well, I translated a bit of the J-8H that I found on Chinese forums, this was posted on my blog, so it’s very informal.

It says that J-8H can operate over 80% of time, with over 18 aircrafts (each regiment has 24). It takes 1 hour and 20 minutes to prepare the plane to fly again from a new airbase after arriiving there from another. It takes a “Dadui” 2 minutes and 33 seconds to fly out and a “ZhongDui” 33 seconds to fly out. There are 16 seconds between the takeoff of 2 consecutive “Zhongdui”. Zhongdui means a medium team and Dadui means a large team. I’m not sure what is the size of large team and medium team. It takes large team 9 minutes to land and a medium team 1 minute 44 seconds to land.

Combat format, combat flights normally operate in 2 to 4 4-plane formation making a large team. When intercepting aerial targets, normally operate in a 4-plane formation. Going after ground targets, normally operates in 2-plane formation. The optimum distance between 2 2-plane formation is 1000 to 1500 m. The planes in the 2-plane formation are 110 m apart.

Flight speed – It flies fastest at 17 km altitude, flies at 2337 km/h = 646 m/s = mach 1.9. At 200 m altitutde, it flies at 1010 km/h = 280 m/s = mach 0.82. It does ground attack missions at speed of mach 0.57 to mach 0.71. It intercepts planes at mach 0.65 to mach 1.6.

Flight altitude – the maximum flight altitute is 18 km. In ground attack missions, when doing A2A combat, operates at 2000 to 4000 m. When cruising, operates at 800 to 3000 m. The maximum altitutude is 12 km. Ground attack planes returns at 1200 to 4500 m, maximum altittude is 9000 m. When actually doing ground attack, typical altitude is 700 to 1600 m. Leaving bombing mode, the altitude is normally 500 to 2100 m. When abandonning diving in attacks, the altitude is normally 350 to 400 m. It will rise to 1000 m+ to shrug off target.

Ground attacking normally operates at 500 to 1500 m, lowest is 200 m, highest is 3000 m. When attacking aerial targets, operating altitude is 3000 to 15000 m, lowest is 600 m.

When doing ground attack, a regiment normally sends out 1 large team, which is 8 plane (explains the first part I guess), Joins the combat navigation route when about 15 km from target. Typically dives down at 10 to 20 degrees to attack, sometimes 30 to 45 degree. Everytime, a single team can attack 2 to 4 times, maximum 6 times. A single plane can operate in the target area for 6 to 17 minutes. When firing off missiles at 500 m in altitude, at 900 km/h, the launch distance is over 50 km. At 6000 m in alttutde, the firing distance is over 100 km.

Interception of targe – Attack method – At medium to high altitude, it typically uses 90 and 180 degree turns to point toward the direction of attack or use 90 and 180 degree turns to shrug off tailing attacks. Altitude difference is typically around 800 to 2500 m, minimum is 200 m, largest is 5000 m. In low altutde, use a lot of tailing and attacking from high altitutde, altitude difference is 500 to 2000 m. Entering attack at angle of normally 10 to 30 degrees, minimum is 0 degree, maximum is 70 degrees.

Radar is turned on normally 45 to 80 km from target, maximum of over 100 km (there might be some lost in translation here). First detect the target in medium to high altitude at 75 to 90 km, maximum of 110 km. Tracks the target in medium to high altitude at 45 to 70 km, maximum 80 km. In low altitutde, this happens at 35 to 55 km. When attacking target in medium to high altitutde, enters into 2 attacks per encounter. The first attack happens at 40 to 65 km away, maximum range is 80 km. The second attack happens at 20 to 33 km, minimum 4 km. Attacks happen 3 to 8 km apart. low altituude encounters happens at 3 to 8 km. And then it talks about operating with clouds around.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/mil/2008-09/28/content_10125844.htm

“Guang Zhou AF units equip new-type domestic-produced Kai Shan-1A SAM”.

