To export what and keep some numbers at least. Some older J-7s have to be replaced at least for some time to come and J-11 production is limited. 😉

Production time and delivery time of an aircraft or several ones is not a constant value. 😉
In an assembly hall you will see several fuselages under work in different conditions. Even some look ready, but still missing a vital part/parts. Some did not pass quality control and need some rework/repair. Handing over is not proof about production rate really. When doing some math, you have the rule of statistics in mind. 😉

Who told you that the planes in question were in the assembly hall, huh?

On March 10, 2003, J-10 #01 and #05 were flown out from the Beijing region to the base where the ceremony is held. The FTTC is located in the Beijing MR. This unit is used for training and tactical development. Hardly sounds like they were in the assembly hall. In the same spring of 2003, we also got pictures of J-10 #02 and #05, and both were definitely in a military base, given the background of camouflaged uniformed men marching.

Be consistent in your arguments. During our debates over J-11 numbers your position that it could be years before we saw internet indications of a J-11 regiment. Now you want to use the argument that since we didn’t see the 10xx J-10s until 2003 that the two digit J-10s had to be built in 2003. You are now saying that 10 J-10s were built in 2 or 3 months. That means the production would have been 30-60 per year already.

You’re the one who had to be real.

Unlike you, I put a date on my collection of J-10 pictures. This allows me to pinpoint the approximate time the planes may have been made.

FACT: The light blue 101X series were never seen or photoed in any time in 2002. Rather, we see a series of yellow primered aircraft with the enlarged RWR that were pictured in the late half of 2002.

FACT: The first pictures of the light blue 101X series appeared in February 2003, which means the pictures could have easily been taken before. The planes have an enlarged RWR compared to the 1006 and above prototypes. (1005 is the first J-10 to have an RWR fitting).

FACT: Hui Tong wrote that the finalized production spec of the J-10 went into production in the end of June 2002. This is no doubt the aircraft with the enlarged RWR.

The planes are numbered up to 1016. I have one picture with as many as six in a runaway (the wing tip of the sixth plane is showing at the edge of the picture). The possibility exists there could be more, up to 10.

FACT: The March 10, 2003 handover mentioned two planes #01 and #05. Easy to conclude they built around five planes before March 10, 2003.

FACT: My file photo of J-10 #18 has a date on May 2003. This photo hangs with Hui Tong’s site right now.

FACT: Russia announced completion of the delivery of a batch of 54 engines in January 2004.

Believe what you believe, but it certainly against the principles you keep putting in your sig.

You build your analysis on the data available, not BEND your data to fit biases.

You can fly any plane on 10,000 KM round trip. The only question is, how many times do you stop an refuel. Read training articles on any of the Flanker units and you find them in long range nav flights early in the units training. Read training articles on any unit and you will see long range flights with multiple stops is common. It would have been a self contradition if I said non-stop.

Units train all the time. They always have some pilot turnover. You seem to be insinuating that a unit doing long range flight training isn’t operational when it usually means it is.

That was my point as well. I didn’t intend to insinuate, if I did, that it was after they received all of them. Some of the Su-30s were delivered as full regiments since there are only 18-19 of them. After a quick search I find the first report of the Su-30s in Guangzhou spoke of 12 of them in early 2003. The article telling of them combat ready was Jun 2004 and mentioned they were “several” months ahead of schedule. I estimate the transition period was to be 18 months. Upgrading a unit with pilots who are trained in aerial refueling to the SU-30, an aircraft already in the inventory, will still be less time than the intial J-10 unit, IMHO, especially being 44th Div pilots.

You’re wrong there. The Su-30s were never delivered as full regiments since the delivery batches are in groups of 8, 9 or 10 and not 19. Between the deliveries, lies a span of several months.

A unit of Su-30s, which has a second officer on board, and which is also tasked with a wide variety of air to ground weapons, is going to take far more time than a unit tasked with air to air only.

You can call it that. I call it 25 years of experience watch the PLAAF integrate new aircraft. I was there for the introduction of the J-8I and everything after.

Experience itself can become a legacy baggage when you refuse to consider how things can change. You can’t compare the PLAAF of yesteryears to the PLAAF of today.

Unless the order is over a five year period. I don’t think the length of the contract was stated. It does mean the aircraft will be produced, with a number of them going to Pakistan. Another indicator the aircraft is not all it was expected to be, at least in the begining.

