PLAN Carrier Strike Group and Airwing

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: PLAN Carrier Construction

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Well, if I had to guess, I would say that they are going to have to redesign the front gear on the J-15.

Just from the looks of it, as compared to the F-18 you show, it is a very tall gear without the major, beefy support struts coming off of it. You can see that support coming back from the middle of the F-18's nose gear. What there is on the J-15 is much smaller and much higher up.

I was honored to work on the later variants of the A-7 Corsair II. In that case the aircraft sat somewhat lower to the deck, and the front gear itself had the wheels on the back side of an angled apparatus, where the point of that apparatus was forward, with a heavy strut down to the wheels, and another strut angling up into the aircraft where it was anchored. It was an ingenious design. Take a look at its gear and you will see that it is not a straight down to the wheels with a heavy brace mid way up. The gear holding the wheels was actually part of the brace.

As to the J-15, a cat is going to put a huge moment arm on that gear, and I think it is going to have to be redesigned to provide the necessary support.

But again, that's just my impression, not knowing precisely what materials are being used and how they are being anchored, one cannot say for certain, but looking at it, if I had to guess, I would say that the front gear is likely to have to be redesigned for catapult operations.
 

kwaigonegin

Colonel
Re: PLAN Carrier Construction

I think there are other reasons to think the current geometry of J-15's nose gear isn't ideal for a minimum change adaptation to cat launch.

Take for example the point where the back strut connects to the nose gear. The strut on the J-15 connects to the nose gear relatively high up on the gear leg compared on the what is found on the known catapult adapted gears such as those on the F/A-18, F-14, A-6, F-35C, and E-2. Having the strut connection high up means the point of connection of catapult tow bar would also be high up. This would force J-15's tow bar to be very long in order to reach down to the deck and engage catapult shoe. I wouldn't say it is impossible to adapt this configuration for cat use, but it would seem much less than ideal.


The same with the long oleo in the nose gear. J-15 gear back struct connects at the same level as the strut on the Su-27/J-11. In Su-27 this facilitates a long oleo strut in the nose gear, which improves available suspension travel when the nose gear is rolling over rough ground, and this imporves Su-27's ability to taxi, land and take off on poorly prepared fields. It appears to me J-15 has the same oleo length as Su-27/J-11. But on a carrier the field is as good as it gets. Having a long oleo could actually be a problem because when the catapult fire, it would cause the long-travel oleo to compress a lot, which would cause the aircraft to pitch down a lot as it begins its roll. Again, I can't say this makes catapult adaptation impossible, but it certainly doesn't seem the J-15 gear has been optimized for this possibility.

Very well written Chuck! I agree 100%. I think PLAN definitely needs to modify the forward gear somewhat for catapult launch.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: PRC President reviews PLAN Naval Air

If it were Putin he would be flying the J-15 himself, shirtless. But again there's the whole formality issue.
And while he were was in the cockpit, he'd fly to Siberia and he would hunt a Siberian Tiger with the J-15 and not even use its missiles or guns. He would swoop down on it while it ran across a snow field and kill it with the supersonic shock wave...then land on landing skis, skin it himself, eat its heart, and then pack its skin back to Moscow to be mounted.
 

mkhan

New Member
Re: PRC President reviews PLAN Naval Air

And while he were was in the cockpit, he'd fly to Siberia and he would hunt a Siberian Tiger with the J-15 and not even use its missiles or guns. He would swoop down on it while it ran across a snow field and kill it with the supersonic shock wave...then land on landing skis, skin it himself, eat its heart, and then pack its skin back to Moscow to be mounted.

Sounds more like Sara Palin :)
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: PRC President reviews PLAN Naval Air

Sounds more like Sara Palin :)
Well, Palin was raised hunting and fishing in Alaska. But she has never shot a Siberian Tiger.

Putin, on the other hand, apparently has..

In fact, he has done numerous PR videos to show how much a man's man he is...and given his expertise at Judo, his history in the KGB and his numerous exploits, it is probably true. But they really go out of the way to make it apparent.

Here's the PR video of his shooting a female Siberain Tiger that had escaped and was supposedly charging a camera crew. He knocked it down with a seadtion dart and they then carted it off..


[video=youtube;MCayaIk4UMg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCayaIk4UMg[/video]

That's why I mentioned the Siberian Tiger in my earlier response. Putin has become sort of the Russian Chuck Norris.
 

chuck731

Banned Idiot
Re: PRC President reviews PLAN Naval Air

Different contemporary political culture at least.

Putin has successfully relied on his own larger then life public persona to stay in power. Under the current Chinese communist party a person trying to attain and stay in power on the strength of larger than life public persona will end up like Bo Xilai.

At different time in recent past, the situation was reversed. Mao stayed in power on the strength of his outsized public persona, including naked swims across Yangzhi, when the Soviet Union was led by dull apparatchiks like Brezhnev.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: PRC President reviews PLAN Naval Air

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping comes from very different cultures.
Of course they do.

My original comment about Putin flying the J-15 was just a joke...and it was also Off topic.

What President Xi did was perfectly understandable and sent (IMHO) the message he intended, both internally to his own people, to the PL:AN personnel, and to the PRC CCP political heirarchy...and externally to the international community. I felt he did it in a very good way, and also in a way that made his message of support quite clear.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
Re: PLAN Carrier Construction

All this talk about how the J-15 isn't optimized for CATOBAR brings up an interesting idea. What if the J-15 is only intended to operate off Chinese STOBARs, will never be optimized for cats, and only enters limited production. Instead, CATOBAR optimization will be reserved for a next generation naval fighter, to be timed for production with the completion of the first CATOBAR carrier.
 
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