crobatoWhat’s this I hear that China has halted production of their J-11 (Su-27’s), they say that the planes no longer meet the PLAAF’s requirment, what is the requirment that they no longer meet? Why did they sign on for so many if they aren’t going to build them?
You must have been out for a long time if you didn’t hear of this yet.
They dropped the original Su-27SK production and appears to be shifting to new versions with their own indigenous upgrades. Russians trying to sell the upgraded Su-27SM form for further licensing but so far PLA is resisting. Su-27SM upgrade may still be considered for older Russian made Su-27s in the PLAAF service though.
crobatoBackfires for China ain’t going to happen.
crobatoJ-6s were still being used in 2004 to run intercepts on EP-3Es.
TJ
Nope. I think you’re refering to J-7s.
crobatoIt’s probably from the same documentary on the students at the aeronautical technical university doing wind tunnel testing, along with the pictures of the beaked JH-7A model.
Nice to see the F-7MG model with the controllable flaps.
crobatoPaul wins the cookie. It’s the seeker of the Kh-31P.
crobatoI wonder if that applies to the A-5/Q-5.
I believe it will. The nose change won’t change much.
in any case this is a tough one. I really like the look of the F-100 and think it’s something Pakistan should liscense build on their own. Best looking mouth intake aircraft bar the X-32 and J29. Plus I like the single engine better.
The N.Vietnamese found their MiG-15 and 21’s far more useful than the MiG-19.
Arthur is right about the F-100 plane suffering from flat spins. Plus there is no way you can put a decent radar on those things. Licensing the F-104 or the F-5E is a much better option.
PII,
As for the non-Chinese MiG-19 you mentioned in your other post, the plane was built in significant numbers in the Eastern bloc, but they were superceded quickly by the MiG-21 at rates it seemed like they were happy to get rid of the Farmer. It is a very rugged plane, as Arthur said, but the plane is difficult to maintain and it is not easy to fly. Han Decai, the top PLAAF ace from the Korean war, described the MiG-15, 17 and -19 and he didn’t have nice things to say about the last. (The -17 is his favorite).
You can’t fly the MiG-19/J-6 without a constant supply of parts. The Chinese taught the Pakistanis to build a factory just to supply parts of the plane.
But if you master the plane, it surely kicks ass.
Bottomline too, the MiG-19 also does not have the room to install a decent radar, other than something that is a glorified RWR. That also hastened its demise. But it took longer for that behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtain because the Reds rely less on internal radar and more on GCI networks, while the West prefers more radar autonomy.
crobatoWho cares about sensitivities – that is a pic i would definately like to see.
Still looking for it. Only found its counterpart.
Are you sure those are new-built aircraft, or simply renosed older machines? I haven’t come across anything to suggest those aircraft are really new, i personally think they are updated older machines.
Pretty sure it’s newly built. Restoring an old plane then rebuilding it will often cost more and is much more laborious than building one brand new from scratch. It also removes a lot of the uncertainties.
J-6s were also stored in underground complexes during the Cold War (may still be even now). This meant a ready reserve of planes that will continue to fight even as bases were bombed and front line planes are attritioned. I do wonder if they are still there.
crobatoi read over the years that the chinese had numbers of between fifteen hundred and three thousand mig 19 derivatives in service, so what has happened to all of them, are they in some huge bone yard with hundreds of them like the amarc boneyards but red china style? i find it hard to believe that theyre only used for proficiency flights in china today, it would still be a good close combat fighter. in clear weather i would give it even chances against more modern jets with a good pilot. so what is the situation in red china today with this classic silver jet? 🙂
On paper, some regiments are said to be still operational with them, but that’s in paper only. The planes may not be truly operational, and the regiment may only exist in paper, just collecting payroll and the elderly pilots waiting for retirement. Being a J-6 pilot in the PLAAF now is a dead end job.
I had a picture before where there is this hill of J-6 fuselages, not a pretty sight to those sensitive in this board. 🙁
It may still be a good close up combat fighter, but being WVR only has its disadvantages and the PLAAF still has the J-7s to do this. The J-6 is tricky to maintain, being two engine and all, and with a very short engine life. Many were built when Chinese factories have yet to hear about “standardized quality control”, and according to some, variances among the planes can range up to some planes being six inches longer than the others. Without the right tolerances of parts, these makes parts interchangeability among the J-6s alone, and from the parts bin, difficult and lucky shots. It makes even cannibalization difficult.
I can bet that older J-6s and the lemon J-6s would be the first to go to the scrap heap. The better built examples, the maintainable ones, and the more recent planes among them, are probably still flying around, for pilots to practice dogfighting or add hours to their sheets. Eventually they will go to.