It is actually a six year period, but it does not include Pakistan. Why should it? I really wonder why you think Pakistan is involved when the Russians absolutely made it clear you’re not allowed to second export the engine to anyone else.

Do your math.

250 engines across a six year period is 41 to 42 engines per year. The current production rate is 24 aircraft per year, which means 24 engines consumed. The Chinese is planning to raise production up to 40 aircraft per year, which is not surprising (I have heard speculation of 40 aircrat per year), although I think they would probably build about 30 aircraft and keep the rest as spares.

Even then, when you build 20-40 4th generation aircraft, that number is simply astronomical. You think J-10 is as easy to build as a J-7? Think of the American example. The Super Hornet is already coming out at a rate of 12 per year, and there is 3,000 to 4,000 peope in that Boeing plant at least.

Also you have to consider that you cannot grind out vast quantities of modern turbofan engines and expect to hold your quality levels? It has been suggested that the quality problems experienced on the AL-31F has been due to the vast quantities made to satisfy Chinese and Indian orders of the Su-27/30. The AL-31FN had to be made in a assembly line, exclusively built for this purpose in a Salyut plant south of Moscow. Since the entire plane has to depend on one engine, the quality requirements for the engine is much more stricter.

You simply cannot churn out this engine like hotcakes. In the US, the combined domestic and foreign demand for the F-16 had to be satisfied with two different engines. The production bottleneck for the J-10 will be on the engine. Which makes you wonder when the WS-10A for the J-10 will come out, they will probably have to produce J-10s with AL-31FN and WS-10A side by side (the J-10s with the domestic engines are the ones intended for export.)

This makes you wonder why the FC-1 is being looked upon, because an RD-93 engined based airframe can serve as an alternative to the AL-31F based platforms. Russia cannot supply enough AL-31FNs, but maybe with the RD-93 being supplied, China can achieve the total number of aircraft required using a J-10 + FC-1 mix.

China hopes to export J-10 by 2007. The 250 engines is for six years. Assuming one engine will be spare, about 125 aircraft using the AL-31FN is planned to be built in the next three years from 2005 to 2007, while shipments from the next three years after that will be consigned as spares. From the 2007 and on, maybe, the J-10 hopes to switch to the domestic engine. 125 aircraft in three years is a very respectable number for a modern fighter.

Standard PLAAF tranisition training includes long range navigation flights very early in the training. This photo supports transition training in early stages.

How can it be “standard” when the standard PLAAF plane is incapable of long range flights (J-6, J-7). Self contradiction.

No, the 18th Div was combat ready a year AFTER they recieved the aircraft. The transition would have started earlier than that.

No. The 18th Div was combat ready a year after they STARTED recieving the aircraft, which itself was spread out over several monthsl. You are probably confusing this with the 3rd Division, but the 3rd Division was the ground breaker, and the Su-30MKKs did not fully get their weapons until a full two years after simply because the weapons have to ordered for production, given that none of these weapons are being made for the RuAF. China bought the entire existing inventory of Kh-29T from the RuAF because Russia cannot deliver.

You cannot compare the Su-30MKK integration because the Su-30MKK has to deal with a large variety of ground weapons, some of whom are only starting to be received or yet to be by the PLAAF. PLAAF has not even started on the new M400 recon pods, the SAPSAN pods, the LGBs etc,.

I think you base the 44ths transition training on some aircraft development milestone.

Boy, compared to the Su-30MKK regs, the first J-10 regs will be primarily air to air only. So basically you only need to master one role, and two to three different missiles, not two roles, and deal with up to a dozen different weapons systems.

The early internet reports showed the 9th Div was in transition training (non-flying). I believe this to be true and there was a change in the unit to recieve the first J-10s, yet another indicator of lessor PLAAF satisfaction. The flying transition would not have begun until after the FTTC had the aircraft for at least a short time. In any case, the period of time for the 44th to be combat ready will be over a year, probably nearly 2 years, after they received the aicraft, somtime in 2006.

Lesser PLAAF satisfaction?

You got to be joking. You absolutely are relying on the flimsiest straws to come to this conclusion. Hardly objective.

PLAAF people is saying this plane can beat the Su-27 and Su-30. Then no surprise, they canceled production of the Su-27SK (FACT)and stopped orders for the Su-30 (FACT AGAIN). As a matter of fact, the PLAAF has not acquired another Su-30 after the 76th they recieved. The other Su-30s are going to PLANAF for the long range antiship role.

