we can deduce that the 15 petal TVC is for the WS-15, since it's not 18 petals for the WS-10. But as I've said before, it's a prototype, and things may change before it hits production status.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
Re: active verb, ummm. If I'm reading it as "installed on the J-20", that's not an active verb but an adjectival phrase containing a verb. And importantly, Gongke could have chosen to be terse and just say you'll see the petals, without having to include the unnecessary description that it's the nozzle on the J-20's WS-15.

You read 装在 as meaning something was actually installed. That’s reading it as an active verb.

Gongke specified the nozzle as the one the WS-15 will have when it is installed on the J-20 because he has mentioned before that the WS-15 prototype has different nozzles from what will be in production. As a result he has to distinguish between which WS-15 nozzle he’s talking about.
 

Tirdent

Junior Member
Registered Member
If the WS-15 nozzle was identical to the J-10’s TVC nozzle he could have just said so without posting any photos. If the J-10’s TVC nozzles were classified then the officials probably wouldn’t have let the picture out in the first place (with a magazine spread explaining how the nozzles work at that). I don’t see why, if the WS-15 nozzles are identical, that posting a picture or simply pointing out that the J-10’s TVC nozzles are the same as the WS-15’s would still be classified.

Not if the secret lies in the fact that the nozzle is linked to the WS-15/J-20, rather than the nozzle design itself (which indeed would not likely make it into the press if it was). Outright spilling the beans would be risky in that case, whereas the indirect hints he actually gave might just pass muster (plausible deniability from his point of view, the very fact that we're debating his statement like this shows it would serve the purpose). Again, classification need not be logical, or at least not intuitive to outside observers - for instance, somebody could have decided that for some obscure reason it was necessary to maintain ambiguity about whether TVC was planned for the WS-15.

We have other reasons for doubting the WS-15 shares the same nozzles as the WS-10 with TVC, not the least of which is the fact that these are two totally different engines which will invariably have different aft sections, and the fact that Gongke has been quite adamant in his other comments that when the WS-15 finally shows up it will be obvious because of how stout the nozzles will be, which might imply its nozzles will look shorter than the WS-10s (perhaps the same length but greater diameter).

More different than a F100 to a F135 or an AL-31F to an advanced bomber engine which never actually materialized in the end? It has been done before.

Stouter than the WS-10, or the AL-31F? By con-di nozzle standards, the J-10 TVC nozzle is pretty short, a feature it shares with the F135 (which has a short divergent section due to ground clearance concerns on the F-35B 3BSN, but it could equally serve as a weight saving measure on another engine).
 

by78

General
Re: active verb, ummm. If I'm reading it as "installed on the J-20", that's not an active verb but an adjectival phrase containing a verb. And importantly, Gongke could have chosen to be terse and just say you'll see the petals, without having to include the unnecessary description that it's the nozzle on the J-20's WS-15.

Within the overall context of the discussion, '装在' doesn't mean 'already installed'. Instead, it means 'intended for', 'designed for', or 'designed to be installed on'.

Gongke said:

最近3年大部分人是没机会看见15整机了,不过许多人还是有机会看见装在20上的15的菊花的,想知道是什么发动机就数一下菊花上的外调节片,太行18片,31f是16片,和果你不数错一数就知道是15了,狂简单。

In the past three years, most have not had a chance to see the actual WS-15 engine in its entirety. However, many have seen the nozzle intended for J-20. If you want to identified the engine, simply count the pedals on the nozzles. WS-10 has 18 pedals, 31F has 16 pedals. If you don't count it wrong, you'll identify the engine correctly. Very simple.

User 快乐松2 interpreted the Gongke's original statement to mean:
工科的意思很名确呀,就是扇子15已装机试飞,三年后定型!定型后公开就可以 ...

Gongke's meaning is clear: WS-15 has already been installed on the J-20 and is undergoing test flights. The design will be frozen in three years, and then serial production will follow...

Gongke then rubbished the above interpretation by 快乐松2:
这解读,太发散了,我是无语了。

This interpretation of my original post is way too liberal. I'm speechless.
 
