All indications are that the PLAN want a carrier J20.
Indications such as ...? AFAIK there have been few hints, official or unofficial, that the PLAN prefers the J-20 design over the FC-31.
Matching or overmatching India has never held any interest for China.
The USN is what the PLAN is looking at for its benchmark.
If so, the PLAN would not only need to build more carriers, but to be able to fit more planes onto each carrier.
With the J31, the PLAN might at best be able to match USN F35 equipped carriers. The J20 instead offers them the opportunity to overmatch the F35, so it’s little wonder the PLAN is leaning towards the J20.
Overmatch the F-35 in terms of range and maneuverability, perhaps, but certainly not at an equivalent cost when it comes to budget or utilization of deck/hangar space.
The PLAN would have also taken into account all the lamentations within the USN about the political decision to kill their much loved F14s and instead replace them with the Superbug and F35.
The PLAN is most likely to model itself on the USN at the height of the Cold War, when it was facing the near-peer challenges of the Soviet navy, rather than the post Cold War USN obsessed with ‘efficiency’ and geared towards dropping the most bombs possible on hopelessly outmatched foes who offer them near zero threat, rather than having to worry about how it is to achieve air superiority to be able to start bombing at all.
The J20 offers the PLAN the potential to fly further and faster than the J31/F35, being able to see and shoot further as well on account of the much larger radar and weapons bays.
The USN and PLAN face dramatically different geographic circumstances and restrictions. The PLAN's potential theaters of conflicts will be near Chinese shores, the defense of which will be carried out by land-based J-20s. The carriers are designed to protect Chinese shipping lanes, especially portions that traverse the Middle East / IOR and Africa; for these potential opponents, range and individual bomb load matters far less than versatility and tactical flexibility.
I say it's more realistic for the PLAN to focus on support platforms (such as IFR drones and aircraft) rather than have Frankenstein airframes on a ship. Of course, we also need to realize that USN carriers are and will be larger, more capable, and significantly more sophisticated than PLAN ones.
The argument about the J20’s size is really less of an issue since the PLAN already operates a bigger carrier bird in the form of the J15, and the F14 was not small either.
And we have yet to see if the PLAN is really content with the size of the J-15 (which, by the way, makes a really tight fit on the Liaoning's elevator), or whether a slightly-smaller FC-31 really takes away significant range (enough so to affect combat operations).
Furthermore, if the PLAN has its heart set on the J20, it also have the absolute advantage of being able to spec their further carriers with the J20’s size and dimensions in mind.
Aircraft are tailored to their vessels, rarely vice versa.
Parts and training commonality between the PLAAF and PLAN will also be a huge benefit not to be overlooked.
This is true. IMHO this is the only sound reason to push for a carrier-ized J-20.
It’s not hard to imagine that a naval J20 might work out around the same price or even cheaper compared to the J31 when you consider the far larger production run a joint PLAAF and PLAN J20 would generate compared to just a PLAN J31 order.
Just how long would it take for the J-20 to reach that level of economy of scale? If you are premising that the naval order for the FC-31 won't be significant, just how big would a naval J-20 order be (hint: less since each ship would carry fewer J-20 vs FC-31s)? Have we accounted for the fact that the J-20 will be bigger in most aspects (larger radar/weapons/engines/etc.) which will significantly drive up the price?
Especially since the J20 is pretty much a finished design, while the J31 will still have the bulk of its development work ahead of it before it can move into production. Navalising the J20 should take far less time and money than would be needed to finish the J31’s development. Even more so since there is zero indication that the J31 was designed with carrier ops in mind, so it will also need to be re-designed for carrier ops.
The FC-31 is lacking subsystems, which could be installed with relative ease, but it seems to me that its design is near finalization, judging by its closeness to the scale models. Additionally, SAC is still putting out the claim that it can get a production FC-31 to fly by 2019. In fact, given that the FC-31 has dual front wheels and that SAC has far more experience in the R&D of carrier-based jets than CAC, the FC-31 will have a much smoother transition to a navalized model than the J-20.
J-20 will almost definitely be re-designed and re-scaled for carrier ops if the PLAN chooses it. The FC-31 would need a slight scaling up in its wings but landing gears should be good to go if they're adapted from the J-15.
Then there is also the unfortunate parallels. The J31 and J20 choice seems almost like a perfect copy of the F35 and F35 choice the US faced.
I think you will be hard pressed to find any serving US Air Force commander who would not snap your hand off if you offered them the option of getting more Raptors over F35s.
It will be incredibly hard for the PLAAF and PLAN commanders not to see choosing the J31 over more J20s as repeating the exact same mistake the US did with cutting back F22 numbers in favour of the F35.
Are you talking about the PLAAF or PLAN? I see no use for the FC-31 in the PLAAF (unless there is no secondary 5th-gen design to replace the J-10), but the PLAN is another story.
The J31’s best and likely only chance of being operationally fielded would be export.
I think Pakistan would be best placed to try and put together some sort of consortium of nations to joint finance the J31. They could pull in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other rich Gulf states to bankroll the J31, and maybe also pull in Turkey as a manufacturing partner and follow the same development path as the JF17.
The Saudis seems to be increasingly impressed with Chinese military equipment, so it is a possibility. But I think SAC’s rep is now a major stumbling block.
If it was CAC, I am sure the Pakistanis and Saudis would be far more willing to take a risk and invest in the project. But with it being SAF, there is much less confidence that they can deliver what they promised at the end of the day.
Pakistan will not buy the FC-31, and the reason is that the Chinese backtracked on their promise of inducting the JF-17. The fact that the PLAAF is not buying the JF-17 has essentially neutered JF-17 sales (among other factors, of course).[/QUOTE]
