New J-10 thread II

[AmiGanguli]

This is purely speculation (as with all of us, I think), but I think the J-10 will be deployed in reasonable numbers, but it will be succeeded more quickly than typical of the West or of China in the past.

I think (again, mostly my own assumption) they're looking to build an air force comparable to the U.S. in the 2040-2050 time frame. In order to do that they need to gradually build both their R&D and production capability.

Figure a new fighter every 10 years, so J-10+1 around 2014, j-10+2 around 2024, etc. That's achievable, given that the J-xx has been under work since the 1990s.

Quantity-wise, it's wasteful to produce too many planes now, but you need to gradually increase production capacity to about 400/year in 2050. A total production of about 700 to 1000 J-10s by 2014 would seem like a sane number.

So it would be seen as a full-production fighter given the size of the PLAF today, but if you were looking back from 2050 it would seem very much like a transitional plane produced in moderate numbers.

By comparison, I think the USAF has about 2200 F-16s.

... Ami.

 

[tphuang]

a couple of points, I don't remember exactly which AVIC 1 article it was, but I did read that WS-10A production has matured to the point where they are mass producing it right now. It's in one of the articles in the WS-10A thread that we have. As for J-10 not equipping WS-10A right now, that's not true. There are J-10s using WS-10A, but just a small fraction. A while back in 2005, we even had an article that speculated production of 60 WS-10A the following year. Anyhow, if China does not put in an order for AL-31FN over the remainder of this year, I'm pretty sure they will never order AL-31FN again.

As for production rate of J-10, I don't think the bottleneck is CAC's assembling capacity but rather available funding and absorption rate. Given which, it's wiser to not only produce about 50 J-10s, but also upgrade the existing J-10s to the most recent configuration.

 

[crobato]

Just cannot simply compare Reagan era/Cold War era standard in manufacturing planes. Even the Soviet Union made over a hundred Flankers a year (but look at the quality!)

What happened with the F-16 isn't going to be repeated again. Reagan administration was determined to build a massive arms race to show the Soviet Union the resolve of the US after the Vietnam War casted a bad stain. NATO was already facing a major plane deficit in numbers; collectively, NATO was already being outnumbered at least 3 to 1, and local concentrations, with the Warsaw Pact on the offensive and hitting forward bases with SSMs, would make the ratios worst.

It is far too expensive even to mass manufacture F-15s and F-14s even then. The US needed to throw numbers and the F-16 was it. Reagan adminstration was determined to build the F-16s by the hundreds so that its actual fly away cost would go down from 20 million dollars a piece (dollars in those days) to as low as 8 million dollars a piece. For that to happen, it was also determined to pull the rug out of competing fighter projects like the F-20 Tigershark (forbade it to be sold to Taiwan), and sell the F-16 to every ally and potential ally in the world. The US went as far as pushing F-16 related technologies to indigenous fighter programs around the world, from Japan's F-2, to Israel's Lavi, and to Taiwan's Ching Kuo (General Dynamics was the active partner). Its not even a surprise that the F-16 was even offered to the PRC, but which was obviously too poor to afford it.

If you were to see the F-16 production rates, the vast bulk ended around the early nineties. Vast majority of USAF F-16s are only up to the Block 50/52, delivered before Taiwan got its Block 20s. From then on, the customers thin out for those receiving Block 52/52 plus like S Korea, Israel, Singapore, Greece, Poland, though production remains healthy, but its like around 300 or so from 2000 to 2010. Not at the same rate as the eighties. This is more like a normal rate of production.

IMO, JSF program, expected to build 3000, is pretty optimistic. But then its looking at a product cycle of 40 years, so they expect the plane to made for a long time, and not compressed in half a decade like the F-16. I do expect its costs to soar, and that will seriously cut the numbers further and countries will look for cheaper alternatives, like the Gripen or just MLUing used F-16s.

China does not face a cold war situation where the tank divisions of the Soviet Union was at its border. China didn't make those 3000 plus J-6s for nothing.

However, no such pressure exists today. Super Hornet production is expected to be in the hundreds. Heck, peak Super Hornet production is not going to exceed 48 a year. Typhoon production is expected in the hundreds. We're not looking at the thousands of aircraft per type like we saw during the Cold War (over nearly 2,400 Starfighters built for example).

Originally China was looking at making as much as 1200 J-10s in its lifetime, which I thought was a bit optmistic. This combines both potential export and PLAAF use. The numbers for FC-1 was projected even lower, at 500.

 

[AmiGanguli]

Just cannot simply compare Reagan era/Cold War era standard in manufacturing planes. Even the Soviet Union made over a hundred Flankers a year (but look at the quality!)

What happened with the F-16 isn't going to be repeated again.

What do you think the "final" number of aircraft of all types will be for China in 2050? (Given that this can change dramatically depending on the political situation.)

