[USER=”77826″]XB-70[/USER]

Reliable information about WS-15 is few and far between.

However, my key point is that the claims made on SCMP by Minnie Chan suggesting WS-15 was ready for imminent mass production and that it was expected for J-20 to turn up at Zhuhai with WS-15 were obviously ridiculous.

@inst

There is now a huge fight going on on SDF given interpretations of insider leaks, the Minnie Chan SCMP article, and so on, about whether the WS-15 will appear installed at Zhuhai this year, and whether it will be deployed on the J-20.

FYI, Deino, Blitzo, and latenlazy are vehemently against the notion as it goes against their current analysis, and they regard sources and source interpretation as either unreliable or just fradulent. Others are more enthusiastic, but the ultimate test will come down to what we see at Zhuhai.

Actually I have no issue with WS-15 potentially making an appearance at Zhuhai. I’d be pleasantly surprised if it did appear in any form, but I don’t think it’s impossible.

What I do think is impossible is the article’s claim that WS-15 would see widespread installation on J-20s by the end of the year.

Deino did a good job of describing my position to Minne Chan’s credibility and the overall way sources and credibility should be judged.

@Inst

Supposedly the Chinese are only planning to produce 100 J-20As, and look as though they’ll have production capacity for 48 J-20s starting next year. The J-20B, the one with the WS-15, though, is scheduled for a fuller tranche of 500 units. This is just rumor, of course.

… I haven’t come across this rumour before.

It does make sense if the Chinese are planning to use the J-20s just to offset and intimidate local powers, but with less than the J-20B, they aren’t that competent vs the F-35 and F-22. Building tons of J-20A before the WS-15 is ready implies significant wastage in terms of having to upgrade them to J-20Bs later on, and given the fineness of stealth construction, the upgraded J-20As could end up being crippled in terms of stealth.

A simplistic but I think decent way of looking at it, might be to imagine if the F-22 when it entered service in 2006 had to use uprated F100 powerplants, and that F119 would only be ready after 6 or more years.

In such a situation, would it have been more beneficial for the USAF to have inducted F-22s with F100 engines in numbers, before then inducting F-22s with intended F119 engines later on, or would it have been better for the USAF to have inducted F-22 only when the F119 engines were ready many years later.

I’m not sure what you mean by upgraded J-20As being crippled in terms of stealth because of the possibility of upgrading them to J-20″B” considering we don’t know how big the extent of changes of a WS-15 equipped J-20 will actually be. And even if the differences are significant, if they do decide to MLU the J-20As to have WS-15s I can’t see why the upgrade process would not be able to reconstruct the aircraft with the appropriate signature management expected of the aircraft.

that cnn article doesn’t claim, suggest or allude to carriers being obsolete?

After all the article is talking about the 055, one of whose roles will be escorting PLAN carriers.

Yeah, that is about the range of what my guess would be as well. But still a semi-educated guess unfortunately. PLAAF are keeping their aces close to their chest…

Well Sun Bo sits quite high up in CSIC in general, the conglomerate which includes DL shipyard that built 002 and refitted Liaoning.

Considering the extent of Xi’s anti corruption campaign it’s a bit of a stretch to tie his disciplining with 002, considering 002 by all accounts and by all pictures that we have is progressing along the path that is expected.

SAC and CAC are not parts suppliers right? I assume they use the same subcontractors.

Just because J-10 and Dark Sword both are single engine canard deltas doesn’t mean they have a similar lineage or use similar parts…

In any case, I imagine we’ll get more info over the next few days to suggest whether this mock up is legit (i.e.: from SAC/AVIC or something unrelated to them), as well as whether it is in any form of development atm.

Are there any reliable updates as to when INS Vikrant might go for sea trials?

I occasionally pop onto some of the Indian defence forums hoping for up to date pics of INS Vikrant’s fitting out at CSL to gauge when it might start on sea trials, but I can never seem to find any that show definite substantial progress (like having the MF STAR arrays put in, for example), and one report earlier this year quoted an IN officer saying they expected to hand over the ship for sea trials by the end of this year to be commissioned in 2020.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/navy-confident-of-commissioning-aircraft-carrier-vikrant-in-two-years/article22474986.ece