Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator

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AndrewS

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stannislas said:
thank you, that's exactly my point, the price difference won't be that big, and certainly not significant enough to become a key factor to decide if additional fighter is needed.

plus, land base FC-31 is also twin engined, so the maintains cost would increase as well, the total cost ration would therefore be higher than ~3/4
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If I look at the twin-engine F/A-18A-D, the sustainment cost is only slightly more than for the F-16C which is slightly smaller.

F/A-18A-D: $4.5 Mn per year
F-16: $4.33 Mn per year

So we could have a situation where a J-31 only costs two-thirds of a J-20 over its lifetime.
And there are lots of scenarios where a J-20 is overkill.
 
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stannislas

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siegecrossbow said:
I think you meant canards increase RCS? The CAC doesn’t mitigate the problem by locking down the canards. It is done via cropping the trailing tip, using jagged edge treatment on the trailing edge, and applying RAM to the front edge and trailing edge. Flight control does minimize the canard movements to under 15 degrees but it doesn’t lock the canards into fixed surfaces.
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well, yeah, that was a mistake

but I did see paper from CAC mentioned the what I said by locking the canards (less then 5 degree, plus/minus 2.5 degree movement) during the cruise stage, so no extra edge and sharp signal will be exposed, in that case the RCS created by the canards will be small enough and burried into the airframe/back ground reflect signal
 
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stannislas

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Maikeru said:
Why not? PRC put a lot of money and effort into developing EMCATS, KJ600, J31 etc. for a reason. It's an aggressive program but PRC has the shipyard capacity to do it, and unlike the USN the costs of running and equipping the yards themselves plus training and administering the workforce is ameliorated over large numbers of merchant ships rather than falling entirely on the naval budget. Factor in less need to pay shareholder dividends and China can potentially get a lot more CV's for its money than US can. And nobody mentioned a 2035 deadline except you.
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why not 20? 100? 1000? just because china has the money, doesn't mean it need to build that match aircraft carrier, in fact china has stated multiple times, that it doesn't want to persue the same state as the 'international police' like the US, so their defence strategy is and will remain greatly different from current US military strategy, a good example is even US estimate Chinese nuclear arsanal from 200-1000 warhead at most, if china goes the same way, 2-3000 matching with US/Russia would be a minimum
 
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stannislas

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AndrewS said:
If I look at the twin-engine F/A-18A-D, the sustainment cost is only slightly more than for the F-16C which is slightly smaller.

F/A-18A-D: $4.5 Mn per year
F-16: $4.33 Mn per year

So we could have a situation where a J-31 only costs two-thirds of a J-20 over its lifetime.
And there are lots of scenarios where a J-20 is overkill.
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there is no such thing for China in defence the threat from the east sea as over kill, 90% of population and wealth are on this side, china will spend everything to defence place like yantze river delta

plus, in the possible near future, China may face more than 1000+ 5th gen fighter or even 6th gen fighter in between 1st and 2nd island chain, that might be 2-3 times as what China will have, if it can't match or surpass its conterparty by quality/capacity, then the disadvantages will be bigger
 
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latenlazy

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stannislas said:
why not 20? 100? 1000? just because china has the money, doesn't mean it need to build that match aircraft carrier, in fact china has stated multiple times, that it doesn't want to persue the same state as the 'international police' like the US, so their defence strategy is and will remain greatly different from current US military strategy, a good example is even US estimate Chinese nuclear arsanal from 200-1000 warhead at most, if china goes the same way, 2-3000 matching with US/Russia would be a minimum
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10 carriers wouldn’t be for global power projection, but to secure control over the 1st island chain without needing to acquire more land bases there.
 
Blitzo

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stannislas said:
seriously? 10 CATOBAR carrier fleet? is this from some random rumor or your personal wishful thinking??? the most optimistic think from serious chinese source would be about 6 in mid 2035...
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Considering I expect J-XY/XZ production to continue until the late 2030s.
I believe 10 CATOBAR carriers is very much a plausible number by then.

