Tell that to J-11, J-15 and J-16.
Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator
- Thread starter RedSky
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You've heard of J-11BS and J16, right?
J-11 vs J-15 hello. Also in Russia there is Mig-29/Mig-35, Su-27/30/33/35.
Considering that J-11 was derived from Su-27S and J-15 was derived from Su-27K (Su-33) it made sense to distinguish the two.
Russia did it for PR and marketing reasons to create the illusion that its aerospace industry remains innovative and competitive which after 1991 was as far from the truth as one can imagine. It's the same as T-90 being initially an upgraded T-72B with a different designation for PR purposes. Compare that with S-300 which went through several iterations before being renamed S-400 and only when the changes were sufficiently extensive. Air defense systems were the one area where Russia remained competitive so they didn't need to deceive anyone.
All the flankers are just variants of Su-27 already under development during Soviet era:
- Su-27 was Su-27S and UB for air force and Su-27P and UB for air defense force
- Su-35 was Su-27M
- Su-30 was Su-27PU that is a twin-seater/trainer (U) version of air defense variant for PVO (P).
- Su-33 was SU-27K
MiG-35 is a development of MiG-29M/M2 and in Soviet times would likely be designated M3 or ML or N.
In the Soviet Union all aircraft would retain their primary designation of design_bureau_name_abbreviation-approved_model_number and all subsequent variants would be denoted by letters or letters and numbers following the primary designation. Rarely that designation was changed for export to emphasise that the aircraft sold is a newer "generation" of the type - which is why Su-22M4K was Su-17M4K in Soviet service.
The only exception that I can think of is MiG-27 being given a separate designation compared to MiG-23BM because standard MiG-23 had by that time already taken most of the usual letters, and Soviets didn't denote variants the same way that US does with missiles (A to Z), but only used some letters, because traditionally some letters had reserved meaning (see examples above) so it was not possible to go alphabetically.
If J-31 is for PLAAF and J-35 for PLANAF then it makes perfect sense to use different numbers.
The structural differences between land- and shipborne aircraft are very significant and their subsequent evolution follows a very different path. Evolution of ship-based aircraft selects for ease of maintenance, turnaround time, robustness and resilience to extreme conditions of operation, as well as ease of operation at the expense of performance because in naval aviation sortie numbers beat sortie quality 9/10 times. Evolution of land-based aircraft selects for either performance or cost at the expense of everything else because they're not constrained by numbers and vulnerability at sea.
Land based aviation is high capabilities or high numbers. Naval aviation is high repetition. Even when aircraft start at similar (but never the same) place they end up very far apart after 10-15 years of constant upgrades even if at first glance they still look similar or even identical.
F-35A/B/C is a misnomer because the whole point of it being a variant rather than a separate model was a scam. Lockheed as well as USAF and USMC lied to Congress about how plausible it would be to design an aircraft for both land and ship-borne operations with parts commonality of 85% if I remember correctly. In the end it was impossible just as USN claimed and Lockheed lied as usual.
F-35C is a completely different aircraft compared to F-35A/B and even the commonality of systems, radars and engines is problematic because the systems were designed to air force specification which is oriented toward different goals than USN specs. USMC got stuck with bad choices but they really wanted to have a S/VTOL aircraft with proper combat capabilities. Whether that was a good call remains to be seen but those were the actual reasons for why F-35 is what it is. The rest is LM doing its version of "it's not Su-27M, it's a Su-35S" because it overleveraged itself to gain the current position so badly that any legitimate competition would kill the long-term sales plan and consequently the company.
I wonder if there is a specific naming scheme for fighters intended to have both a land-based version and a carrier-based version. The last digit for the land-based variant would always be 1, and the last digit on the carrier-based variant would always be 5.
So the carrier based variant of the J-11 is the J-15. And the carrier based variant of the J-31 is the J-35.
I'd like to think that's how the J-35 got its name. And that Shenyang was not trying to present it as the Chinese equivalent to the F-35.
So the carrier based variant of the J-11 is the J-15. And the carrier based variant of the J-31 is the J-35.
I'd like to think that's how the J-35 got its name. And that Shenyang was not trying to present it as the Chinese equivalent to the F-35.
Designer's award ceremony listed plane as J-31. Yet people here still argue otherwise.
Not necessarily, J-11, J-15, and J-16 are all flankers when you get down to it, but they still have distinct designations and names.
(edit: should’ve checked the posts before typing up what many others already mentioned, my bad and I apologize)
Naming at its core is really whatever the military likes and whatever makes sense to them, so I wouldn’t be surprised either way with the J-31 vs J-35A thing. The J-X1 being land-based and J-X5 being carrier based is something that has been discussed and probably does have some truth behind it, but I guess we’ll see what they decide to go with.
J-35 name is a reasonable guess. J-31 name is confirmed in multiple official sources. They are not the same credibility.
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