New J-10 thread II

[Pointblank]

An argument made up by the USN leadership so the US Congress don't force F-16s on them for carrier use. Despite that the USN have been using single engined A-4 Skyhawks and A-8 Corsairs. F-8 Crusaders were in use by the French carriers for thirty years. The British Harrier is single engined too. Lets not forget, the carrier JSF is also single engined.

This argument, or I should say, excuse, need not apply to the PLAN.

Usually, the single engined naval aircraft use engines that are mature and well understood designs. The Pratt & Whitney J52 and J57 that powered the A-4 and F-8 were both well known designs that were mature and well understood engines. The F-35's engine is based off another mature engine design.

So the lesson here is that you should not use engines in a naval aircraft that are not mature and well understood to be reliable and dependable.

 

[crobato]

It doesn't change that single engined aircraft can handle carrier tasks just as well, and the USN's refusal to take on F-16s, which became the most successful fourth generation fighter in the world, is a matter of pride and the peak of inter-service rivalry. Do realize that Harriers are not well known or mature designs either when it first came on board a ship.

On a navalized J-10, I'm not seeing much of an advantage over a navalized J-11 two seater. The J-11 simply has more stores and range, plus a larger radar.

J-10's next update is probably, my speculation, using WS-10A, plus revisions and updates on the avionics and radar.

 

[Pointblank]

It doesn't change that single engined aircraft can handle carrier tasks just as well, and the USN's refusal to take on F-16s, which became the most successful fourth generation fighter in the world, is a matter of pride and the peak of inter-service rivalry. Do realize that Harriers are not well known or mature designs either when it first came on board a ship.

On a navalized J-10, I'm not seeing much of an advantage over a navalized J-11 two seater. The J-11 simply has more stores and range, plus a larger radar.

J-10's next update is probably, my speculation, using WS-10A, plus revisions and updates on the avionics and radar.

A navalized F-16 would not have been as capable as the F/A-18... if you factored in the additional structure and the necessary carrier gear that are needed, the F-16 came out too heavy to be able to offer the kind of performance the Navy was looking for, according to studies done by General Dynamics, the original manufacturer of the F-16. Taking the punishment of a carrier gear setup, slamming onto the deck, and going full power, would pull the F-16 into multiple little pieces.

Mind you, the F-16 and the F/A-18 have a totally different design rationality; the F-16 was initially designed as a cheap, very manueverable dog fighter. It was only later that it was turned into a bomb truck and a medium range fighter with excellent close in capabilities. The F/A-18 was designed from the outset to be capable of launching medium range missiles (using a larger, more capable radar) and be secondary attack aircraft. Different design mentalities present here.

The easiest way to do things is to design and build a carrier based combat plane from scratch. You can remove some structural stuff needed for carrier operations and you can further remove carrier associated equipment and you get a lighter machine that works well as a ground based tactical aircraft. But you can't add structure and carrier gear easily and make a ground based airplane a good carrier based bird. I don't know of many airplanes, especially modern ones, that have gone from a ground based design to a carrier based design. The F/A-18 is a major complete redesign from the old YF-17 that it originated from, and barely even shares the same design.

 

[crobato]

Whatever, the studies aren't very convincing, especially if there is an agenda behind it and under a very politically and lobbyist charged environment. I doubt that General Dynamics made that study. The F-16C airframe had a lot of reinforcement on it and that came soon after the F-16A. The USN also resisted F-15s for the same reason, I'll be damned if a USAF fighter gets on a carrier.

 

[Pointblank]

Whatever, the studies aren't very convincing, especially if there is an agenda behind it and under a very politically and lobbyist charged environment. I doubt that General Dynamics made that study. The F-16C airframe had a lot of reinforcement on it and that came soon after the F-16A. The USN also resisted F-15s for the same reason, I'll be damned if a USAF fighter gets on a carrier.

If you look at the design history of all Western naval aircraft, the vast majority of them are designed from the ground up as a naval fighter. The history of adapting land based aircraft for carrier use, is not a happy one. Even a much more simple type, like Spitfire to Seafire, was not ideal. The aircraft's landing gear was too narrow, performance suffered significantly compared to the land-based variants, was less durable compared to the specialized naval fighters, and the engine torque was problematic throughout the various revisions of the Seafire. Furthermore, airframe wrinking from the stresses of naval operations eventually grounded them all after the war, to be replaced by the purpose built Sea Fury and then later on, jet fighters.

FYI, the F-16 would have needed a lot more reinforcement to withstand the rigours of naval operations than the simple F-16A to C upgrade. The landing gear needs to be significantly beefed up and set farther apart from the stalks it current has, folding wings are also needed for shipboard storage, certain areas would need to be re-designed to prevent corrosion, and a general beefing up of the entire airframe would also be required. Furthermore, the flight characteristics of the F-16 would also need to be modified for carrier landing operations. There would also have to be modifications to the entire nose to withstand the stresses of catapult takeoffs. The tail would also need beefing up and a naval compatible tail hook is also required. The avionics package would also need a check over to make sure that shipboard systems aren't interfering with it, and vice versa. The F/A-18 made many sacrifices in performance in order to achieve dependable and forgiving carrier landing characteristics. The F-16 didn't have to make so many sacrifices to performance.