KS-1A SAM.
Altitude: 0.5 to 25 klicks. Range: 5-50 klicks. Warhead: 100 kg high-explosive fragmentation.
(Contains melamine?) 8D

With SJ-202 radar.
Detects 115 klicks, tracks 80 klicks, guides 50 klicks.
Guides up to six missiles at three to six targets.

IMO: HARM-magnet.

It really scares me that xinhua just copy and pasted sinodefence’s section on KS-1A. If you look it over, you will see an exact translation.

What KS-1A really uses is SJ-231.

PAK-FA specification has never been released but u can clearly assume that are designing completely new engine of 5+ generation. The whole article is in PAK-FA thread by saturn. There is no point in creating new engine for 155KN thrust..
AL-31FM-3 or higher thrust version of 117S can achieve.

regardless of how many upgrades they are doing to AL-31F, in the end you will need a next generation engine basis. You can maybe improve the T/W ratio to that of a 5th generation engine, but there is a limit to how much you can improve. A newly designed engine simply has a lot more room to improve. Otherwise, America should just keep on improving F-100 rather than developing F-135

avionics is hardly reason for flight test delay. And first 200 to 300 are for Chinese market. So you wont this outside delivery in next 5 to 8 years atleast. and US government has open office right in China for its certification. It means there is alot of pressure on US government from US based suppliers to get it certified as soon possible to get more money by selling parts to this jet for Chinese market.

that’s not the only supplier they have. 40% of the suppliers for ARJ-21 are from outside of China. If the suppliers don’t deliver, you can’t assemble. It’s that simple. As for why it got rolled out and still not have all the parts, do you think ships have all the electronics fitted when they first get moved into the water from dry dock? It simply did not have all the parts delivered.

And clearly, you don’t read enough articles on airliner delays. Civilian airline projects continuously have delays due to supplier delivery issues.

A: And the most important of all, the huge difficulty of target identification at such a great distance ~ If the airforce is really so care about not to mis-kill the innocents.

yes IFF is even more important, you are just helping my point about the use of LRAAM.

A: USAF thinks there is no need for LRAAM now because of its stealthy techonology. However, it is still keep studying and researching the techonology for building NG LRAAM in case of if USAF really need it one day.

On the other hand, AIM-120D, the newest member of AMRAAM that will enter service formally after 2010 has a respectable long range according to the declaration from American ~ Although it may still not as long as AIM-54 or Meteor.

ie, there is no need at the current time, LRAAM is really useful against AWACS/tanker, but you probably don’t want to use it against anyone else.

A: Englishmen declared that during the trial in Singapore, 2004, Eurofighter successfully demonstrated the supercruise capability of 1.21 Mach class in one very hot noon, while Rafale didn’t show such a performance at that time.

and we are still waiting for the good old su-35 to do so.

A: Do you mean it can’t reach the thrust class that it is declared ~ 14,000 to 14,500 kg class ??

nope, but that the Russian T/W ratio measurement is different from the American ones (UK and France also use different measurements). So, don’t get too impressed. 99M series looks like it has a lot more potential.

A: Iran AF’s F-14A did use AIM-54 to shoot down Iraq’s fighters at the range of 73 to 100 km class during the eight years war between the two countries in 1980s.

I think it is true that the engaging range of more than 100 (or 150) km is unrealistic for the BVR combat between the fighters in most circumstance now and foreseeable future, especially if the fighters have a certain degrees of low-observable techonology, excellent SEP, good enough EW systems, and well trained pilots.

You are going to have to show that. But generally speaking, the most important part is not the range, but the NEZ. It’s pretty much useless to state the range or the maximum ballistic range. Because it’s measured under optimal scenarios when you are facing an incoming aircraft at an unrealistic altitude. There is a reason AIM-54 is got retired. If it’s such a magical weapon, Americans would have designed a LRAAM for F-22.

A: That is very natural for any fighter’s manufacturer when it makes the advertisement for its fighter.

then don’t overstate it.

