JF-17 Thunder / FC-1 News, Discussion & Media

Re: JF-17: New Pics

sumdud said:

Well, China is developing the WS-13, which is suppose to be an improvement on the RD-93 I think. The RD-93 isn't the best engine since it leaves a trail of black smoke.

Then there is the WS-9, which is about the size of the RD also, but no news ever indicated of it being use.

The problem is, China's engine industry isn't good.

Click to expand...

I may have to disagree with you on that one. Several months ago I would have thought the same thing, but now I am actually beginning to beleive that China is finally starting to pick up on its engine industry. Just think of it this way: the Russians are not going to sell the RD-93 to Pakistan. Well, if China's WS-13 doesn't fullfill Pakistan's requirements, then Pakistan would actually be looking for other engines. However, there has not been a single word that Pakistan is going for another engine. This means that the WS-13 may satisfy Pakistan's requirements and it also means that this is the first time in a long time that Pakistan is becoming satisfied with Chinese air equipment.

Re: JF-17: New Pics

crazyinsane105 said:

I may have to disagree with you on that one. Several months ago I would have thought the same thing, but now I am actually beginning to beleive that China is finally starting to pick up on its engine industry. Just think of it this way: the Russians are not going to sell the RD-93 to Pakistan. Well, if China's WS-13 doesn't fullfill Pakistan's requirements, then Pakistan would actually be looking for other engines. However, there has not been a single word that Pakistan is going for another engine. This means that the WS-13 may satisfy Pakistan's requirements and it also means that this is the first time in a long time that Pakistan is becoming satisfied with Chinese air equipment.

Click to expand...

EXACTLY.

If you followed the other threads on the world military forum it seem's that Pakistan has been heavily pushing Chinese equipment in the middle east particularly with Saudia. So obviously pretty soon we should be expecting some fairly large orders from the middle eastern countries ? If Pakistan is going to be using Chinese equipment as standard for it's military then it makes sense for these countries also to do the same thing because of the longstanding Pakistani military commitment.

Having said that Pakistan has had an overall good experience with Chinese aircraft when it comes to quality of the product per se.

Re: JF-17: New Pics

crazyinsane105 said:

I may have to disagree with you on that one. Several months ago I would have thought the same thing, but now I am actually beginning to beleive that China is finally starting to pick up on its engine industry. Just think of it this way: the Russians are not going to sell the RD-93 to Pakistan. Well, if China's WS-13 doesn't fullfill Pakistan's requirements, then Pakistan would actually be looking for other engines. However, there has not been a single word that Pakistan is going for another engine. This means that the WS-13 may satisfy Pakistan's requirements and it also means that this is the first time in a long time that Pakistan is becoming satisfied with Chinese air equipment.

Click to expand...

Well, I think that China's turbofan technology is still quite far behind. Of course, it's advancing reasonably well with the completion of WS-9 and WS-10. WS-13 is a reasonably advanced engine and quite suitable for JF-17. It should be noted that we are still 20 years behind the Americans in this field. That is probably China's weakest field.

I would rank China's weakest field in terms of fighter to:
1. engine
2. stealth shaping
3. RAM paint
4. radar
5. long range AAM
6. short range AAM
7. rest of the avionics
8. airframe (in terms of aerodynamics)

Re: JF-17: New Pics

sumdud said:

Well, China is developing the WS-13, which is suppose to be an improvement on the RD-93 I think. The RD-93 isn't the best engine since it leaves a trail of black smoke.
Then there is the WS-9, which is about the size of the RD also, but no news ever indicated of it being use.
The problem is, China's engine industry isn't good.

Click to expand...

IMO even if PRC's aircraft industry is not the most advanced, there's no reason why they cannot produce an engine suitable for the JF-17. If we were to say "China's jet engine tech is 20 years behind the west", we should also consider the Mirage 2000's SNECMA M53 power plant is 20 years old too:


However, from a cost-benefit point of view, it may be cheaper to import. The PRC has lower production cost, but if you add R&D expenses, the cost per unit might far exceed Russian (or even French) imports. Remember that the JF-17 is not intended to be an expensive fighter. If you're targetting customers on a budget, then the price per unit should be kept low.

Re: JF-17: New Pics

So what if china suddenly re-exported the rd-93 to pakistan? is russia going to launch military sanctions on china? I dont think so

Still, some customers might not like a third party engine being used on the plane. If ws-13s is truly going to be out by 2008, we have no problem.