For them to stop orders, when one, they have little alternatives, and two, when they’re pressed on the Taiwan issue, shows you an enormous confidence on the one remaining alternative—the J-10.

They could be doing load testing flights, or performing aerodynamic testing on the aircraft carrying a full load of external tanks. But you’re probably right, if they’re seen that often with three tanks some of the flights have got to be long range or long endurance.

Pictures of heavily loaded J-10s go back to 2002, so they were probably doing their load testing then, and doing it now would be kind of moot.

The PLAAF would hardly consider the 44th Division as being a prime operational unit. Sticking the J-10 in that unit says some important things about the progress of the J-10 program, and they aren’t postive.

Are you sure it is even in the 44th?

Ordering 250 engines from Russia does say a lot of things about the J-10 progress. It means “full speed ahead”.

Take a look at the J-10 pictures again, especially at ther recent one. Planes that carry three large fuel tanks are not there for short test rides. Usually when planes carry three fuel tanks, they are doing extensive ranged or loiter flights. You’re putting a lot of time in each and every flight—likely to be major exercises.

As far as the FTTC goes, it started out as an advance air school that trained the first pilots in many new PLAAF aircraft. All but the most recent of additions to the orbat of the center still wear the 5 digit number of the 11th Air School. Acting as agressors is the one way you can validate tactics and training and seems a strong indicator of the unit being “there to sort out tactics and training.”

Certainly that’s what the FTTC does.

Aggressors do more than just sort out tactics and training. A PLAAF Blue Flag aggressor is the opposite of the USAF Red Flag Aggressor, in which case it is meant to simulate the most modern Western aircraft that will be pitted against the PLAAF. It is there to simulate a technologically superior enemy, and that’s not pulling back punches.

It is there for example, for J-11 and J-7 pilots to represent a modern BVR threat, in which case the Red pilots must try to take advantage of holes in the Blue plane’s radar (e.g. terrain masking, beam maneuvers) Note that the FTTC/Blue Flag does not use Su-27s (obsolete radar) but Su-30MKKs and J-8IIs (the upgraded Type 1471 radar may be better than the MKK’s.)

It took the 18th Division almost a year to become combat ready in the Su-30. It will take longer for a J-10 unit to be combat ready.

This is nearly 2005 already. The transition of the first J-10 regiment woulld have already begun 21 months ago. That’s already more than a year and lots of spare tiem.

Look where the pic comes from! No weaponsload. If in service really, no longer any reason to deny existence any longer. I am not so optimistic like you. At best a lead-in unit, which prepares a smooth introduction into service of the basic standard variant first. 🙂

I really have to come out say that you are a complete and utter idiot, which has been reflectively and historically shown in your posts.

The lead in unit is typically the one in the Flight Test and Training Center. The planes do not have a five digit number and has a Mirage 2000 style camouflage. Planes in the FTTC are not just there to sort out tactics and training, but often act as Blue Flag aggressors against the PLAAF in exercises.

If you go around with the majority of PLAAF pictures, even old J-7s, the majority of them do not have weapons load. See the picture of the JH-7 there? The MKK there? The Su-27 there?

There has been picture of J-10s CARRYING weapons loads since 2002. Here is a picture of an OLD prototype testing with such. You really have no idea how far the J-10’s progress has gone.

The J-10 maybe in operation in some numbers. But combat ready?
To become combat ready in full, we have to wait some years more.

Regardless you still have a J-10 operating in an actual PLAAF combat regiment. The way the plane number in the tail is censored indicates a long number, and proportional to a five digit one. That’s indicative of an operational plane in the service of an actual division and regiment of the PLAAF. If ever the original uncensored photo ever got leaked out, it’s possible to find out the identity of the unit.

Operational planes in the PLAAF are indicated by:

Five digit numbers under the canopy or in the tail or tail root.

or

Two digit numbers under the canopy -and- in the tail rudder, with the presence of a five digit number in most planes (the Su-30MKK being the exception). In many publicity photos, these numbers are often PSed out.

Prototypes are indicated by two digit number under the canopy but no number in the tail, or by three or four digit numbers under the canopy. Sometimes production planes fresh from the factory undergoing testing and certification before being delivered to an operational group would have a two digit batch number.