J-35 carrier fighter (PLAN) thread

[reservior dogs]

But tbh, PLAN's CV should focus more on defending the fleet than working as a striking platform. China now has advanced hypersonic missiles, possibly they will put them on board, carried by giant destroyers, which seems to be a better anti-navy weapon than air2navy missiles carried by aircraft. On the other hand, PLAN needs to face attacks both from the US's CVs and bombers from their overseas airbases. Thus to effectively protect the fleet, what they need should be a bigger aircraft, instead of a smaller FC-31 size one. That's why I think the model we see here is still verifying aircraft, the same as the preceding FC-31 family. And don't forget, their current model is J-15, one of the biggest carrier fighters ever in the world.

The reason that the US turns to smaller F-35 and gives up NATF is definitely the collapse of USSR and sudden relief of air-defend stress to the CV. Also they quickly retire all the F-14 and AIM-54, and turn to multi-function FA18.

I think you got this turned around. Carrier operations is all about using the aircraft as offensive weapon. The fleet is there to protect the carrier which carries the offensive weapon. That is because the using aircraft as offensive weapon has advantages such as range, sustainability, better fire power and lower cost per bomb.

As to having bigger missiles and bigger aircraft, you have to think of the whole thing as a package. If you increase the size of the missile or aircraft, you increase the range for these weapons, but would the fleet be able to see that far out? A carrier group with AWACS circling on top can only see another ship 200-300 km out no matter the size of the radar. This will not increase even if you switch to next gen aircraft that has the range of 10,000 miles. The large missiles will likely mean a very large ship, but if you can't see what you are hitting, then it does you no good to blindly extend the range of the missile without also the ability to acquire your target further out. Unfortunately acquiring target further out is limited by the curvature of the earth.

The U.S. was thinking of attacking land based targets in China. To avoid the defensive missiles like the DF series, they need a longer range aircraft. Even there, as the Chinese can reach out further to touch someone, the increased range of the aircraft simply can't keep up with the advancement in missile technology. At the open sea fighting another carrier group that move about, larger missiles and planes don't make that much sense if you can't find the target.

 

[Chavez]

The redesign cockpit given the jet a hunchback look very similiar to mig35,this provide extra space for fuel

 

[Richard Santos]

WS-10 and WS-13 are different engine classes. There was never a scenario where an FC-31 derived design would use a WS-10 sized engine, because that would basically mean redesigning the whole airframe, especially the intakes (different engine classes have different mass flows which then impacts required intake frontal area). Any J-XY that emerged sooner rather than later was going to use the WS-13. This was already well known from chatter about this project going 4-5 years back. Meanwhile, the template design for the J-XY, the FC-31, has been testing with WS-13s for almost a decade now, and a lot of the advances that were incorporated into the WS-10's iterations should have also made its way to the WS-13. At this point the WS-13 is probably a mature engine, so I don't see why using the WS-13 should present an inhibiting factor to being a verification prototype.

I don't think cost was the primary driver for the PLAN choosing a mid sized fighter over a heavy weight fighter. The most likely decision driving factor was fleet size objectives relative to hangar space and deck space constraints. With carriers, fielding "better" fighters needs to be balanced with fielding a sufficient number of fighters to cover effective tactical combat situation requirements. Also don't see how being a mid sized fighter prevents effective CAP capabilities.

I think many air combat experience and simulation have shown well handled numerical superiority is difficult to counter with modest technical advantage. Even a sizeable performance and technology advantage is not equal to countering a 2:1 numerical advantage of an equally skilled adversary. If it is china’s intention is to match the number of carrier flight decks the US can deploy against china, then it makes a lot of sense for china to sacrifice range and payload, and marginal attributes of the larger fighter such as radar size, of her carrier based aircraft in the interest of at least matching, if not surpassing, the number of combat aircraft the US carriers csn deploy.

 

[antiterror13]

I think you got this turned around. Carrier operations is all about using the aircraft as offensive weapon. The fleet is there to protect the carrier which carries the offensive weapon. That is because the using aircraft as offensive weapon has advantages such as range, sustainability, better fire power and lower cost per bomb.

