J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

szbd said:

honestly I think 2nd hand J10Bs are better choice for both Pakistan and China. It will be much cheaper for Pakistan and China can get rid of the 50 sth J10B to lower the logistical complexity. Of course they may need some upgrade to support new missiles or so.

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Maybe this needs to be moved to the J10 thread, but I don’t think the PLA is that OCD about having streamlined inventories. Just look at the navy, they seem happy to keep their oddball ships like the original 054, 051C even 052Cs etc.

The Air Force is little different with many oddball types like the Su35, J8IIFs and J7s all still flying. And in terms of upgrade priority, surely the J11A and J10As would come before the J10B.

The Su35 deal especially also highlights a niche operational need/requirement within the PLAAF for oddball types that the J10B is also well suited for - peacetime SIGINT and EW ops.

Having limited numbers of niche types means the PLA has interesting escalation advantages that could yield potentially vitally important SIGINT by allowing them to go no-holds-barred in peacetime intercept ‘games’ with opfor aircraft.

That may explain why there are often small J10 contingents within PLAAF massed formations that probe Taiwan’s AIDZ together with the far the more logical choice of J16s. I would bet that those pairs of J10s are J10Bs who are there primarily for this exact purpose - if intercepted and ordered to escalate, the J10Bs can go hot with wartime modes to lock on to intercepting opfor aircraft while the J16s and Y8 special mission aircraft crank up their sensors to scoop up any interesting signals opfor EW suits might send out. If opfor pilots are disciplined and keep their EW off or in training mode, well that still is massively beneficial as it puts huge psychological pressure on opfor pilots and almost starts to mentally condition them to always be submissive when faced with PLAAF fighters as they will always be in a position of massive disadvantage and vulnerability and would be devastating to moral.

On top of massive expenditure of airframe hours, I think these ‘games’ being played by the PLA are a major contributing factor to why both Taiwan and Japan has quietly massively dialled back their active intercepts of PLAAF flights into their AIDZs in recent years.

Overbom said:

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The article notes that it's a WS-10 engine (likely WS-10C). But that's an underpowered engine given the J-20's capacities. It needs the WS-15 at the very least to fully bloom. The Chines aviation expert admitted as much in the article, only noting it needs "more advanced engines". The endless delays surrounding WS-15 is disappointing, I'd have hoped China could have had a more advanced engine by now but I recognise how hard it is.

mossen said:

The article notes that it's a WS-10 engine (likely WS-10C). But that's an underpowered engine given the J-20's capacities. It needs the WS-15 at the very least to fully bloom. The Chines aviation expert admitted as much in the article, only noting it needs "more advanced engines". The endless delays surrounding WS-15 is disappointing, I'd have hoped China could have had a more advanced engine by now but I recognise how hard it is.

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Its a gradual process. In my mind, the WS-10C development is far more iimportant as it eliminates any dependency towards another country and speeds up production

As long as the WS-10C was successfully integrated with the J-20 then I am happy. As for the next step, WS-15, obviously we will have to wait years for it. I am not complaining though, developing engines is hard work.

To conclude, I see the glass half-full so I am happy that the WS-10C is here, anything more than that is a bonus for me (even if the J-20 needs WS-15 to get the maximum out of capabilities)

mossen said:

The article notes that it's a WS-10 engine (likely WS-10C). But that's an underpowered engine given the J-20's capacities. It needs the WS-15 at the very least to fully bloom. The Chines aviation expert admitted as much in the article, only noting it needs "more advanced engines". The endless delays surrounding WS-15 is disappointing, I'd have hoped China could have had a more advanced engine by now but I recognise how hard it is.

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Eh, don't be that disappointed.

It was first of all to be expected (behind quite a number of years), but the steps made to catch have been big.

Also do we have an idea of how good the ws-15 will be? From what I gathered it should be a pretty big leap, maybe enough to surpass current best engines? (although might be weaker than the 2027 upgrades for SU-57 and the F-35?)

And like @Overbom said, it's good to first of all be able to reliable get domestic engines (aren't the ws-10c better than the al-31 they been using prior as well?)

mossen said:

The article notes that it's a WS-10 engine (likely WS-10C). But that's an underpowered engine given the J-20's capacities. It needs the WS-15 at the very least to fully bloom. The Chines aviation expert admitted as much in the article, only noting it needs "more advanced engines". The endless delays surrounding WS-15 is disappointing, I'd have hoped China could have had a more advanced engine by now but I recognise how hard it is.

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It's a common believe that WS15 will be ready by now and the fully upgraded J20 will be in service before 2025.

szbd said:

It's a common believe that WS15 will be ready by now and the fully upgraded J20 will be in service before 2025.

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Ähhhm, NO … it is surely NOT common believe the WS-15 is ready! Not sure where you got this from…. At least we have seen several WS-10-equipped J-20s long before they entered serial production and for the WS-15 I expect the same. I cannot believe that after we haven‘t seen a single WS-15 actually on any J-20 that they suddenly pop out of the blue.

Deino said:

Ähhhm, NO … it is surely NOT common believe the WS-15 is ready! Not sure where you got this from…. At least we have seen several WS-10-equipped J-20s long before they entered serial production and for the WS-15 I expect the same. I cannot believe that after we haven‘t seen a single WS-15 actually on any J-20 that they suddenly pop out of the blue.

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By ready, means like F119 in 1990. For seeing the engine on J20, there must be a lot of work on the plane.

szbd said:

By ready, means like F119 in 1990. For seeing the engine on J20, there must be a lot of work on the plane.

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Ok, then sorry that I misunderstood your post, I thought you were referring to the GT report

plawolf said:

if intercepted and ordered to escalate, the J10Bs can go hot with wartime modes to lock on to intercepting opfor aircraft while the J16s and Y8 special mission aircraft crank up their sensors to scoop up any interesting signals opfor EW suits might send out.

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Wartime readiness modes are too valuable.

They can just lock-on with normal peacetime modes which will still do the same job.

AndrewS said:

Wartime readiness modes are too valuable.

They can just lock-on with normal peacetime modes which will still do the same job.

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If you stick to training modes, so will the opfor. No one is stupid.

Only using wartime modes can you have any hope of getting opfor wartime signals in response.

That’s where the benefit of using oddball types like the J10B and Su35 for such ops comes in handy, since you are only giving away the wartime signals for a very small number of airframes that can be easily sidelined in actual combat to support or reserve roles, so the enemy having tailored ECM against those types becomes effectively meaningless.

OTOH, if the PLAAF got hold of wartime signals from RoCAF planes, that will likely compromise their entire fleet’s combat effectiveness.