SinoSoldier
Colonel
The engine shielding from the sides is quite poor, at least compared to the F-35.
J-35 carrier fighter (PLAN) thread
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Low quality comment. If they wanted to extend some flaps to cover more, they could easily. They chose not to for a reason.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
Wasn't implying that it was an oversight or technical deficiency. The observation stands, whether it be unintended or something that was sacrificed for another technical advantage.
why? it isn't real as in made by anyone related to PLA.
No point to comment, it isn't real.
First of all, why English? PLA isn't made of English speakers. Secondly, there is similar real items photographed. In Chinese "起飞前卸下", literally "Remove before flight".
Are you sure you are comparing the real airframe of FC-31 (J-35) with F-35? And what observation exactly made you reach your conclusion? An one line assertion without acompanying reasoning is very low quality post.
FC-31's side is flat and smooth, it uses DSI, the intake cover lip swapped forwardly to cover the bump and adding more curve. There is nothing different from F-35 in oversight, deficiency, nor any sacrifice of anything.
Your conclusion is based the CGI photo whose intake lips expose DSI more because it does not swap forward as much as the real thing.
In engineering we usually say "shit in, shit out". If you take the wrong input, you will get crappy output.
Kind of off topic but interesting seeing PL-8 training aide on a PF10.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
There's very little going on back there that would be compromised by rear flaps to cover the sides of the engines. Your observation is based on eyeballing. The design was based on thorough thermodynamic studies of the engine and the petal materials as well as the movement/dissipation of the heat in relation to the airflow of the jet while it is flying. They likely covered up what was identified as a risk and left open what they determined to be safe, even if it appears to an untrained eye that they could have hidden the engine much more.
The F-35 also leaves the lover part of the engine nacelle and petals exposed and I doubt it's because they couldn't design the tail to cover a little lower.
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Indeed it is all about tradeoffs, but, you were implying it was an inferior design decision and there's no need to beat around the bush from that, just own it.
A more neutral comment on that observation would be something like "the engine placement of J-35 is more posterior relative to the overall length of the aircraft, while the engine placement of F-35 is more anterior relative to the overall length of the aircraft".
If all other things are held equal:
- Placing the engine (and thus the nozzle) more anteriorly in enables a little bit more transverse obstruction by the tails of the aircraft, relative to if it is place more posteriorly.
- However, placing the engine more posteriorly also means you extend the overall length of the fuselage (as measured from the tip of the nose to the tip of the engine nozzle), giving you additional fuselage volume for fuel and internal subsystems.
Anyway in that specific drawing the nozzles are dilated which exaggerates their transverse visual profile somewhat. In flight, they would be much more contracted and more significantly obstructed by the tails and tailbooms, albeit of course still possessing a slightly more less obstructed transverse signature than F-35. The importance of the extent of direct line of sight to the engine nozzle from the transverse aspect in context of contemporary sensors and the rest of the signature of the aircraft... who knows.
All of which is to say this was a stupid discussion to begin with.
Interestingly enough, with the recent official release of air force variant J-35 photo (the closeup one with the vertical tail) and what we previously had regarding the naval variant, these key-fobs did a surprisingly good job regarding the details. Note that the control surfaces are different between the variants, which is consistent with the actual aircrafts and, in the case of the air force variant, shows correct detail that was unavailable to the general public at the time that these key-fobs were made. (That is, unless we have previously had good quality photos of the air force variant that I was not aware of that made the vertical tail control surface design public knowledge)
Based on the above, I would say that these key-fobs are definitely made by someone with inside knowledge (if not by the military itself)