crobatoNope its like a kid who bought 32 BMW M5 with deep TOT and has the best warrenty plan from BMW coz they paid through their nose for it and expect the best vs someone who bought 300 BMW 535i (looks the same to an untrained eye) 10 years ago whose warrenty expired 7 years ago and are now making cheap knockoffs and need lets say…friendly neighbourhood mexicans/ukranians/mongolians to fix EVERYTHING coz the fleet owner was too cheap or too dumb not to buy an extended & comprehensive warrent (or even the official repair manual). But I really like your analogy.
Wrong analogy. BMW does not give better warranties for M5s compared to 535s. It’s all the same. Reason why China looks for other sources of maintenance is because Sukhoi apparently does not do that well a service, which Sukhoi is trying to seriously correct by putting an office in Beijing and moving parts depots right across the border from China. Trying to maintain 30 aircraft is not the same as maintaining 300.
crobatoI know for a fact that the LCA has been optimized for the GE IN20 engine and will need major work when the Kaveri is mated.
The difference between the GE 404 and the LCA is that the GE 404 is a multipurpose engine fitted on a wide variety of airframes. How much of it is actually modified to fit the LCA? Is the LCA designed for the Kaveri first, then the GE?
Since you are only buying a very small quantity, I don’t see why GE would expend the effort to make the engine fit more into the LCA. This is in contrast to the AL-31FN.
Alls I am saying is that you guys should hold off crowing the WS-10A till its SOMEWHERE near op service. I donno who said it….but if you claim that you can use WS-10A as the op engine and the AL-31FN as the spare that is perfectly interchangeable (same specs, performance and mountings) then its just a klone not really a NEW engine. Its awefully suspecious that your own 100% Chinese design engine is a perfect substitute for the AL-31FN engine.
The AL-31FN may have been designed to fit an existing design, not the other way around. Why the extensive modifications, such as moving the gearbox to the bottom? Why the larger compressor stage?
But when the Russians say (coz the Chinese wont) that they are SELLING 100’s of AL-31FN for the Chinese J-10 program and then you claim that they can make 100’s of airframes…it really does not repose much confidence in the WS-10A program.
Wrong. You keep thinking that the WS-10A is just made for the J-10s, when it is not. It is for both the J-10s and the J-11s. The J-11s are getting it first, mainly because the close ties between the engine manufacturer and the company making the J-11s. Despite the 150 engines ordered, that is hardly enough even for spares in China’s 300 plus Flanker fleet, which by the way, has resumed production since the last year and expected to add even more planes. It is very likely the first WS-10As would reach the J-11s this year. Considering the wear rate of the AL-31Fs, the J-11s do need to get the WS-10A first.
As such the current version of the WS-10A is made to fit the J-11, albeit with the engine bay having to be widened. The J-10 would have its own version to fit the J-10’s own requirements, but then the J-10 already has this factored when the J-11 is not. There is no rush to fill to supply the J-10 with WS-10As since the Russians are so willing to sell them their best engine. By the way, if you have 250 engines, you can expect maybe 100 or 150 of them might end up as spares, as there is currently already four to five regiments of J-10s, and building another 100 will take about two years. By then the WS-10A production has ramped up sufficiently to cover both J-11 and J-10, and would move into the J-10 production line. But of course, if Salyut wishes to continue offering the AL-31FNM-1 or -2 at bargain rates, give reliable performance (which they have been doing quite so) and service, why not just keep rewarding Salyut with good business?
crobatoHohoho, what an impressive guess by myself :D. Only was wrong a few hundred kilos!
I think all charts are “clean”. The determination of additional drag is quite difficult, especially when speed goes beyond M0.8. External stores produce sometimes excessive wave-drag (this ugly transonic stuff), so performance with external stores is sometimes surprisingly bad for modern and old aircraft. 4 AAMs with pylons are a real show-stopper for the MiG, like they are for an F-something. Therefore all claims like “my MiG/F-1x goes Mach 2.x with missiles” are doubious. Most people only know the corners of the clean flight envelope of an aircraft and just add some payload “in their fantasy”.
