PLA Air Force news, pics and videos

sunnymaxi said:

France is not even in competition right now..

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Of course not. The French are best at helicopter engines. CFM is a cooperation with GE, they only make engines for A320 class aircraft, and while Safran do have the M88 and TP400 engines they import engine metal castings from the US. Lame like heck.

Tomboy said:

Is CJ-2000A going to be a GTF? Major western manufacturers like RR coming up with stuff like Ultrafan, GTF technology has probably matured long enough that reliability won't be a issue like the PW1000G anymore. I fail to see how a conventional turbofan is going to match up with Ultrafan and other upcoming products.

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I doubt it. At least not initially. Chinese design is typically incremental. Adding GTF technology would hugely increase the chance of project failure.

Don't bother yourself too much with the Ultrafan. RR made the biggest prototype they could. There is no aircraft design in Europe big enough. This is a Boeing 777X class engine. And that aircraft already has an engine.

They will probably shrink the Ultrafan so it can fit an existing aircraft. Another 5 years to shrink the engine and more years to make the new aircraft model.

gelgoog said:

Of course not. The French are best at helicopter engines. CFM is a cooperation with GE, they only make engines for A320 class aircraft, and while Safran do have the M88 and TP400 engines they import engine metal castings from the US. Lame like heck.

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as an old industrial power they are disappointed so far.. all their flagship civilian programs are joint ventures. maybe they don't have resource to spend more in military projects.

gelgoog said:

I doubt it. At least not initially. Chinese design is typically incremental. Adding GTF technology would hugely increase the chance of project failure.

Don't bother yourself too much with the Ultrafan. RR made the biggest prototype they could. There is no aircraft design in Europe big enough. This is a Boeing 777X class engine. And that aircraft already has an engine.

They will probably shrink the Ultrafan so it can fit an existing aircraft. Another 5 years to shrink the engine and more years to make the new aircraft model.

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as per their own statement, UltraFan is due to be available to the market in the 2030s.

In my opinion the best use for the Ultrafan would be for an A320 replacement aircraft. The A320 entered service in the 1980s. It is getting pretty long on the tooth as a design. The lack of an engine without US tech in it for the A320NEO is also a problem.

C919 better watch out.

Another choice would be scaling up the A220 to replace the A320 and make some kind of replacement for the A321 and A330.

I doubt Boeing will use a Rolls-Royce engine in a new project with Trump in.

The French M88 isn't particularly impressive for its weight class. It's 75 kN max thrust. The EJ-200 is 90 kN, the F414 is 98 kN, the WS-19 is somewhere around 110-116 kN. I do wonder why.

Indian update on PLAAF basing developments along frontier:


I still don't understand why the massively developed Hotan AB still doesn't have HAS, or Shigatse Peace for that matter.

Edit: And on the back of that article I've just noticed what looks like a similar number of HAS being built at Burang airport:


Further edit: And Tingri:


Seriously a massive air infrastructure buildout along the border!

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Excerpts from an academic paper on an ejectable escape crew module for a high-supersonic aircraft, with the listed (escape module operational) top speed of Mach 4 and at altitude of 30 kilometers (~98000 feet). Posted by @兰墨飞花_星海入梦日出烟燧 on Weibo.

Side note: ~31.4 meters of length is just shy of the SR-71 Blackbird's 32.74 meters.

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The full academic paper (published in 2020):

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Looks very much like the design of the escape capsule in the F-111. And there is nothing wrong with that, since it worked. More on that design here:

Escape capsules are expensive like heck to design and build and kinda useless.

A twin-missile pylon adapter and a multiple ejector rack.

While posted in the respective J-36 and J-XDS threads, I believe this news is also significant, in light of the recent development of the Lop Nur test base to deserve a separate post here.


Note that the secretive test base was thus far known to be where military-related reusable spacecrafts were tested and conducted landings - That is, until the arrival of the J-36 and J-XDS.

@foolsball on Twitter also noted that there are 3 smaller hangars which were built quickly during the arrival of the J-36 and J-XDS at the test site.



In addition, here's how the test site looked like back in August 2022:



The overall test site is also undergoing a massive expansion work in recent months, and is still underway as of today. Here's how the site looks like today (photo taken 3 November 2025):



Hence, this development should be pretty evident - Lop Nur is likely to become not just a secretive test base for hosting military-related spacecrafts, but also growing into the testing and evaluation of manned warplanes. In the meantime, I would expect the Lop Nur test site to become much more expansive and developed than it is now, should it become an extensive testing and evaluation facility for future PLAAF projects.

In a nutshell, I suppose this would mean that both Lop Nur and Malan should constitute as Chinese counterparts to Groom Lake (Area 51) and Tonopah (Area 52), albeit with Lop Nur being manned (and spacecraft)-focused and with Malan being unmanned-focused.

A brochure on various pylons, adapters, and ejector racks for manned and unmanned systems.