Re: JF-17: New Pics

tphuang said:

I would rank China's weakest field in terms of fighter to:
1. engine
2. stealth shaping
3. RAM paint
4. radar
5. long range AAM
6. short range AAM
7. rest of the avionics
8. airframe (in terms of aerodynamics)

Click to expand...

TP,
i would put short range AAM somewhere top in the list. Haven't heard about any SRAAM development on Chinese side after PL9C which is basically an improvement on Python-3 if i am not wrong. Israel has moved on to Python-5. China needs to atleast produce SRAAMs comparable or better than Python-4.

Re: JF-17: New Pics

maglomanic said:

TP,
i would put short range AAM somewhere top in the list. Haven't heard about any SRAAM development on Chinese side after PL9C which is basically an improvement on Python-3 if i am not wrong. Israel has moved on to Python-5. China needs to atleast produce SRAAMs comparable or better than Python-4.

Click to expand...

actually, PL-9C is said to be comparable to R-73/AIM-9M and better them in certain areas. It is integrated with HMS and has offboresight. The new SRAAM is supposedly in development, let's hope the next one has TVC engine and IIR.

As for RD-93, I don't think exporting it to Pakistan will be a problem. The Russians will pay lip service for India's sake, but that's about it. However, exporting to other countries will be different, since Russia will then stand to loose money on it.

Re: JF-17: New Pics

Quoted by tphuang:
__________________
As for RD-93, I don't think exporting it to Pakistan will be a problem. The Russians will pay lip service for India's sake, but that's about it.
__________________
The export of the RD-93 by China to to a third nation shall be doe upon permission of Russia.
Even though Russian jets do not compete i the Pakistani market, Russia has stated that the export (or re-export) of the RD-93 engines to Pakistan will not be permitted.

Due to the same reason, is also unlikely that the WS-13 engines (copy of the RD-93) shall be allowed to be exported/licence produced to Pakistan.

Source:
1]
2] Report by Jane's Defence Weekly on the sale of RD-93 engines to China; dated 3-4 months ago.

Re: JF-17: New Pics

Indianfighter said:

Quoted by tphuang:
__________________
As for RD-93, I don't think exporting it to Pakistan will be a problem. The Russians will pay lip service for India's sake, but that's about it.
__________________
The export of the RD-93 by China to to a third nation shall be doe upon permission of Russia.
Even though Russian jets do not compete i the Pakistani market, Russia has stated that the export (or re-export) of the RD-93 engines to Pakistan will not be permitted.

Due to the same reason, is also unlikely that the WS-13 engines (copy of the RD-93) shall be allowed to be exported/licence produced to Pakistan.

Source:
1]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

2] Report by Jane's Defence Weekly on the sale of RD-93 engines to China; dated 3-4 months ago.

Click to expand...

actually, you are wrong on this part. WS-13 is not a licenced copy of RD-93. I think that China just used RD-93 has a basis to develop WS-13. The specs for the two engines are quite different. WS-13 is supposed to have much superior core, because it will be used for future engines. Considering that China is trying to export JF-17 and its main opponent would be Mig-29, it doesn't make sense for WS-13 to be at the mercy of the Russians.

As for the Pakistani part, it's true that the Russians have said that they won't allow it, but I've also heard that the Russians are just saying this to apppease the Indians. In actual fact, they have written assurances to the Chinese that the engines would be allowed to get used on PAF JF-17s.

Re: JF-17: New Pics

maglomanic said:

TP,
i would put short range AAM somewhere top in the list. Haven't heard about any SRAAM development on Chinese side after PL9C which is basically an improvement on Python-3 if i am not wrong. Israel has moved on to Python-5. China needs to atleast produce SRAAMs comparable or better than Python-4.

Click to expand...

The python 5 is just emergine, and its full stats arnt out yet. If the python four is indeed an improved python 3, it shouldnt be much superior to the pl-9c. The range of the python 4 is 3 times as much as the pl-9c, but that shoudlnt matter too much for an sraam.

indianfighter, china does not appear to be actively developing a rd-93 replacement(expt ws-13), so the re-export issue clearly is not so severe. As china may eventually buy hundreds of rd-93s to supply pakistan, russia is in a position to make quite bit of money.