A:
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/dae/gauche/sponsors/sponsor_rafale/img/fox3_8.pdf

Page 8

Rafale M with the configuration of two Magic II, two MICA, and one belly 1,250L external fuel tank:

1. Climbing to 40K fts under 2 mins.

2. Supercruising with dry power.

3. Flight endurance of 2 hours.

I know what they advertised, but I was asking if it has been achieved in trials. It was said before that they couldn’t during one of the trials. I guess from one of the replies, it was achieved.

Well, according to the advertisement and declaration from Russian:

1. Empty weight: 16,500 kg, or around 7% lighter than Su-30MK.

2. Thrust: 14,000~14,500 kg class*2, or around 12~16% more than Su-30MK.

3. Internal fuel: 11,500 kg, or around 22% more than Su-30MK.

4. Range with internal fuel only: 3600 km, or around 20% longer than Su-30MK.

5. Predictive supercruise capability of 1.4 Mach class.

6. Maximal radar detective range: 2 to 3 times longer than any radars for Su-30 series.

7. Maximal radar horizontal search angle: +/- 120 degrees, comparing with the 60 to 90 degrees of any other Russian and Western fighters’ radars today.

8. The capability of TWS 30 flight targets and engaging 8 of them at the same time, which is about 2 to 4 times better than any radars for Su-30 series.

9. More processing power (two new Solo-35 fire-control computers) and better ECCM capability.

10. The capability of using ultra-long range BVRAAM such as R-37 and KS-172 for hunting AWACS, traditional bombers, tankers, traditional fighters with large enough RCS at the range of more than 300 km.

11. Much better capability for engaging low RCS, low altitude flying targets, such as sea-skimming / cruise missiles.

12. Improvement and upgrading in cockpit and EW system.

I don’t see why you need to color code it, it’s not really that impressive. Basically, the two biggest components they are emphasizing are the new engine and radar. The former is overhyped, it’s TW ratio is overrated. I personally like the 99M series a lot more. The radar shows a lot of potential. If it actually achieves the specs we mentioned, it will be quite useful.

Stuff like KS-172 are only useful against AWACS (even that is contested by people), but fanboys love clamouring about the 300 km range. Realistically, who is going to do BVR engagements of even 50 km? Instead, maybe they should spend more time improving R-77 and create a 5th generation SRAAM for once. Even the range, 3600 km is measured under most optimal conditions. Anyone from PLAAF will tell you that they will never get 1500 km combat radius out of a mkk. Cockpit and EW improvement is nothing special that we haven’t seen with other new fighters.

Question: Does the fact there has been an awfully slow production rate for the Su-34, two a year built or something mean the chances of any potential customer wanting to purchase the SU-35 could be seriously put off.
Can Russian aircraft factorys pump out an adequate number of these beasts to satisfy thier customers? I have my doubts looking at SU-34 production. Not even whacko Hugo Chavez is going to want to wait twenty years for a full fleet of say thirty aircraft. I do have my doubts if the Russians can produce these quick enough.

different factories produce these aircrafts, knaapo has generally been pretty good at deliveries.

This information is from Kanwa military magazine and a military researcher in Taiwan. Both of them had some interviews with the people of Sukhoi before, and I guess they got this information from the interviews.

However, since Su-35BM has just started its flight test, this information is still nothing more than an anticipation. All that I can say now is that with the lighter airframe and the more powerful engines, it seems that the T/W ratio and specific excess power of Su-35BM now may be no less than EF-2000, or even being close to Raptor.

kanwa’s interview with sukhoi are actually pretty good, one of the things I can’t complain about it. Yes, supercruise I believe is one of the things it is designed for.

Thanks toan , all I can say is if she can supercruise (~ M 1.2 ) with some useful load i.e full range of AAM or a mix of AAM/AGM she would truly be a major improvement over all the type of Su-3X built so far and in the league of Typhoon and Rafale.

highly unlikely, but has Rafale been able to supercruise with standard A2A config?