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J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Most F-16Vs will still in service after the unification war. PLAAF may keep a wing or two. What about the rest? It is reasonable even for free.
I think the biggest counter argument is why China never produced more than 40 J-10s a year. Was it due to budgetary reasons or industrial limitation. I think that's due to lack of domestic engine option and focusing on other aircraft projects like flankers. I mean the flanker production was about as high as J-10 despite the latter is cheaper. Maybe CAC was also occupied by J-20 project and JF-17. At this point, I think J-20 is clearly the 5th generation aircraft they prefer. While we anticipate FC-31 land version to join service in 5 or 6 years, there is no guarantee of that. Very soon, there will be no other fighter jet production at CAC. Most of the jet development work in the next 5 years will be surrounding J-20. There is also no longer engine constraints. For the next few years, there is a lot impetus to raise J-20 production imo. And I think they were already on a production pace of 40 to 50 J-20 aircraft by 2nd half of last year.
the question is whether they want to increase production further and how much further. There are several reasons for:
1) All the brigades really want J-20s. The difference in capability between J-20 and J-10C/J-16 is quite large. Shilao's podcast said that no aircraft in PLAAF has ever achieved this level of mythical status where everyone is clamoring for it.
2) Raising production rate also lowers the production cost and maintenance cost. J-20 production will get cheaper over time.
3) PLAAF looks to be expanding in size (if we go by the recent news of larger j-16 brigades), which would require higher production level for not just replacement but growth
4) Possibly limited SAC 5th gen production for PLAAF due to the more clear funding/priority given to naval variant.
arguments against:
1) maintenance cost should be higher than the aircraft it is replacing. Question whether or not that will exceed the budget they have (also that's the reason USAF is limiting its F-35A procurement)
2) Whether or not PLAAF can handle accepting more aircraft a year. That would involve training more pilots and such.
If budget is going up by 7% a year over the next 8 years. It will be 72% higher than now by the end of this decade. If they can keep J-20 production cost flat (even including inflationary pressure), we could be looking at 70% higher procurement and maintenance budget. Going from 45 J-20s + 24 J-10s a year to 80 J-20s a year would not lead to a 70% jump in procurement cost. If PLAAF is going from an Air Force of 1800 aircraft with 100 J-20s to a 2000 aircraft Air Force with a fleet 600 J-20s. And if we estimate j-20 maintenance to be twice as high as aircrafts that are going away (J-7/8/10), that's only about a 30% just in cost. If we apply 3% inflation on that, it still would not be 70% higher maintenance cost. Of course, PLAAF can lower their maintenance by reducing the number of fleet types. A lot more factors involved in there. I don't think cost alone would prevent them from expanding production rate to 80 a year by the end of this decade.
So, then the question is threat perception and whether or not PLAAF itself can accept so many new aircraft at a time and train them properly. That I don't have the answer to.
If that's the case, then J-20 don't need to be produced anymore, lol.
The J-20 operating cost is likely more than like 3x higher the J-7/8/10.
See the US figures from 2018 below
F-22 - $13.27 Million per year
F-15E - $8.57 Million per year
F-16 - $4.33 Million per year
The F-22 is not a good comparison to make for obvious reasons.
I don't think we can use F-22 as the comparison point here. It is an outlier program with very high maintenance stealth layer (90s technology and methods). It's also a relatively small fleet that stopped production 8 years ago. As such, the maintenance cost will always be high and escalating. I think F-35 would be a better comparison for J-20.
F-22 - $13.27 Million per year
F-15E - $8.57 Million per year
F-16 - $4.33 Million per year
F-35 - $9.93 Million per year
So the J-20 having an operating cost of 3x (rather than 2x) the J-7/8/10 sounds about right.
Remember the J-7 and J-8 should be a lot cheaper to operate than a J-10.
not really, my comment compared J-20 to the cost of rest of PLAAF fleet, not just J-7/8. There is a lot of Russian flankers and Chinese flankers in there. That's a lot of maintenance cost which is probably almost as high as J-20, since Russian flankers notorious for low availability. Now, if you want to argue that the rest of PLAAF fleet will like have maintenance cost escalations since there will be more flankers and fewer J-7s, that would be a good argument. However, there is also the argument of lower cost from fewer types. Once you get rid of J-7/8s and JH-7As and imported Su-30s, that will cut a lot of fleet management costs.
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