As to having bigger missiles and bigger aircraft, you have to think of the whole thing as a package. If you increase the size of the missile or aircraft, you increase the range for these weapons, but would the fleet be able to see that far out? A carrier group with AWACS circling on top can only see another ship 200-300 km out no matter the size of the radar. This will not increase even if you switch to next gen aircraft that has the range of 10,000 miles. The large missiles will likely mean a very large ship, but if you can't see what you are hitting, then it does you no good to blindly extend the range of the missile without also the ability to acquire your target further out. Unfortunately acquiring target further out is limited by the curvature of the earth.

The U.S. was thinking of attacking land based targets in China. To avoid the defensive missiles like the DF series, they need a longer range aircraft. Even there, as the Chinese can reach out further to touch someone, the increased range of the aircraft simply can't keep up with the advancement in missile technology. At the open sea fighting another carrier group that move about, larger missiles and planes don't make that much sense if you can't find the target.

I don't believe the US was thinking attacking land based target deep inside China with stealth fighters, it's simply a suicide mission ... perhaps with cruise missiles, yes

 

[Blitzo]

the drawing on the box still resembles the old cockpit area more than the new, redesigned one.

That's because the model is not J-XY but rather FC-31.

Xi Yazhou's latest video and his analysis on this aircraft, throughout the video he refers to it as Gyrfalcon 3.0 (as opposed to the black 1.0 and the grey 2.0 prototypes)

Things that he noticed that we also have:

• the main change is the area around and behind the cockpit. It's much thicker now around that area yet this is an aerodynamic feature that should result in lower supersonic drag
• the enlarged nose and forward fuselage should result in both long range as well as a sensor suite comparable to J-20
• with the above, 3.0 is approaching F-35 in size and weight, the main difference being F-35 using a powerful but absurdly high by pass ratio turbofan for a fighter, while 3.0's engines are optimised for speed

Rumours that he heard that he seem to believe:

• Gyrfalcon 2.0's supposed advantage in structural weight as proportion of full weight (world record apparently) should be taken with a grain of salt because it wasn't designed as a real fighter, so it doesn't take into account electrical and cooling needs of a big AESA radar for example. The actual production 3.0 though would still be quite light for its size though.
• AVIC staff at Zhuhai told him should there be customers interested in buying this plane they will not be buying 3.0 but rather, 2.0 will be further developed and offered up for sale. This is so that foreign sales can proceed without endangering PLA secrets, similar to the export orientated VT-4 tank.
• rumour says 3.0 has same weapon bay dimension as J-20 and much bigger than than the small weapon bays of 1.0 and 2.0. This would mean should hypersonic missile ala Kh-47M2 Kinzhal be developed for J-20 they should also be usable on 3.0, which would give PLAN naval aviation tremendous firepower
• when powered by WS-19, 3.0 will reach a top speed of over mach 2.2 and have superior supercruise capability than WS-15 equipped J-20, although its top speed would still be inferior by a little bit
• even with the current WS-13E engines 3.0 has very good performance around the transonic region and excellent in high speed high altitude as that's the engine's strong point. The downside is this engine is quite fuel thirsty
• the price paid in all the above strong points is very complex aerodynamics which took a long time and a lot of money to optimise
• as with F-35B and C, when uses at sea 3.0 will face the same maintenance nightmares. As such it will remain the "spearhead" force while the bulk of the carrier's plane will still be made up of J-15, same as on the other side of the pacific with F/A-18.

Some of these rumours are plausible, some are less so.

Specifically, the idea that J-20 and J-XY have the same size weapons bay is one that we've heard before, but I am very skeptical of a hypersonic weapon like Kinzhal can be carried internally in a weapons bay the size of J-20/J-XY.

Unless they're able to significantly reduce the size of hypersonic weapons to something like a JSM or Kh-59MK2 size.

 

[se7enthwave]

Some artwork (Image via wb/钢铁机机）

View attachment 78719

No DSI intake on the 3.0?

 

[plawolf]

I think you got this turned around. Carrier operations is all about using the aircraft as offensive weapon. The fleet is there to protect the carrier which carries the offensive weapon. That is because the using aircraft as offensive weapon has advantages such as range, sustainability, better fire power and lower cost per bomb.