About the F-15 and the F-14: by the time the F-15 rolled off the assembly line, the F-14 was already in service. The USN still wanted a AIM-54 missile/AWG-9 weapon sytem combination, for defence against large scale attacks by Soviet bombers and missiles. It was botched with the F-111B (too big and too heavy), so they designed a better platform for it, the F-14.

So aside from making major modifications to a land based design, like the F-15, you've also got to shoehorn in a whole new radar system (and any Navy F-15 would be a twin seater due to this), as well as integrating the large AIM-54 missile on an aircraft not designed for it. The F-14 was essentially designed around the AWG-9 radar and the AIM-54 Phoenix missile.

 

[crobato]

Whatever, its still not convincing, since the Navy could have involved themselves in the programs from the start, and there are aircraft that did make the transit from ground based to carrier based successfully, including the MiG-29, Su-27, Typhoon and Rafale.

Problems you present are not impossible to overcome given the technological resources available. Rather, the problems are presented as excuses. The Russians had the exact problems you mentioned and still came out with the Su-33 and MiG-29K. I don't think the US could do no less. With the sole exception of the F-4 Phantom, aircraft dedicated in design for naval service still suffer from all sorts of performance disadvantages compared to their land based aircraft. The F-14, F-18 or the Super Hornet for example, cannot achieve the same acceleration, dash and top speeds as the F-15.

 

[Londo Molari]

I can see how range and payload is critical for carrier aircraft, given that their biggest advantage is giving a navy strike capability. So from that respect J-11 is obviously a better choice.

But would a carrier be able to carry more J-10's than J-11's? How many more?

 

[Pointblank]

Whatever, its still not convincing, since the Navy could have involved themselves in the programs from the start, and there are aircraft that did make the transit from ground based to carrier based successfully, including the MiG-29, Su-27, Typhoon and Rafale.

1. If the aircraft was designed around Navy specs, the aircraft would have less performance than an aircraft designed around Air Force specs... Naval aircraft are generally heavier and have less performance than equivalent ground-based aircraft due to the nature of naval operations. High speed performance would also suffer slightly, as low speed performance is more heavily prefered due to the nature of carrier landings. For example, the F/A-18 and the F-14 both have superb low speed handling characteristics, and are able to turn tighter, and able to pull overall much higher alphas. From what I remember at least that F-14 fitted with exciter vanes during tests (never in operational service) and the F-14D could with it's F-110's pull Pugachev-Cobras and the like (not sure if the F-14D had any modifications to it's glove or more relaxed stability to allow it to be done or not). At high KEAS and Mach numbers the F-14 also had an advantage in terms of maneuverability as well to it's higher swept swing-wings. To the best of my knowledge, all F-14 variants had lighter wing-loading than the F-15 (especially when you count the pancake, which adds 443 square feet of extra wing-area, which when added to the wing's 565 square-foot area effectively increase the total wing area to 1,008 square feet) however the F-14A's thrust to weight ratio was substantially lower.

The F/A-18's low speed performance is due to its design. The Hornet flies very comfortably at AoAs of up to 50 degrees and has great pitch, roll and yaw authority between 25 degrees of AoA and the lift limit of 35 degrees of AoA. In terms of manoeuvrability, across the entire flight envelope, there is only a very small area where the Hornet could out-manoeuvre the F-16 and that is somewhere between 0.3M and 0.5M (right around the speed needed to approach a carrier for landing). The key to this is the highly pronounced LERX's on the Hornet; the LERX generates lift ahead of the centre of gravity. At some angles of attack it will generate vortices which may help high Alpha handling and which (especially on a twin finned aircraft) can help directional stability and control.

The F-15 was better at transonic speed, and intermediate airspeeds, and was better at sustaining high-G turns (though the F-14 was better at instantaneous G's, though, at least at some speeds). The plane had a higher thrust-to-weight ratio, a superior climb-rate, and what appears to be a better rate of roll. It also has a higher top-speed than the F-14A. There might be a small area of the upper high-speed range where the F-15's manoeuvrability begins to rival or exceed that of the F-14 (this is a speculation due to the wing-body fairing set-up - however, if true, the F-14 is generally better at supersonic speed).

But put a F-14 and the F-15 into a dogfight, and the F-14 will come out on top. In fact, just prior to VF-101 retiring their Tomcats, they did some war games with the 159th FW F-15s. When they flew out, it was 6 Eagles and 4 Tomcats. One Tomcat was "shot down" and 5 Eagles were "splashed". All of the dog-fighting was done in close quarters with nothing more than guns and AIM-9s.

