J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

[lcloo]

I think the "general rule"(?) should be 3 engines for every twin-engine fighter, i.e. 2 engines for installation and 1 engine as spare.

So that means 80/90 J-20s should be "accompanied" by 240-270 WS-10Cs.

Of course, if anyone finds the aforementioned "general rule" is inaccurate, feel free to rectify.

I don't know anything about this "general rule", but rationally in peace time it is not neccesary to have one spare engine for every twin engined aircraft, especially the aircraft in question are new aircraft from factory.

Assumed a case that the delivery of J20 is in a batch of 8 aircraft each time. You would not expect all 8 new J20 to develope engine problem within say, 6 months or 1 year. Therefore within this period, you would only need to delivery 2, 3 or may be 4 spare engine to that air brigade.

Therefore for a number like 80 or 90 newly delivered aircraft, a dozen or so spare engines to accompany their deliveries are more than adequate. After completion of these aircraft deliveries, more spare engines can be send to them in small batches the number of which depends on the rate of spare engine replacing the old one.

Therefore I don't think China is following this rule of one spare engine for every twin engined aircraft delivered from factory.

This "general rule" would be changed in war time, or in time similar to the Cold War period between the West and Soviet bloc. In this scenario, damaged engines due to wear and tear or war actions, one spare engine for every aircraft could be necessary.

By the way, CFM is expecting to produce 1,800 Leap series engines this year, or 4.9 engines each calander day. No doubt China's engine making capacity is much lower, but it is not impossible that they produced 1 or 2 engines per day if they invested billions RMB in engine development and manufacturing facilities, which I believe they did.

 

[sunnymaxi]

No doubt China's engine making capacity is much lower, but it is not impossible that they produced 1 or 2 engines per day if they invested billions RMB in engine development and manufacturing facilities, which I believe they did.

right now China's military engine production capacity is at par with USA, i m talking about WS-10 family.

Liming have invested Billion of RMB in pulse assembly line to accommodate the fast production. Liming 2022 financial report indicate.

WS-15/WS-20 will also use same supply chain and production capacity. just need to sort out alloy supply chain.

 

[Temstar]

Just two cents from me.

Tracing from @Temstar's post in the Funny Stuff Thread back to @萌虎鲸's post on Weibo, saw a couple comments claiming that:

1. The number of J-20s rolling off the assembly lines last year (2022) is (likely to be) 85 or 87 (The commentors seem to be pretty confident of this number).
2. (The number of J-20s produced last year (2022)) didn't pass 90, let alone 100.
3. The J-20 in yellow coating with the (serial?) number #205 has been reportedly spotted (this) late-April.
4. The Q1 of this year (2023) has 24 J-20s built. Adding the number of J-20s rolling off the lines in Q2, there should be more than 50 J-20s (built) by now.

(Please note that I am unable to independently and absolutely verify these claims, so please just take them as one of the many information from "out there" for due consideration.)

My thoughts - Assuming the above alleged information is true, and combined with what Yankee, Shilao and Ayi have previously mentioned, then Chengdu could reasonably have from somewhere around 96 to slightly over 100 J-20s rolling off their assembly lines by the end of this year.

In the meantime, the "120 J-20s per year" claim does sound kinda bollocks (for now). Pretty impossible to reach this year, but could be achievable within the next few years as the new (3rd?) assembly plant in Chengdu is expected to be completed this year (2023).

Shilao/Yankee/Ayi did go over this briefly last night (the overall context was upcoming F-35 block 4 production) and pretty much stood by what they said. Shilao said it shouldn't be thought of as because they said it's over 3 digits it must be true, this is something that should be apparent if you look at all the evidence.

Shilao also said we should stop feeding Deino info because it will get him in trouble one of these days

 

[siegecrossbow]

Shilao/Yankee/Ayi did go over this briefly last night (the overall context was upcoming F-35 block 4 production) and pretty much stood by what they said. Shilao said it shouldn't be thought of as because they said it's over 3 digits it must be true, this is something that should be apparent if you look at all the evidence.

He also said we should stop feeding Deino info because it will get him in trouble one of these days

Starving Deinos are very dangerous. That’s how the Jurassic Park breakout of 1992 happened.

 

[Deino]

…
Shilao also said we should stop feeding Deino info because it will get him in trouble one of these days

Well, please send him greeting and best wishes, but as long as he posts that stuff and others spread his content, I don‘t see me as the guilty one! But I surely understand his position and in no way want to harm him or anyone else.

 

[Temstar]

Well, please send him greeting and best wishes, but as long as he posts that stuff and others spread his content, I don‘t see me as the guilty one! But I surely understand his position and in no way want to harm him or anyone else.

I think so too and I think increasing international interest in PLA is something that everyone will have to get use to with great power competition.

Shilao himself complain about too much secrecy from PLA too from time to time, I think there was one Changchun Airshow that he went to where he was taking photos of a Y-20 and got told off by a PLA guy on the spot because "this aircraft is not yet declassified", and Shilao still holds a grudge about the event. He thinks the obsession with secrecy comes from a period where PLA was technologically backwards and secrecy was used as a curtain to cover up those short comings. Since times are changing it may be time to change those attitudes.

He noted before for example that one time at the end of last year where a J-11 was escorting RC-135 and USAF released a video suggesting that J-11 was acting aggressively, STC next day released their own footage from inside the J-11 to counter the narrative. That's something that would never happen in the old days and shows PLA becoming more confident in the media.

The recent J-20A maiden flight is also something of an example. I don't think at the end of the day anyone got in trouble with those videos and photos of the plane and they were allowed to remain on Chinese social media for several days before authorities started censoring them.

 

[tphuang]

a couple of things I would say.
@Deino I think it's for the best if you don't mention particular person when you are tweeting going forward. People in China can guessing where the info comes from Besides, our actual source is you know who

@Temstar I saw several people complain on weibo afterward that shilao never said production was in 3 digits. I'd have to listen over this week's video, but please be careful in repeating what was said. If they didn't explicitly say J-20 production was in 3 digits, don't say it as such

 

[Temstar]

a couple of things I would say.
@Deino I think it's for the best if you don't mention particular person when you are tweeting going forward. People in China can guessing where the info comes from Besides, our actual source is you know who

@Temstar I saw several people complain on weibo afterward that shilao never said production was in 3 digits. I'd have to listen over this week's video, but please be careful in repeating what was said. If they didn't explicitly say J-20 production was in 3 digits, don't say it as such

People seem to think the implication is Shilao and Ayi said the 3 digit thing in one of their podcast but that's not what my initial statement was based on. In both instances it was actually their post on weibo.

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and you already saw. The one from Shilao was sometimes earlier where he linked a photo of CAC facility under construction and said something like "so this is what a country with three digit 5th generation fighter production feels like".

I can't recall from memory that any of them actually said 3 digit on air. This is also why I specifically said Shilao and Ayi and not "Shilao, Ayi and Yankee".

 

[Jiang ZeminFanboy]

I think there is no reason to make the sensitive rumors so much public on twitter to general audience. Just wait and see if the 100 per year J-20 is true, eventually we will get more info and pics about the new serials and brigades who get the J-20.

 

[Bellum_Romanum]

ok

Thank you nonetheless because I got to watch that mini-movie which was pretty cool to see but I am hoping not to witness in real life ever.