As to having bigger missiles and bigger aircraft, you have to think of the whole thing as a package. If you increase the size of the missile or aircraft, you increase the range for these weapons, but would the fleet be able to see that far out? A carrier group with AWACS circling on top can only see another ship 200-300 km out no matter the size of the radar. This will not increase even if you switch to next gen aircraft that has the range of 10,000 miles. The large missiles will likely mean a very large ship, but if you can't see what you are hitting, then it does you no good to blindly extend the range of the missile without also the ability to acquire your target further out. Unfortunately acquiring target further out is limited by the curvature of the earth.

The U.S. was thinking of attacking land based targets in China. To avoid the defensive missiles like the DF series, they need a longer range aircraft. Even there, as the Chinese can reach out further to touch someone, the increased range of the aircraft simply can't keep up with the advancement in missile technology. At the open sea fighting another carrier group that move about, larger missiles and planes don't make that much sense if you can't find the target.

Broadly agree, but there are some very important differences.

The first and most fundamental issue is that AWACS is primarily for fleet defence and will not be used for long range recon. As such, the detection range of AWACS is really not be limiting factor to fleet air strike range like you are suggesting.

With modern satellites, stealthy UAVs, super/hypersonic high altitude recon drones and potentially quasi-space planes all operationally deployed or well on their way to coming online, I think the age where CSGs can expect to be able to reliably ‘disappear’ into the fog of war on deployments are numbered, if not already up.

As such, the range and other core attributes of manned carrier aircraft is going to become much more important. Because as modern recon tech advances, the detection and engagement ranges are going to massively open up in carrier vs carrier engagements.

If your carrier fighters are significantly outranged by your opponents’ then you are immediately at a massive disadvantage because the enemy has the option to stay out of harms way while holding your fleet at risk. It doesn’t matter if they have a KP of zero in spamming conventional AShMs at your fleet, because in doing so they force you to expending naval SAMs that cannot easily be replenished at sea while their strike aircraft can rearm with fresh AShMs at will. Even the most ancient AShMs will get the job done if you got no SAMs left to shoot them down.

It is for this reason I see both the J15 and superbug persisting in the carrier air wings of both Chinese and American carriers for a long time to come. The J15 especially, as it should offer a significant range and load carrying edge over all other carrier capable fighters, thereby potentially giving Chinese carriers a significant range advantage.

 

[Totoro]

The J15 especially, as it should offer a significant range and load carrying edge over all other carrier capable fighters, thereby potentially giving Chinese carriers a significant range advantage.

We don't know J15's range, though. At least I've never seen it claimed by anything remotely resembling a decent source.

All we have to go by is Su-33's range, which isn't really superior.
And just how much better is J15 in range department over Su-33 is, again, an unknown. We can't just pull some figure out of thin air . for example "oh it's surely 30% lighter than su33!" and then muse about possible range and payload advantages.

 

[Temstar]

That's because the model is not J-XY but rather FC-31.




Some of these rumours are plausible, some are less so.

Specifically, the idea that J-20 and J-XY have the same size weapons bay is one that we've heard before, but I am very skeptical of a hypersonic weapon like Kinzhal can be carried internally in a weapons bay the size of J-20/J-XY.

Unless they're able to significantly reduce the size of hypersonic weapons to something like a JSM or Kh-59MK2 size.

After watching the video again I realise I need to clarify a point here: he didn't actually just say "hypersonic weapon" but rather specifically "hypersonic glide vehicle".

Given the dimensions of DF-17's HGV perhaps he's idea is that since they're kind of flat rather than cylindrical the entire weapon bay could be dedicated to carry a single HGV?

 

[Atomicfrog]

After watching the video again I realise I need to clarify a point here: he didn't actually just say "hypersonic weapon" but rather specifically "hypersonic glide vehicle".

Given the dimensions of DF-17's HGV perhaps he's idea is that since they're kind of flat rather than cylindrical the entire weapon bay could be dedicated to carry a single HGV?

That kind of weapon usualy need a booster of some sort to reach hypersonic flight to glide after that.... It could manage to carry the booster and the HGV in the bomb bay the size of j-20 ? Cannot see that... it need a way bigger weapons bay.