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SDWatcher

New Member
Registered Member
It was only a forum message, which doesn't warrant 7 pages of detailed scrutinization just on the use of words. Gongke101 could have missed 1 character {会} in this clause and the entire message would have a different interpretation.

"不过许多人还是 {会} 有机会看见装在20上的15的菊花的"

"but many people still {will} have the chance to see the flower (nozzle) of 15, assembled at (equipped on) 20"

Without {会}, it is only natural to read the message in past tense, especially following "最近3年" (the recent 3 years) in the earlier clause. And "装在" doesn't mean "intended for", but "assembled at" or "equipped on".
 

Inst

Captain
Actually, let's put this into the greater context. Who is Gongke? Why is an insider telling us stuff about things that should normally be classified? Is he really who he says to be, or is something else going on?

Well, let's start with Gongke. So far, his claims seem to have been of great accuracy, so we know he knows something. So then why is he telling us these things?

Two possibilities. Gongke is doing it for the accolades. Note on the thread that he's being described as big brother, divine spirit, etc, and is generally being begged for information. Psychologically, this is quite flattering. But if he's doing so without government authorization, covering his ass is of paramount importance and being vague allows him to "leak" without actually having leaked, both from a bureaucratic perspective and an intelligence perspective.

The other possibility is that he's a deliberate agent of the Chinese government, beyond his mere employment, and what he's telling us about is a managed PR scheme. Compared to official statements, what Gongke is dealing in is rumor, albeit highly reliable rumor. However, as rumor, everything he says has plausible deniability. Let's say that Gongke claims that the WS-15 project will be done in 2 years. But if the project is not done in two years, who takes the blame? Is the government / AVIC blamed for delays? Or do we blame Gongke instead for not knowing what he's talking about? Or what if Gongke says something not believable, like the HMD on the J-20 allows the pilot to shoot long-range high-intensity lasers out of his eyes. That may have some credence, but allows the government to make disinformation claims without tying its own credibility to the task.

More likely, it's some combination of both. Gongke is likely leaking information at the government's behest, but he is doing so because he is now essentially a rock star on CJDBY. With that in mind, let's return to the text under exegesis (because that is what we are doing, applying literary theory to internet rumors).

Let us put this another way. Is Gongke's text ambiguous? For instance, his initial statement has a group of ambiguities:

"最近3年大部分人是没机会看见15整机了"

最近 can be read to mean recently, or in the near future. It is not a clear term, if he wished to say recently, he could have said 进来 to disambiguate. The 了 at the end of the comment doesn't help; it can mean that the sentence refers to something already completed, or something that has just completed, meaning that the statement could be read as past tense or future tense.

The next statement is the crux of our argument, but as by78 says, it is understood as "designed for" based on context, because, say, in a motorcycle shop, we could read this as referring to something installed on a vehicle. More problematic, and something we have not discussed, is 许多人, or many people. Who is this "many people"? Why does Gongke say "有机会看见" (have the opportunity to see) as opposed to 看过 (have seen)? Does that mean it's something we've already seen? Or something that people have had the opportunity to see, if they want to? And when by78 states context; it could have been disambiguated with 为, interpreting it as that people have seen the WS-15 installed on the J-20 is invalid only because Gongke said it's not valid, and because the WS-15 project, from other rumors, seems to be delayed.

Lastly, if we look at the last statement, Gongke says that if you count the nozzle petals correctly on the WS-15, and if the petal count is not that of the WS-10 or AL-31, you can conclude it's a WS-15. Of course, the alternate interpretation is not grammatical, but we have the 15 petal TVC nozzle to support it.

Taken this way, Gongke's delivered us an ambiguous statement, but to what end?

Obviously, we should first look at it as a speech act. What we know definitely is that Gongke is telling us to pay close attention to the petal count on released J-20 pictures, and if they're neither 16 or 18, the J-20 is flying with WS-15.

Beyond that, we should look at statements and interpretations as parsimoniously or aggressively as we need.