I think the target for China isn't to have the world's largest air force, but it wants to at least be in the same game. So a lot depends on what the U.S. does.

... Ami.

 

[Scratch]

Given which, it's wiser to not only produce about 50 J-10s, but also upgrade the existing J-10s to the most recent configuration.

Around ten days ago you posted an article that spoke about major changes on an importand project (most likely J-10).
From that and the following comments on it, I would guess that current J-10s couldn't/wouldn't be upgraded to that version.
If that is true, is it possible that the production rate of current J-10s will stay rather low (just to keep a certain pace of modernisation), until the matured one comes online? Then you have few hundred early version J-10 wich would make a transition.
On the other hand opeval'ing the new one will again take time and I would guess that PLAAF has not yet really experiance with the J-10 either.
And, as I already said, PLAAF at one time must simply start to introduce an aircraft in large numbers now, IMO.

 

[fishhead]

The current production rate of J10 is very low, around 500/10years, ws-10a is even lower than that. The report says WS-10a will go to J10 this year, so the engine hasn't been equiped on J-10 in a formal way yet, it's current production rate maybe around 30/year.

J-10 is a good airplane, but only compared with F16 class fighters. In next 10 years we are going to see next generation fighters being deployed in large volume. All Chinese news/source I read indicate that focus is shifted to the new generation fighters, or modified version of J-10. No sign to see Chinese to ramp up the current configuration J-10 production, that's about it.

My feeling is that before long, we may see the succeedor of J-10 coming out. The high profile public promotion of J-10 at the beginning of year, indicates the closure of this milestone, instead of its debut, in Chinese tradition.

 

[fishhead]

Around ten days ago you posted an article that spoke about major changes on an importand project (most likely J-10).

That news helped to solve a big puzzle for me, the Zhuhai Airshow in Nov 2006.

As we know, CAC at that time got everything ready for J10 going public, even paint job and promotion material. But that plan was killed by PLAAF at the last minute. Only one month later, J10 went into public in an unpreceeding way, its information is every where. What changed it in just a short month?

The report said the new aircraft went out from drawing board in Dec, 2006. I think that's it, PLAAF was convinced no need to hide J10 any more, they are going to have new toy soon. The report says the new aircraft has a big change in fuselage, but not internal interface, many discussion in Chinese forum, joined by insiders, hinted it's for stealth.

 

[Deino]

... :china:

 

[tphuang]

Around ten days ago you posted an article that spoke about major changes on an importand project (most likely J-10).
From that and the following comments on it, I would guess that current J-10s couldn't/wouldn't be upgraded to that version.
If that is true, is it possible that the production rate of current J-10s will stay rather low (just to keep a certain pace of modernisation), until the matured one comes online? Then you have few hundred early version J-10 wich would make a transition.
On the other hand opeval'ing the new one will again take time and I would guess that PLAAF has not yet really experiance with the J-10 either.
And, as I already said, PLAAF at one time must simply start to introduce an aircraft in large numbers now, IMO.

I'm not holding my breath for it. No idea how much longer we will have to wait until this radically modified J-10 shows up. Currently, I was just referring to the avionics upgrade from the first production J-10s to now.

The current production rate of J10 is very low, around 500/10years, ws-10a is even lower than that. The report says WS-10a will go to J10 this year, so the engine hasn't been equiped on J-10 in a formal way yet, it's current production rate maybe around 30/year.

where did you get 30/year from? where did you get 500/10 years from? As I said before, WS-10A are on a limited number of J-10s. It's quite clear that the original 154 AL-31FN have already been used up and that WS-10A is the only choice they have.

And, I would not call J-10 production rate low. Other than J-6s, which former plaaf fighter have been produced more than this rate?

 

[crobato]

What do you think the "final" number of aircraft of all types will be for China in 2050? (Given that this can change dramatically depending on the political situation.)

I think the target for China isn't to have the world's largest air force, but it wants to at least be in the same game. So a lot depends on what the U.S. does.

... Ami.

According to HJT, China's military might will reflect its economic size. Between today and 2020, it may exceed the US in terms of GDP/PPP and in 2050, by absolute PPP. That's way too far to make predictions.

All I will say is that China isn't going to be caught once again in a situation where it will have thousands of outmoded aircraft.

The PLAAF will focus on technology, and maintain a moderate size, probably roughtly about a thousand aircraft. This will enable it to purchase relatively expensive, but far more capable aircraft in small to moderate numbers. Keeping your size mean and lean also means paying less for your logistics and infrastructure, make the entire force easy to upgrade as a whole. China will probably maintain a boneyard of obsolete aircraft as a reserve as they do with J-6s and J-7s currently.

By 2050, we're not even sure if fighters will still be manned or not.