J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

[reservior dogs]

I think that's a very bold statement to make considering we know almost 0 about it.
The F135 is a tremendously good engine. A variation of it is even going into the B21.
If WS15 is genuinely better and more importantly more reliable than F135, then shenyang liming has basically surpassed the likes of GE, P&W, RR in making TF!

Good is also an arbitrary term. In the world of turbofans, to be good or better includes metrics such as MTBF and in-flight shutdown (IFSD). Anyone can make a high thrust engine just like anyone can make a 5000 HP car but is it practical, it is reliable etc?

I am going by the 18 ton afterburner thrust that everyone is brandying about here. I do agree that almost all of the information about this engine is speculations and rumors, that is why I said that we should wait to see later.

 

[latenlazy]

Moe Orca's view on WS-15. He's not the most reliable person, but it's worth hearing him out I think:

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View attachment 115668
Summery, he says these are his educated guess:
1. 18.5 tons max thrust is bullshit, real stats for WS-15 isn't published anywhere
2. WS-15 stats are likely to be broadly similar to F-119, that is 0.3 BPR, dry thrust 10 tons, wet thrust 15-16 tons, turbine inlet temperature 1900K, TWR 10.
3. You might feel those stats seem pretty disappointing and only slightly better than WS-10, and might even use more fuel than WS-10 at low altitude, but this is an engine optimized for high speed high altitude, under those operating conditions it's a huge step forward compared to WS-10
4. overall tech level same as F-119

In the weibo post he does say the nozzle is all new and looks very good, with strong emphasis on low IR and low RCS. He's also been repeatedly saying comparing sea level wet thrust as the "one stat to rule them all" is not the correct approach to judge engines and you need to know what the thrust curve is like, and we have no idea about thrust curve.

For your consideration.

F119 actual wet thrust is more than 16 tonnes.

 

[Red tsunami]

F119 actual wet thrust is more than 16 tonnes.

Source?

 

[Nx4eu]

Source?

It's the assumption that when P&W calls their F119 engine 35,000 pound class. It's with the square TVC nozzles attached, which reduces the engines overall thrust. So with a more traditional nozzle type it is expected that the wet thrust actually produced by the engine itself should exceed 35,000 pounds by a significant margin.

 

[sequ]

It's the assumption that when P&W calls their F119 engine 35,000 pound class. It's with the square TVC nozzles attached, which reduces the engines overall thrust. So with a more traditional nozzle type it is expected that the wet thrust actually produced by the engine itself should exceed 35,000 pounds by a significant margin.

Give or take 10% I believe, that would be 38500 pound/17,5 tons of thrust.

When one thinks of it, seeing as the F135 is based of the F119, the F135 only has an 11% increase in thrust compared to the F119.

 

[tphuang]

Source?

F-119's actual thrust is classified, so don't believe what you read online. When I first started, I remember reading people close to US MIC saying F-119 actual thrust was far more than what was publicly suggested. So yeah, keep that in mind

As for WS-15, Yankee did mention it's a TWR=11 type of engine. This would make sense, since the original goal was TWR=10, but then due to the success of WS-10 upgraded version, they aimed for a little higher with WS-15. I would think 18.5t for WS-15 is entirely plausible. Bigger question for me are its other performance guidelines like dry thrust, fuel consumption, performance in different altitude, service life and such

 

[Kalec]

Interested in your thoughts on what you think the J-20 count is, and also interested in if you have any knowledge for how the Jane's J-20 count can be so wrong lol

Same story in missile counting.

The private IMINT industry only counts airframe/missiles on a weekly if not monthly basis. Not to mention everything under a shelter/hangar/roof/bunker/building is not counted, because they were not seen by the satellite.

In fact one has to be thankful that at least NGO like Janes can make estimations on number of hangers per brigade to give them a rough estimation on the capacity of each brigade can field in theory.

On the other hand, in missile IMINT, number of ICBMs per brigade was reduced from 12 to 8 simply because they deems that ICBM TEL can only park under eight of the smallest hangar in each garrison. Meanwhile landarea per brigade increased by three fold and support vehicles per launcher decreased by at least 1/3 throughout the past decades.

It is rather funny that Janes didn't even know that CB07156 has surfaced in Jan in grey painting, which means it had been produced for over a month and given the time lag in official release, the 156th airframe could be produced well back in Oct or Nov 2022.

Now we have almost every sources, except @伏尔格星图, believing that no. of J-20 has surpassed F-22 by a good margin. Personally though not very interested in air force stuff, I have received confirmed video that J-20 is flying over LianYunGang under 95th Brigade and more recently 4th Brigade in Foshan is rumored to get some of J-20 as well. ofc not every brigade will receive a full pack of J-20s to replace old aircraft completely and it could also be rotational training from other brigades as well. But they are spreading over everywhere, a good indicator that how many of them CAC is expected to produce.

 

[Blitzo]

Same story in missile counting.

The private IMINT industry only counts airframe/missiles on a weekly if not monthly basis. Not to mention everything under a shelter/hangar/roof/bunker/building is not counted, because they were not seen by the satellite.

In fact one has to be thankful that at least NGO like Janes can make estimations on number of hangers per brigade to give them a rough estimation on the capacity of each brigade can field in theory.

On the other hand, in missile IMINT, number of ICBMs per brigade was reduced from 12 to 8 simply because they deems that ICBM TEL can only park under eight of the smallest hangar in each garrison. Meanwhile landarea per brigade increased by three fold and support vehicles per launcher decreased by at least 1/3 throughout the past decades.

It is rather funny that Janes didn't even know that CB07156 has surfaced in Jan in grey painting, which means it had been produced for over a month and given the time lag in official release, the 156th airframe could be produced well back in Oct or Nov 2022.

Now we have almost every sources, except @伏尔格星图, believing that no. of J-20 has surpassed F-22 by a good margin. Personally though not very interested in air force stuff, I have received confirmed video that J-20 is flying over LianYunGang under 95th Brigade and more recently 4th Brigade in Foshan is rumored to get some of J-20 as well. ofc not every brigade will receive a full pack of J-20s to replace old aircraft completely and it could also be rotational training from other brigades as well. But they are spreading over everywhere, a good indicator that how many of them CAC is expected to produce.

It's just fascinating to me, that even if they were to ignore the grapevine and rumours that we in this sphere get, that something like Janes would not have identified CB07156 which we have a clear picture of and in a relatively official fashion as well.
They've really been phoning it on on their PLA coverage in multiple ways these days.

 

[latenlazy]

It's just fascinating to me, that even if they were to ignore the grapevine and rumours that we in this sphere get, that something like Janes would not have identified CB07156 which we have a clear picture of and in a relatively official fashion as well.
They've really been phoning it on on their PLA coverage in multiple ways these days.

I wonder if it’s deliberate sandbagging because they don’t want to be clowned for making the PLA sound like a formidable adversary.

 

[by78]

Does anyone have the un-cropped original? This has to be cropped from a high-resolution image that would be very nice to have.