Instead of J11D's, I have been projecting/speculating that they need continue to produce J-16/J-16D, lots of them. J-16/J-16D are good complement to J-20. J-11D is not.
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
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Instead of J11D's, I have been projecting/speculating that they need continue to produce J-16/J-16D, lots of them. J-16/J-16D are good complement to J-20. J-11D is not.
This is getting slightly off topic, and if further posts on this matter are made I'll probably move them to a different thread.
I personally can see SAC continuing to produce Flankers (mostly J-16, J-16D, J-15B, J-15D) until the late 2020s given the demand for the J-16D and J-15D and J-15B. I can see J-16 production continuing as well for a while, they can probably afford to add another 100 or more of them.
The question is J-11D, because there were some recent rumours claiming that they have entered production, which does seem a bit odd to me given its role as a single engine, more air to air oriented 4+ generation aircraft that is both heavyweight and twin engined.
With J-20 production ramping up that fills the role, I can't really see why J-11D would be needed, unless the order for J-11Ds is relatively small (under 100) and if they just really want a surge of heavyweight, longer range slightly more air to air oriented airframes that J-20 alone cannot meet.
I have to say that I don't understand the logic either, so I'll wait until we confirm that J-11D's are indeed in production now.
But assuming that is the case, one reason I can think of is that they need to replace the old Flankers to keep the total number of 4+ gen, air-to-air heavy fighters. And that is on top of the new J-20's come into service.
Maybe this is yet another one of the additional 20 054A's case. Still not very convincing to me though.
this new assessment is based on the new series number 0256? are we sure it means #56 airframe of second batch?
and what does a batch mean anyway? meaning identical production details in all the 56 planes? how come in J16 r J10c case a batch is around 30 but here it is 56?
Based on assessments of numbers from tracking of past CB0XYZ numbers and correlation with pictures and rumours.
No, numbers are not identical in every batch. The first and second batches for J-20 CB00XX and CB01XX respectively were estimated to be about 20 airframes each based on their serials.
This third batch, CB02XX, based on CB0256, means that this batch is at least 56 airframes.
Those numbers are in turn correlated with the number of airframes that we know CAC has produced in total that have been delivered.
Different fighters have different numbers in each batch, not to mention different manufacturers
For J-10B, they were up to 78 for a batch, and then for J-10C, I believe for a while they had a few batches be about 60 aircraft, and now they are 40 aircraft.
For J-16, I actually cannot recall how many are in a batch, @Deino may be able to give you a better number.
So, for CB0256 -- it means it is the third batch, 56th airframe.
While we "cannot be 100% sure" about it, given the methods we've been using to track past J-20 airframes (and other airframe types), as well as correlating with the number of PLAAF units that have had J-20s delivered and other J-20s that have been produced (201X/2X/3X prototypes), it certainly makes a lot of sense.
To the best of my knowledge all the birds in Wuhu fly with AL-31.
They haven't gone anywhere.
As siege said, 9th brigade at Wuhu (the first combat brigade to receive J-20s) flies J-20s powered by Al-31s.
Cangzhou and Dingxin flies some as well, but they would've also received some J-20s powered by WS-10s since then.
In terms of new production, yes all J-20s produced since mid 2019 or so are using WS-10s, meaning all newly delivered and produced J-20s since then are WS-10s.
But the Al-31 powered J-20s have not gone anywhere.
I must admit, I'm surprised and confused since what happened during the last days, totally exceeds my expectations ... as such still connected with a HUGE IF I tried to put this together:
IF these cn-number indeed use the same pattern we know from CAC and as such represent the numbers of J-20s built, then based on what we have so far (XX0011, CB0018, CB0121 & CB0256) there is one LRIP/prototype batch (XX), two batches with AL-31FN powered ones (CB00xx & CB01xx) and one batch using WS-10C (CB002xx).
So again - IF correct - then:
XX0011 = LRIP batch = at least 11, if not 12
CB0018 = first production batch (AL-31FN) = at least 18, if not 20-24
CB0121 = second production batch (AL-31FN) = at least 21 if not 20-24
CB0256 = third production batch (WS-10C) = at least 56
= 106 minimum or up to 12 + 2x 24 + 56 = 116.
In any case, we need more such construction numbers.
Any corrections and comments welcome!
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