Lo-Mac has settings on fuel like Full, Medium and Low which you can use to configure the mission. Even during a campaign, weight effects are included so as the fuel is consumed, your plane gets lighter. That is why there is a chart, among many others of the MiG-29 at 13000kg. Don’t insinuate that these people don’t know what they are doing, or that the planes come with single clean configuration. As a matter of fact, Lo-Mac has weapons settings like Gun Only, A2A Short Range, A2A Medium Range, A2A Long Range, and the plane does not perform the same under all settings. So yeah, if you go Full Fuel with A2A Long Range, the plane flies quite a bit more laden compared to Medium Fuel, Guns Only. .
crobatoThe WS-10 was tested in J-11’s with an AL-31 for backup- one in each engine bay. How did China’s engineers pull off this little miracle if the WS-10 is a copy of the CFM-56?
Mainly because you can also fly with the plane with one engine? Since then the J-11 prototype has long changed to two WS-10A engines.
crobatoNow now, few more qoutes on the subject from Mr. Highsea.LINK .
So? Read the US Congressional report again. Apparently the US military does not agree with Highsea.
By the way, the main difference between the fighter application and the airliner application is in the bypass ratio. That is why the diameter is so big. The higher the bypass ratio, generally the more efficient the engine is.
Yet the core of the engine remains essentially, a turbojet. Reduce the bypass ratio, and you have an engine more suited for today’s figher. Go to an all turbojet design, you have an engine more suited for a plane that spends more time in the high transonic to supersonic regime. By the way, there is nothing more ‘modern’ about a turbofan compared to a turbojet. Just different designs for different applications.
crobatoHe only meant to say that, china has no exposure to US engines. So how can any one than claim it to be based on f-110. Simple reasoning. I believe that whatever china has learnt or developed will be on russian exposure of various projects under way. Ppl do learn either taught to or not. But to do that one needs something on hand, which is AL-31 & not F110 which chinese would want others to believe.
How can you claim that China has no exposure to US engines? There are a lot more 737s and Airbuses there with the CFM-56 than China has Flankers. There are more CFM-56s in China now than there are AL-31Fs. GE is in China doing a lot of other projects too—in fact GE makes quite a bundle in China. GE’s business in China is enormous. Not only that, companies like Boeing, GE…hell almost every major top 100 US multinational…is the forefront of the pro-China lobby.
Let me also tell you one thing. China also has a lot of exposure to Western type machine tools and production equipment. Not until you study China’s industry closely that you can see the far greater impact the West has on China’s economy, especially her aviation industry.
crobatoHighsea is also **DEAD ** wrong; In fact his reason is hardly objective other than the usual pretense of such. Russia’s cooperation comes with a price. That price is to make China keep buying Russian products.
Telll me, what is the financial motivation for the Russians to help the Chinese make their own engine
…when they have already refused to grant a license for the AL-31F…
That’s quite idiotic and stupid. You refused to give the Chinese formal rights to manufacturing the engine, but then you want to go behind and suddenly help them?
Why did the Russians refuse to grant a license?
#1 Because they are scared that the Chinese will eventually compete with them in that business.
#2 Because they want to keep selling their engines as long as possible.
Now tell me, why would the Russians suddenly help the Chinese make their engines, when it is contradiction to the first and the second?
His statement—
“China gets way more military cooperation from Russia than from the US. “
Only applies to certain clear limits. Read #1 and #2 above. And it is a fact that
Russia witholds many key technologies from China because it fears Chinese power and competition.
crobatoWhat ws-10 is f-110 class, says who? Did china ever had exposure US fighter engines ever?
PS: There was this debate in other forum too, on the same subject. Here is the LINK . Do read Highsea comments on the subject. [pretty objective]
There is nothing objective there. I think tphuang answered all of them very well, especially because he has the aid of a Congressional report to back him up.
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/hr105851-html/ch10bod.html#anchor6631169
“Defense Department officials were concerned because the CFM-56 hot sections are identical to those used in the engines that power the U.S. F-16 and B-1B military aircraft.88
The PRC later claimed that the CFM-56 engines were destroyed in a fire.89 More likely, however, is that the PRC violated the U.S. end-use conditions by reverse engineering part of the CFM-56 to develop a variant for use in combat aircraft.90″
crobato3 MFDs are pretty standard these days, but not a lot of fighters have 3 humongous 8″x12″ MFDs, not even the FC-1’s sibling J-10.
crobatoHere is from a guy who sells warbirds to private collectors.