Ironically, the Q-5 Fantan, the direct descendant of the J-6, continues to be manufactured today, with a laser target designator in the nose.
crobatoUsed F-16A/B tend to show stress fractures. Hence they don’t seem to be as desirable as used aircraft unlike the all metal F-5Es. There is an upgrade program on the F-16A/B that rebuilds the jets, but they are also quite expensive.
crobatoThe unit numbers on the base of the tail was ps’ed out.
The PSing is strange though. There does not seem to be any PS in the tail control surface, where there usually should be a plane bort number. The way the PS tries to over the bort numbers under the canopy appears long enough with left over marks to indicate not two digits, but three. Did the PLAAF decide to change their numbering scheme?
Note, like all recent J-10 pictures, the camouflage pattern is all gone. Just using the same grey they paint all their planes. Note the color of the 28th Div JH-7A.
crobatoThe MiG-19 can outperform the MiG-21 in a dogfight, and their TWR surpasses many of the early to mid generation MiG-21s, thanks to having two engines.
But the plane is a bitch to maintain. The engines have a ridiculously short life. The plane is difficult to fly and mastering it means seperating the real men from the boys. The MiG-17 and the early MiG-21s are much sweeter planes to fly, and are thus, much more suitable for countries whose pilots you have to derive from a peasant base. Which is quite surprising why the Chinese built so much of the J-6s and persisted in building way into the modern jet era. But the thing is, if you did master the Farmer, you are difficult to beat in a WVR situation, and the Chinese often feel that the plane is better than the early J-7s in a dogfight. (This is grounded with some facts—those sweep wings have less drag through corners faster than deltas, not to mention the plane having greater power).
The Russian and Eastern European MiG-19s are mostly in musuems now or in airfields gathering rust, if they have not been scrapped. Tons of J-6s have been scrapped recently, with entire bodies being sold for their aluminum content with prices as low as $15,000. Piles of junkyards with these planes. A number of J-6s and J-5s were probably imported and restored in the US among collectors. Many J-6s still liter the side of airports and airbases in China, many no longer operable waiting for the day to be towed to the scrap heap, others still flying for the occasional profiency flight for a PLAAF pilot.
crobatoI think we can rely on Uncle Sam to generously subsidise the F-35 with tax dollars when he begins to hand it out to favored, yet not so well-to-do, allies. That is what happened with the F-16. I have always wondered how many export customers for the F-16 actually paid for it 100% them selves.
Not with the state of Uncle Sam’s pockets (and the big holes within), you don’t.
crobatoPossible, let me check out on that
Go ahead.
When was the old article published as per your claim. AFIK, there was once similar news when wind tunnel testing but not from kanwa. We are also aware that Al-31 was chosen is the mid way of the J-10 project. kanwa report came after that (naturally!). So whic year rehash is it?
J-10 started its design in 1985. AL-31FN was chosen since 1994. 10 AL-31FN was delivered to China in 1997. In 1998, the first J-10 flew in March.
KANWA failed to consider that the strengthening of the engine tunnel maybe due to another factor—the use of said as structural hardpoints.
Enclosed is a pic of the WP-13 engine used on the J-7E and J-8II, cloned from R-11-300 Tumansky used in the MiG-21MF.
crobatowhich western aircraft Chinese have experience on? All fighter aircrafts which China has is Russian which has gear box on the top. Chinese were forced to get a bottom configured engine as Lavi has it. The other thing is Chinese had the British Osprey engine. But bulk is Russian copies. So i beg to defer.
Shows you that you don’t even know Russians designed their own aircraft.
The MiG-19, MiG-21 and the MiG-23 have their gearbox set on the bottom. 😛
Rehash of which article? Its Kanwa which points out that J-10 has structural problems, so whose stuff is Kanwa rehashing?
KANWA is rehashing their own old articles. But anyone can see from the clumsy structural sleeves mounted on top of the intake to make their own similar conclusions.
crobatoa more serious question about it’s design indeed,
if the aircraft was heavily modified to accomodate the AL-31 engine, what would happen when China decides to inplant a different engine, would it then require another fueselage modification as it could be too long, too big, or too small?
WS-10A is said to be dimensionally the same size as the AL-31F, which allows the engine to be fit on the J-11 with minimal to no changes. It won’t be a problem on the J-10.
There aren’t that many fuselage modifications when the F-16 switched from the smaller and more compact PW F100 engine to the GE F110 (about 300kg heavier) like in the Block 40 and 50. But it did require a change in inlet design as the F-16’s is fixed. The ones with the GE engines have a bigger inlet.
The J-10’s inlet however, is already variable so such a change is not needed.
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