It goes without saying the purpose of having 10 CATOBAR carriers would be to allow them to conduct large scale high intensity air-naval-missile operations in the second island chain, where sustainment of relatively comprehensive organic air cover is necessary.


stannislas said:
why J-XZ can ramp up to the same number of J-20? does J-10 has similar number than all the flankers? what's your based on this estimation beyond 'oh I think J-XY may be cheap enough, so China will equip a lot?' seirously, even in Chinese fourm/Weibo/Tieba I haven't see this kind of non sense for like a year or two (especially after certain someone deleted his own account after repeatedly failed his prediction of J-20), some senior Chinese observer, like Yankee, shilao has never mentioned a single word about land based version... so what's rumor you are based on?


yes, so that's why when we saw less then a year after SAC announce it could use 3D print technology to built bearing airframe, CAC annonuced it use the same technology on J-20 for certain parts, they must not shared by the SAC and completely developed by CAC itself right?

Also, given the size of J-20 would be larger than land base FC-31, or a single engine based J-XZ if you will, what make you think it has less potential to intergrate new technology? I thought F-22 is an example of stuff to much stuff into small body, so further upgrade become hard.

OK, one more thing I'm curious here, J-20, is actually the winner of 5th gen fighter competation, what makes you think there will be no competation for the 6th gen fighter project? if there will be, CAC and SAC will develop their 6th gen fighter project independetely anyway, and AVIC will not place any extra budget on either projects until PLA choose its favourate


Ok. this makes zero sense, so you think China would use a smaller bird with almost certain less range and load capacity (than J-20) to replace heavy duty JH-7 and flanker??? what happens to J-10 not taken any of the JH-7 and flankers role??? why can't J-20 taken their role?

Also, I though Yang Wei and Su Cong both mentioned more then once than range is one key factor of future fighter, what makes you think a cheaper/smaller jet will be satisfied by PLAAF?
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Many of these points I've addressed in my last post that you replied to, I'm not going to repeat myself.

But in regards to CAC pursuing the 6th generation fighter project -- that obviously is not confirmed, but is something I consider to be relatively likely given the cycle of projects that we've seen so far distributed between SAC and CAC.

Integration of new production and stealth technologies that allow an aircraft to be more easily maintained has nothing to do with an airframe's size in this case, but rather whether an aircraft was designed for it in the first place.


We've already had this argument multiple times and I'm not interested in bartering with you over every little point.
But do yourself a favour, and think about this question:
"Based on rumours suggesting the PLAAF is pursuing J-XZ/land based J-XY, and based on the fact there are no rumours of a single engine fighter powered by WS-15, what are the likely factors, conditions that could have caused the PLA to pursue J-XZ/land based J-XY as a possible mainstream land based 5th generation fighter?"

You can deny up and down that the PLAAF is pursuing a J-XZ/land based J-XY as a mainline 5th generation fighter, but for the moment, take the assumption that they are pursuing it, and try to come up with various reasons and circumstances that would cause it to be so.
You will probably find the outcome similar to what I've described multiple times.
 
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AndrewS

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stannislas said:
why not 20? 100? 1000? just because china has the money, doesn't mean it need to build that match aircraft carrier, in fact china has stated multiple times, that it doesn't want to persue the same state as the 'international police' like the US, so their defence strategy is and will remain greatly different from current US military strategy, a good example is even US estimate Chinese nuclear arsanal from 200-1000 warhead at most, if china goes the same way, 2-3000 matching with US/Russia would be a minimum
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China is the world's largest trading nation and the vast majority of its trade is seaborne. China relies on the sea for imports of raw materials whilst exporting manufactured goods. At the same time, we can expect China to become the world's largest overseas investor. Historically the world's largest trading nation ends up building the biggest Navy in order to secure its global trading interests and defend a liberal trading and investment environment, which is in the overall interests of the world.

At the moment, the US Navy has uncontested sea control of the global maritime commons beyond the 2nd Island Chain which means it can blockade China's trade. The US military can also reach places within the 1st Island Chain like Taiwan.

But if China builds a Navy which is equal to or more powerful than the US Navy, it can credibly protect its overseas trade and potentially cut off the Western Pacific from the USA. This will deter/prevent the US military from intervening in Taiwan or going to war with China.

That is a logical rationale for 10 carriers.
 
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