http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/Features/PrivateMiGs.html
The MiG-15/17 can be considered for most intents one type. There are currently four basic varients available as follows: MiG-15 either Chinese or Polish manufactured. (single seat fighters). MiG-15UTI trainers, mainly Polish. MiG-17F either Chinese or Polish once again, and the JJ-5 trainer, a 2 seat MiG-17 manufactured only in China. Basic differences between the 15 and 17 are the wing, 10 degrees greater in sweep, much thinner and with a higher critical mach number in the 17 compared to the 15. The 17 fighter has an afterburning VK-1F engine with all of the others, including the JJ-7 MiG-17 trainer having the less powerfull VK-1 sans burner. All of these engines are really reverse engineered Rolls Royce Nene engines, the Brits having had the good grace to sell the Soviets engines at the beginning of the cold war. Having had experience with all 4 of these I observe that the nicest airplanes are the ones from China (!!). Don’t ask me why, but their stuff is of much better fit and finish than the European stuff. I know it is weard and does not fit in with most peoples pre-conceived ideas but it is true. (and my own personal MiG is a Polish Lim-5 which a MiG-17F fighter, so I have no axe to grind).
crobatoAnd I can tell you that in 2001 Saturn was not very happy when a engine mfg like Salyut went around its back to solicit a independent contract for -FN engines from China (donno if Saturn came around after that). Saturn-Ufa have very close ties as designer-mfg and thats what India uses since the Mig-27 days.
They should have complained back in 1997 then because China was already in contract talks around the 1994-1995 time period. The first AL-31FNs started delivery around 1997, and China flew the first ever J-10 prototype around March of 1998.
For the Russians to entertain such a custom order of engines, they would have demanded a large quantity for commitment on the part of the Chinese, and thus deliver a considerable quantity of engines prior to 2001, when another contract was signed.
Why Salyut? Maybe because China was sensing a dissatisfaction with the quality of UFA supplied engines with its own fleet, and for a single engined plane, engine problems is not an option.
Why Saturn acting like sour grapes? Salyut used the contract money to create a brand new facility when the other Russian engine plants are desperate for equipment modernization. UFA may have tested a 14.5 ton trust engine before, but they are not even close to certifying a 13.2 ton engine as Salyut recently did.
That’s because Sukhoi got the 3.3 bln 190MKI contract and the so called engine contract was included in there.
Then, Sukhoi pocketed the whole 3.3 bln and Salyut never got a penny from it.
But it does have to provide free engines.Is that Possible?
Sad Salyut, very sad indeed.
Quite so. As a result, the customer gets the shaft when the engine producers refuse to supply the customer airforces because Sukhoi has not paid them their dues. Result—yes of course, problems on the engine, improper maintenance, lack of parts. Sukhoi had been wanting to get funds to finance PAK-FA; I know they ran into problems with both KnAAPO and Irkutsk.
Perhaps that is why Salyut is so eager to do business directly with China instead, more interested to supply Chengdu than Sukhoi. In fact, I suspect this may have something to do with China abandoning the kits format for assembling the J-11s. The kits would have meant that Sukhoi acquires al lthe necessary parts from different suppliers, package them, and sell them to China for a premium. It’s not clear if Sukhoi’s suppliers get paid promptly. China may now be intent on sourcing the parts directly to the suppliers themselves, instead of through Sukhoi. There is a report, possibly from KANWA, that China acquired OLS-31E for J-11 manufacture. This is the IRST used on the Su-30s, but apparently it is also being used on the J-11s. This is one example of direct sourcing.
crobatoit will take a bit more time to get the WS-10A ready for the J-10 due to the gearbox location. Orders of AL-31F and FN are made to keep the production lines for J-10 and J-11 going without interruption. If the J-11 and J-10 switch over to WS-10A even as AL-31 orders keep coming, nothing wrong with that either, it means they can only further increase production since they can now outpace the rate of production of any one engine. If J-11 and J-10 switch over to WS-10A completely while still receicing AL-31Fs, then the AL-31Fs will be converted to spares.
crobatoThese are what i have.
crobatoMy understanding (there is a pic on the CDF) is that two (and nothing more) TC-2 can be carried on the two inner wing pylons. Two TC-2A can be carried underneath the fuselage. The radar system cannot support any more than two TC-2, guide or engage them.
crobatoMaybe the -F. Are you sure about the -FP? Salyut is the main designer of the engines too, and the latest designs like the TVC ones or the ones with more power like the FM series, are made by Salyut themselves. UFA is a subcontractor and that assignment to make AL-31Fs came from the Soviet Union era. If there is an AL-31FPM-1, which I projected for later versions of the MKI with the 13,200kg thrust, it will have to come out from Salyut.
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