The picture Hyperwarp posted of the Su-34 in the (apparently) RCS test room…is China interested in the FULLBACK?

Looks more like to me like an Su-33UB (aka Su-27KUB) but with MKK type tails. Which makes you wonder what they’re really up to.

Is this related to a certain Chinese article made public recently? I beleived that the incident is rather an old one, one that is only being declassified slowly even today, and that the prototype in question is not actually the FC-1 01, but rather the J-10 01.

BTW any info on the Kh-59MEh? It’s sopposed to be an improved Kh-59ME like the Kh-59MK with 285km range. When you look at the Kh-59M with a launch weight of just under 1000kg, this missile cannot be that much more, and when compared to Yakhont-M with similar range, this subsonic low level missile is MUCH lighter compared to the 2500kg Yakhont-M.

No info more on this. But it sounds like something the Chinese could use and may even finance. We’ll see in the near future.

Also little off topic, for example an aircraft like the Su-30MK can carry lets say 6 KAB-500Krs or 6 Kh-31Ps or whatever, what would it take to wire it’s other hardpoints to carry more of the same weaponry?

Just wire more then, but we don’t know if the other points could handle the stress or what they may do to the aerodynamics. It’s often better just to dual rack existing hardpoints for that reason.

About the crystal blade technology, I have to say that the writer, is just echoing old information two years late.

The Chinese displayed a blade calling it 2nd Generation Crystal Blade Technology. And this wasn’t shown the first time in Zhuhai 2004, but in Zhuhai2002. This is to be used in some engines, though not the Kunlun, which is said to use a hollow blade design.

I thought that the FC-1 was Chinese tech? 🙂

We recently heard news reports talking about a Chinese radar being fitted to the fc-1, a smaller version of the j-10 radar has been mentioned. One wonders why an aircraft that a few months ago, was taunted as having such a big nose, would not get the same j-10 sized radar? Am I the only one who finds this confusing, why would u want to get a less capable radar if you can fit the original and more capable radar in the nose?

China is wayy off the plasma stealth field.

It might be the J-10’s radar itself, given that the designation of the radar is KLJ-10, and the use of “10” as the suffix might be associated with projects connected to the J-10, e.g. SD-10, WS-10A, JL-10A (another J-10 candidate radar). It is quite possible that KLJ-3 is the previous designation or version of this radar at the time of the J-10’s evaluation, and the same set, refined, leads to the KLJ-10. The radar might have some improvements that wasn’t there when the J-10 went into operational evaluation. All this are likely to be evolutions of the KLJ-1 radar originally used on the J-8II (China’s first successful flat plate slotted array radar).

Crobato,

Till confirmed reports appear, all we can do is whistle in the dark.
And given the PAF penchant for publcity, reports are bound to appear, its merely a matter of time. Besides the FC1 is export oriented, hence the reports have been trotted out fairly frequently, as contradictory as some have been.

Words are just words. man. They are pretty empty to me compared to what we are actually seeing here. The Chinese don’t especially like to say a lot of things; they only acknowledge in print things like their 052B and 052C destroyers several months even to a year after everyone has seen them in the docks. They have not said anything about the Yuan either.

The fact remains that something happened to correct the FC-1’s wing behavior to remove the wing fences aid without any changes in the wing geometry. The most plausible explanation and most likely the only concievable explanation for that is fly by wire control is being applied on the wings.

Per the earlier Pakistani reports, the backup was a conventional hydraulic system. So the entire 4 channel thing nec for redundancy was moot. The recent spate of AFM articles about the FC1 indicate that they wished to incorporate a Quad FBW, that future development might fit in with your point.

The AFM articles was only true at the time the FC-1 first flew. At that time, the FBW was probably pitch only. Roll was manual, with the wings adding fences to control tip stalling which an FBW should have done. When the fences are removed on the first prototype, as the second protoype never had them, the FBW had already encompassed roll.