Problems you present are not impossible to overcome given the technological resources available. Rather, the problems are presented as excuses. The Russians had the exact problems you mentioned and still came out with the Su-33 and MiG-29K. I don't think the US could do no less. With the sole exception of the F-4 Phantom, aircraft dedicated in design for naval service still suffer from all sorts of performance disadvantages compared to their land based aircraft. The F-14, F-18 or the Super Hornet for example, cannot achieve the same acceleration, dash and top speeds as the F-15

1. MiG-29 and Su-33 do not have to withstand the rigours of catapult launches. Furthermore, the carriers that operate them rarely if ever go to sea, or conduct heavy duty operations. They also do not have to carry heavy ordinance long distances. Typhoon was never navalized, and the Rafale was designed in mind from the ground up as a naval fighter. The naval version of the Rafale weights an extra half a metric ton more than the equivalent air force variant. This cuts into payload, range, and every other performance measurement.

2. Different design mentality between the F-14 and F/A-18 compared to the F-15. The F-14 was designed from the ground up as a fleet interceptor carrying the large AWG-9 radar and the accompanying AIM-54 Phoenix missile. May I remind you that the AIM-54 missile is HUGE. The F-14 was designed to be the Soviet bomber killer that could go out and shoot down Soviet bombers before they could launch their missiles at the carrier.

The F/A-18 was designed as a replacement for the A-4 Skyhawk, the A-7 Corsair II, remaining F-4 Phantom IIs, and to complement the F-14's. With the Navy, they can't afford to put bombers, attack, and fighter aircraft squadrons all on the carrier as space is valuable. For example, even the C-2s don't even stay onboard unless it's a transit. So for the Navy the idea of a fighter that could drop bombs and shoot down enemy aircraft was a valuable one.

 

[challenge]

from wmf.
report that navalized version of J-10 will be power by more powerful 155kn engine (article do not mention what kind of engine) since more thrust is needed for short take off from carrier flight deck.

 

[crobato]

1. MiG-29 and Su-33 do not have to withstand the rigours of catapult launches. Furthermore, the carriers that operate them rarely if ever go to sea, or conduct heavy duty operations. They also do not have to carry heavy ordinance long distances. Typhoon was never navalized, and the Rafale was designed in mind from the ground up as a naval fighter. The naval version of the Rafale weights an extra half a metric ton more than the equivalent air force variant. This cuts into payload, range, and every other performance measurement.

Most of the rigors is in the landings not launches. On the second sentence, the carriers that carry them do plan to go to the sea quite often, and whether they didn't actually do so, does not play a part in the parameters of the aircraft design. So are you suggesting that the MiG-29K and Su-33K are designed only for light duty? That's ridiculous.

The Typhoon had plans to be navalized. The Rafale gaining half a ton isn't that much, and should be acceptable. Extra weight can be compensated with an increase in engine power and lift area. The fact remains that a land based aircraft can be made into a carrier aircraft, or that both services can take part of a common design that will produce for both.

A lot of what happened in the sixties and seventies had more to do with inter service rivalry and the entire core of the JSF is to erase that historical legacy. I won't put a spin on it. There is no justification for an entirely separate aircraft design for either the Navy and the Air Force.

The F/A-18's low speed performance is due to its design. The Hornet flies very comfortably at AoAs of up to 50 degrees and has great pitch, roll and yaw authority between 25 degrees of AoA and the lift limit of 35 degrees of AoA. In terms of manoeuvrability, across the entire flight envelope, there is only a very small area where the Hornet could out-manoeuvre the F-16 and that is somewhere between 0.3M and 0.5M (right around the speed needed to approach a carrier for landing). The key to this is the highly pronounced LERX's on the Hornet; the LERX generates lift ahead of the centre of gravity. At some angles of attack it will generate vortices which may help high Alpha handling and which (especially on a twin finned aircraft) can help directional stability and control.

For the most part, this same design exists for the YF-17, LERXs, wing design and all. For the most part, naval design wasn't part of it originally. The F-16 also has LERX.

But put a F-14 and the F-15 into a dogfight, and the F-14 will come out on top. In fact, just prior to VF-101 retiring their Tomcats, they did some war games with the 159th FW F-15s. When they flew out, it was 6 Eagles and 4 Tomcats. One Tomcat was "shot down" and 5 Eagles were "splashed". All of the dog-fighting was done in close quarters with nothing more than guns and AIM-9s.

So you have an exercise where the rules are set in favor for the close quarter fighters? What if the rules are different or set more naturally like the way fighters would actually fight? Do you know that an aircraft that can climb faster, accelerate faster, flies at a higher altitude has major advantages in BVR combat? F-15s have gotten trashed in exercises with MiG-21s (like Cope) and even to Jaguars like in the UK, often because they're forced into a rule set that is not advantageous to that aircraft's mission design. The F-14 suffers from its own problem, low TWR means its not an ideal fighter to play out Boyd's EM theories; the sweep wing and its position tends to telegraph the aircraft's energy and speed state; and not the least, the roll rate isn't very good.

Low wing loading isn't exclusively naval requirement. Its universal. Its what everyone wants. The Air Force does not set a high wing loading into its aircraft as a requirement, and just about everyone else too. The F-22, Typhoon and Rafale also has low wing loading.