The Kh-65SE is a subsonic antiship weapon modeled from the Kh-55 series, so it is inside the realm of possibility.

Not without a reportable Chinese purchase of such.

I posted this image before but without the information, and Crobato in particular refused to believe it was a US Intelligence CGI image. This article proves that I was right about that.

The article still is not very reputable, like many of Flight International’s articles (e.g. the Zhuks to start with).

Especially since I recall seeing that image from a HK newspaper long ago. I also remembered seeing that image used in an article for a software designed to calculate aircraft agility and maneuverability based on the aircraft’s computer model alone. That model is used for the Lavi. The conclusion for the model is that it is more unstable than the F-16 and scores higher agility.

Other aspects of the article chime well with information from other sources. The report says IAI involvement was “late 1980s”, and had been scaled down in the last three years. From 1995 (article date), that takes us back to 1992 or thereabouts. Given that the US knew about the China-Israel Lavi / J-10 connection several years before 1994, it could well be US pressure on Israel had already been applied.

Nope they only learned about it around 1992 from a defector, and the HK rags.

The J-10 is said to have been started in 1984 or 1988 depending on source. Perhaps initial work started in 1984, but 1988 clearly marked a watershed of some kind. Is it too much to wonder if it was the injection of certain Israeli assistance, after the 1987 cancellation of the Lavi?

the J-10 work started in 1985 according to the statements made by its designer.

Several articles have mentioned a redesign around the AL-31 engine sometime after 1992, possibly with Russian assistance.

Negotiations and order for the AL-31FN began in 1994.

The Flight Intl. article mentions IAI engineers actually working at Chengdu, but only 20 out of 1500 who worked on Lavi (and many of whom tried to emigrate!). It doesn’t mention transfer of one of the Lavi’s, for example. It is possible that those 20 engineers were all associated with the FBW system, for example. It doesn’t mean that the J-10 is the Lavi. It clearly isn’t.

I’m just presenting an article I find interesting. You don’t have to agree with the article, but you can’t deny it has specific claims which haven’t been aired here before.

Flight International has a low repute when it comes to intelligence given how many times they are so so wrong about China-Russian arms trade, e.g. the Zhuks on the MKK and the J-8II for example. Remember how many defense rags were also saying China is buying MiG-31s in the early nineties.

The problem with Xinhua is that it is the CCP’s official mouthpiece. So they’re only going to tell you what they want you to hear. For example they may write articles about how “likely” it is that aircraft carriers will be built for the PLAN in the near future, despite the fact that the CMC could still be at logger-heads over just whether the PLAN should want them at all.

Xinhua would never write anything like that, or anything related to future plans and policies regarding the military. It would be a great feat to get Xinhua to just admit anything on the military. Xinhua is almost a zero source of information when it comes to the military.

That, and the fact that an export nation might not have to eat the development costs like we have, should make an export jet a little cheaper.

That being said, here’s who I could see us exporting the jet to:

Great Britain (stop buying the EF-2000 after a hundred or so, use them for strike, and the Raptor for intercept as an F.3 replacement)
Saudi Arabia (they’ve got the cash, and it’d make a good F-15 replacement)
Japan (they’ve also got cash, and it’d again make the perfect F-15 replacement)
Australia (an outside chance, as an F/A-18 replacement)

Countries that shouldn’t ever see an F/A-22:
Israel (want to see a Chinese XXJ modeled after the F/A-22?)
Taiwan (that would really irk the PRC, who is too much of a valued trading partner. Plus, there’s always the issue of defection or something similar)

The cost of the F-22 makes it too much of a political lightning rod, that’s going to make ugly politics. You don’t need that in Japan whose government was swept with weapons related scandals during the seventies, especially since Lockheed was the main culprit in those scandals and the F-2 debacle.

Also, the afforementioned states, especially Japan and Great Britain, continue to evolve into what is called a social-welfare state, in which we will see more and more of the government budget (as well as its main objectives and policy) being put into social welfare.

There are multiple reasons.

