Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator

escobar said:

lol the "western analyst" will say: it is a copy of F-22 and F-35, the WS-13 is a copy of a russian engine; so there is no need to worry.
But in the end they will talk about china being a threat.

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LOL...you're right, some probably have already written the article to be revised later when it came out.

Exporting J21's to Iran would make Saudi's newly ordered F-15's obsolete before they are delivered. Would the Saudis then want to buy J21's too?

delft said:

Exporting J21's to Iran would make Saudi's newly ordered F-15's obsolete before they are delivered. Would the Saudis then want to buy J21's too?

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Lets not start counting our chickens before they even hatch. Besides, there is a much greater chance that China will sell the J21 to Saudi Arabia rather than Iran if made to choose between the two.

I think the existence of the SAC jet is pretty much settled. The question is whether the plane would be medium or heavy weight.

I bet J21 will firstly & mainly for export just as the Chinese report said. Until/unless they have a new generation of medium thrust engines, beyond WS13 & the 9.5ton one, to put on it or fit WS15 on it, PLAAF will not be much interested.

I disagree, SAC will want a PLA customer first before they go ahead and market it abroad. It's a different situation with JF-17 where pakistan was already a customer in ink on paper. Unless they already have allocated money to build the half dozen prototypes usually needed for testing new aircraft, SAC will not get very far beyond the second or even first (or even paper!) plane. Now the chances of the PLA allowing a foreign, non allied country (and most countries are not particularly close to china anyway) invest into what will be a relatively advanced aircraft in such an early stage is small, so I assume PLAAF or PLANAF are already interested in it.

And two 9.5 ton engines aboard a medium weight 5th gen sounds about right. Together they are in the ballpark of F-35's F135.

We're going to have a bloody field day trying to sort out WS-13 from RD-93 from the future 9.5 ton engine goodness.

Bltizo said:

I do hope this plane is real. It will be great to see the faces of western analysts accepting the idea that two new stealth planes flew within the space of two years.

If J-20 was a game changer in assessing chinese military developments, J-21 (if it's real and flies within a year or even two) will lead to even greater alarm bells.

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Na, they will just pat themselves on the back and rationalize it to mean J-20 doesn't work and that China has to fall back onto a less advanced design, just like how they rationalized J-20 as a bomber/demonstrator/interceptor in the beginning.

^ True, but simply the fact of two new stealth planes flew within two, three years would prompt a few to seriously reconsider their world views.

Should be good lulz all round.

Why can't CAC or SAC just build an F-135?

What do you mean?

WS-15 will provide F119 class thrust, from which the F135 was derived from. But evidently SAC want their medium weight fighter to be twin engined for whatever reason. If either company wants an F135 class engine for a single engine fighter or whatever a few years down the line I'm sure XAEC will oblige to look into it.

And CAC/SAC do not build their own engines... other institutes develop and manufacture them. Just like the rest of the world.