J-8F/H Finback

I’ve been doing some reading on the latest round of Finback improvements, and I thought I’d pick the collective mind of the forum to see what all we can ascertain about these relatively unreported aircraft. I know I’ve created Finback threads before, but it’s 2013 so why not an update (if there are any to be had).

First off my reasoning for this thread….I find this jet to be an interesting throwback to the Cold War. With performance broadly similar to the F-4 Phantom and MiG-23 Flogger, the J-8 has the advantage of still being an important part of its birth nation’s air force (& naval air arm), so it continues to get improvements which would seem to have culminated in the J-8F. Any idea on how many of the newer J-8F’s & J-8H’s are in service? The best I can gather is that they are a very similar aircraft, but the J-8F can carry the PL-12 missile. The addition of both variants to the inventory is intriguing as they seem very similar in most respects. Then of course there are the alleged recce variants of both types.

I’m also interested in any good open source information on the WP-14 engine and KLJ-5 radar. I know the WP-14 is considered an indigenous Chinese engine, but is it an evolution of the WP-13 (i.e. Tumansky R-13) or is it really a new turbojet of its own making?

With the constant discussion on the J-10, J-20, J-31, why not go back a bit and look at a type that is still an important part of the PLAAF (& PLANAF)?