Most parsimoniously, what Gongke is saying comes out to this:

The majority of people have not, to date, been able to see the entire WS-15 engine (i.e, leaked pics are inaccurate as the engine is changing), but some people have been able to see the WS-15 nozzle. And if you see a J-20 nozzle with a petal count dissimilar from the AL-31 and WS-10 (16 and 18 respectively), you will know it's a WS-15.

Less parsimoniously, we also have the following interpretations:

-The WS-15's final appearance will not be leaked in the next 3 years.
-The WS-15 nozzle is leaked (see J-10B TVC nozzle).
-The WS-15 has already been flying on the J-20.
-The WS-15 has been installed on the J-20.
-The WS-15 has 15 petals on its nozzle.

For the first statement, we simply need to wait 3 years; if a finalized WS-15 comes out before then, or within 2 years, this interpretation is negated and Gongke meant "before".

For the second statement, we do not know definitively if the J-10B TVC nozzle will be the WS-15 nozzle, but it is definitely of interest. And it is quite possible that from the J-10B TVC leak to WS-15 IOC on J-20s, the TVC nozzle will be changed further. But this statement can be corroborated if, when the WS-15 IOCs, the WS-15 has the J-10B TVC nozzle.

For the third statement, I've looked at a lot of J-20 nozzle pictures, and they're all WS-10 or AL-31Fs. However, given the Zhurihe rumor (for the military parade), if insiders later report that the WS-15 was flying then, that statement is corroborated (i.e, the soldiers marching in the parade are 许多人). Given the WS-15's apparent status in limbo, this is somewhat unlikely though.

For the fourth statement, the way to corroborate this would be if next 1/11, we notice a petal count on the J-20's nozzles that do not match the WS-10 or AL-31, i.e, the WS-15 has entered flight testing.

Of the preceding three statements, Gongke has categorically denied these claims, but Gongke could simply have been aiming to protect his job and freedom by not confirming an ambivalent claim.

For the last statement, we simply need to see a J-20 with WS-15 and to be able to count the petals on the WS-15.

Of course, all of these need further corroboration to be true, but what does Gongke get by not explicitly stating these things? Well, Gongke is only liable for the most parsimonious interpretation. For the others, he can't be "wrong" as he never explicitly said any of this; if things turn out otherwise, he's not liable because he didn't actually say any of this. On the other hand, if any of these statements are corroborated, he earns further respect as someone who is in the know, while not being bureaucratically liable for the leaks as he didn't explicitly say any of this.
 

Inst

Captain
It was only a forum message, which doesn't warrant 7 pages of detailed scrutinization just on the use of words. Gongke101 could have missed 1 character {会} in this clause and the entire message would have a different interpretation.

"不过许多人还是 {会} 有机会看见装在20上的15的菊花的"

"but many people still {will} have the chance to see the flower (nozzle) of 15, assembled at (equipped on) 20"

Without {会}, it is only natural to read the message in past tense, especially following "最近3年" (the recent 3 years) in the earlier clause. And "装在" doesn't mean "intended for", but "assembled at" or "equipped on".

装在 explicitly means assembled at or equipped on, but implicitly the way you can read the sequence of clauses is that the WS-15 is intended for the J-20. Hence Latenlazy's use of brackets in his translation.
 

SDWatcher

New Member
Registered Member
This is crazy, talking about the use of Chinese words on a military forum........

最近 can be read to mean recently, or in the near future.

No. "最近" always mean "recently" as in "最近好吗", "how are you recently", which isn't natively interpreted as "how are you in the near future". And "near future" is "可预见的未来" (foreseeable future).

装在 explicitly means assembled at or equipped on, but implicitly the way you can read the sequence of clauses is that the WS-15 is intended for the J-20.

No. "装在" isn't natively interpreted as " intended for", whether explicitly or implicitly.

but some people have been able to see the WS-15 nozzle.

The key is (a) whether it is in the past and (b) whether it is equipped on J-20. As mentioned in # 3027, a typo of missing 1 character {会} in the relevant clause, would be the simplest reasonable explanation.
 
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