More technology gathering by the Chinese for one.

To force the Russians to sell more advanced weapons to the Chinese for the other.

and most of all, it is political, to reward the Europeans for defying the US and reinforce “multilaterism”.

The usual Chinese style is to buy an initial batch of fighters in a large quantity, then license to make in China for the rest. Or absorb the technologies to be applied to a similar indigenous plane. That will be the PLA style.

But the Chinese political style is to use money, in the form of large purchases, to spread influence. Except in the case of Russia, Israel and the Ukraine, where arms purchases had a political motive, most of these purchases were non military—$11 billion of natural gas from Australia (John Howard is against the floating of the Yuan and Australia is now reluctant to honor ANZUS agreement in a China-Taiwan conflict); $5 billion worth of natural gas from Indonesia; various purchase to South American and Africa, and so on. Just remember China managed to diplomatically isolate Taiwan with the help of economics.

I’m not surprised of the European connection. Look at the Y-8 balance beam AWACS project, then the pics of the PLAAF officers viewing the Gripen. According to some reports, the Chinese war chest may go up to 100 billion. Also in the list are allegedly German submarines

Of course the local Chinese military-industrial complex will cry hell, but the Chinese military industrial complex does not have the size and the political power as held by their counterparts in the US and Russia.

But once again, one has to note that the Chinese had many serious proposals to buy other types of Russian arms before (A-50U, BMP, T-80 tanks, Backfires, Akulas…) but they all fell through. So my guess it’s all just floating bait.

Personally I think the Chinese do not expect the sanctions to be lifted, and if lifted would be thrown with many conditional sentences, so that it only looks good in paper. That’s why I think they went ahead with the anti-secession bill, knowing the consequences to the sanction lifting. Perhaps they really did not want the sanctions lifted—so they won’t be obliged to open the wallet—but their real purpose was to create frictions between the US and the EU, and for that, they may already have succeeded.

The real question is what if the EU actually lifted the sanctions—will the Chinese be obliged to buy something from the EU? That would really call upon the Chinese money bluff. But if the sanctions are lfited, replaced with conditional clauses, the Chinese would have achieved a political victory in paper, without buying any arms, and spending money. The political victory was their main goal anyway.

The end result would be European defense contractor displaying their wares in Chinese shows and Chinese sending delegations to Europe for talks on proposed arms purchases, but the real intention is no other than intelligence gathering, and the end result would end up improving the indigenous products. Example of this ploy was the Chinese looking to buy some BMPs, went to Russia for a close look of the thing. The deal never happened, but BMP like turrets started appearing on the next generation Chinese IFV.

The scanned Chinese article above is talking about the Tomahawk and cruise missiles in general.

The PLA isn’t going to be generous and show their cruise missiles to anyone, lest you reveal some classified data about it.

And the name isn’t HN-1. The PLA’s cruise missile is officially called DH-10 as for Dong Hai 10 or East Sea 10, and Chinese reports described this as a cruise missile of the third generation which means they have done other cruise missiles before, probably earlier DH-1 to 9. There is *NO* Hong Niao or Red Bird.

The range of the DH-10 is even longer, admittedly to around 1500km.

Sorry that my many posts made You angry and I asure You that I didn’t expect that anyone else is as much enthusiastic about this kit as I, nor that everyone has a kit …. but I asked several times just to compare the dimensions I know so far (span = 8,78 m/ length = 14,57 m) and which I mentioned also at least 2-times … with the dimensions of the kit !

Well you posted this question and repeated it a few times across at least three different forums including ACIG and the CDF.

It does not make me angry but it is annoying.

The model kit makers are just making their own approximations. I won’t dig deeper into this as if there is some hidden meaning like the kit makers having actual access to the real J-10 data and so on.

It’s not a PS. It’s part of the TV clips from an internal documentary. More clips are expected to be leaked out as time goes.

Then the white out appears to be lens flare, which tends to be a bigger problem with the much more complex zoom lenses in TV cameras than the more relatively simpler lenses in 35mm cameras.