Dude, please chill. Why get angry over such a matter? Why yell? Getting more on topic - no one knows for sure, we all know that. It's just how everything in the military world goes - especially so with china. So we're left with guessing based on what has been reported on the newsites. Which is that, after the initial prototype phase, for which we do not know how many engines there were and how many preproduction planes were made, 54 engines were purchased in 2002 and all delivered by 2004. Then in august 2005 it was announced another deal for 100 engines was made. Some claim delivery started by the end of the year, of course no one can confirm or deny that. I would assume the rate of delivery must be faster than with the first batch of engines, simply cause its expensive to maintain a production line for CAC with just a trickle of airplanes being made.
In the end? Who knows? Maybe china has just 10 j-10s, and they repaint the numbers on the all the time and just send them around. Maybe ws-10 has been adopted for use on j-10 and is already being installed in new planes and theres 150 of them already. Maybe we are both just dreaming things while actually being part of the evil matrix world. I certainly won't lose any sleep over the number of planes china might or might not have. While my initial projection, at the time i made it, should've perhaps read 50-90 planes i am guessing (like anyone else here) that today's number could very well be in the 70-100 range, depending on the number of engines delivered and the number of engines existing before the 2002 engine order.
As for number of extra engines, greece for example considered an order for 40 f-16 at one time (30 they bought in the end, 10 left as an option) and that deal had lots of details announced, among them 6 extra engines. that's 46 engines total for 40 planes. If we assume russian engines need 50% more extra spares that's 44 planes in the initial production phase that lasted for 2.5-3 years now. It is again then assumed that production had to ramp up and that chinese had assurances that next batch of engines would come faster (with enough money anything is possible). further 100 engines would be enough for additional 82 planes.
So, lowest possible number is probably around 40-45 production planes. I guess some of us here don't think that's likeley, hence the 70-100 figure. I guess its my fault not to add the lowest figure into account but just give the probable and max number. So once to end it for all - 40 planes minimum number, 100 planes maximum, likely number of planes - 70. Do i have hard proof for any of this? Absolutely not.
EDIT: I hate making this into one long post but since forum rules state no double posting... If true, the post on CDF about news item that salyut issued at berlin air show over the engines for china sheds some new light on the possible number of planes. It states that 60 engines have been delivered while remaining 40 being ready by june with china probably approving them by july. So we have some 8 months during which 60 engines have been delivered, obviously in few large batches, starting possibly as early as september, with engines russians had on stock. lets assume october for confirmation. It would allow for some 8-9 planes per month since then - obviously way more than china can produce, but it was stated some were versions fit for j-11 anyway. So i'll revise my estimate once again. If the pre 2002 batch of engines for preproduction planes was minimal, just for prototypes and such then CAC could have made 45 production planes by october, and since then a larger scale production beginning from november with some 70 production planes done by end of april 2006. Of course, that doesnt equal to 70 planes in plaaf service.
