crobatoTrue, but the J-8F would be significantly more expensive to run and probably buy. Though what do you think of the putting something like the little redesigned J-7FS, with the F-8 Crusader style intake and such and in there it would be perfect for a Kopyo-F style radar. And I am not talking about the single seat version, but using a twin seat version too for training and such of pilots before they move onto more advanced version. Besides being a twin seat trainer, it could fill in quite a few combat roles such as simple Air Defense, Anti-Shipping(put on Kh-35s on it), CAS & Light Strike.
It’s a duplication of what the FTC-2000/JL-9 does. I think the FTC-2000 is a more elegant solution compared to the F-7MF/J-7FS proposals. Still too early to consider the FTC-2000 for strike use, but CAS and light strike should not be bad for it. I would not want to put a Kh-35 or C-803 on a MiG-21 style airframe however.
crobatoI feel you are again leting your preference for the J-6 over the J-7 blind you, the MiG-21/J-7 were and are superior jets to the MiG-19/J-6 simply because it is faster, the radar available to the MiG-21 are better and the weapons were more advanced and still are ahead of teh J-6 simply the MiG-21-93 Bison is the Top Mig-21 and few nations are upgrading their Mig-21 to that standard or simply have kept the Mig-21 flying whlie the MiG-19 has been retired examples Poland, India, Rumania etc etc….The Chinese never wer satisfied with the J-7 simply becasue the MiG-21 is a more complex machine and they could not master it`s technology very easily and the same applies to their J-8 that very few were built
You are the one obviously blinded. The MiG-21 obviously has a better radar but that’s like comparing a flea to a louse. For BVR engagement, it’s practically useless and the radar is so bad, the MiG-21 remains mostly a clear weather, daylight, WVR fighter—and for that it offers very little over the MiG-19. The weapons are no better since both came with Atolls.
The MiG-21 is actually simpler than the MiG-19, which is a twin engined jet. What kind of convoluted logic do you have in making a single engined fighter of the same technological vintage being complicated than a twin engined one?
The reason why the MiG-19 was retired early was because it was difficult to fly, difficult to maintain, costly to build (compared to the MIG-21), and you can’t put a decent radar on it. But the Chinese kept the J-6 because it was refined to a point where the plane is equal to more than a match to the J-7 in WVR. In fact, it outpowers the J-7 (two 3250kg engines going up to 3750kg in later versions vs 1 6000kg).
To illustrate how difficult the MiG-21 and J-8 were to master to the Chinese, the J-8 was built in so limited numbers as the Ye-152 due to their large size and if we see the picture we can see that even the J-8 SR-4 radar was so small and short ranged compared to the bigger Ye-152 ARK-541 radar which could fire the BVR AAMs AA-5 Ash and the K-4 compared to the simplier PL-2, and this was a MiG-21 derivative but check how many Q-5 Fantan were built and you will see that the Mig-21/J-7 and the J-8 are quit more complex but albeit more capable jets
What? The J-8I has a radar size as big or bigger than the MiG-21bis. You can’t judge a nose by how far it protrudes. You don’t really know what you’re saying. The J-8 was being studied to fire the PL-4 BVR AAM, but it was more the failure of early Chinese BVRAAMs for the reason why the plane isn’t using it. Yeah, and Fantans never amounted to over 300 to 400 as well. But the PLAAF maintains and even continues their production because of the reliability and popularity among pilots. The Fantan still performs right in the same region as other CAS jets.
The reason why the J-8I is built in limited numbers, and the J-7C/D even less was that the PLAAF pilots never had a good impression of their flight and handling qualities. There was a good reason why the J-6s were built in their numbers—they were quite popular, although it was difficult to master being sluggish at low speeds and prone to stalling. Once mastered however, it’s hard to beat in WVR combat. You don’t think the PLAAF would exercise their planes against each other do you?
—
Arthur, after the Cultural Revolution, everything suffered in build quality. There are many horror stories about the J-6 quality as well. A large number of J-6s were built in late seventies leading towards the end of the production run somewhere in the mid to late eighties.
It was until the J-7E came along that PLAAF was willing to let the J-6 legacy go.
crobatoDid you see the J-7 production figures? Less than a thousand were built. Of those, 250+ were J-7Es where were mostly built in the nineties. That’s about only roughly 700 J-7s that were built from the late sixties to the late eighties. That is in contrast to a few thousand J-6s the Chinese built in the same time period.
Master the technology? The Chinese mastered the J-7/MiG-21 technology since the late sixties (how much more is the MiG-21 more advanced than the MiG-19 huh?) , but never never made the J-7 its top fighter in numbers. This despite that it was most probably easier and cheaper to build and maintain J-7s due to the single engine design. Figure it out—the Chinese never felt that the J-7/MiG-21 was any better than the J-6/MiG-19 and never made the Fishbed succeed the Farmer.
Consider the kill/loss ratio of the MiGs in the Vietnam War.
MiG-17: 32/100
MiG-19: 8/10
MiG-21: 36/86
crobatoWhat you never heard of MiG-19/J-6 over Vietnam?
Here buy yourself a book.
http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?pid=1841761621&ad=YHSBKS
Here is some more
http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/usloss.html
here is a list of US casualties in May of 1972
08-May-72 F-4 MiG-19 N. Vietnam Nguyen Ngoc Tiep Toperczer Not confirmed
08-May-72 F-4 MiG-19 N. Vietnam Nguyen Hong Son Toperczer Not confirmed
10-May-72 F-4D Harris/Wilkinson USAF MiG-19 Cannon N. Vietnam Pham Hung Son Ethell/Price
10-May-72 F-4D Lodge/Locher USAF MiG-19 Cannon N. Vietnam Nguyen Manh Tung Ethell/Price
10-May-72 F-4E USAF MiG-21 Atoll N. Vietnam Dang Ngoc Ngu Toperczer Not confirmed
10-May-72 F-4 MiG-21 N. Vietnam 921 Regiment Toperczer Not confirmed
10-May-72 F-4J Blackburn/Rudloff USN MiG-21 Atoll N. Vietnam Le Thanh Dao Toperczer Attributed to AAA
10-May-72 F-4J Cunningham/Driscoll USN MiG-21 Atoll N. Vietnam Vu Duc Hop Toperczer Attributed to SAM
11-May-72 F-105G Talley/Padgett USAF MiG-21 Atoll N. Vietnam Ngo Duy Thu Michel
11-May-72 F-4D Kittinger/Reich USAF MiG-21 Atoll N. Vietnam Ngo Van Phu Michel
18-May-72 F-4D Ratzel/Bednarek USAF MiG-17 Cannon N. Vietnam 923 Regiment Toperczer
18-May-72 F-4 MiG-19 N. Vietnam 925 Regiment Toperczer Not confirmed
18-May-72 F-4 MiG-21 Atoll N. Vietnam Nguyen Hong Nhi Toperczer Not confirmed
20-May-72 F-4D Markle/Williams USAF MiG-21 Atoll N. Vietnam Do Van Linh Michel Attributed to stall/spin
23-May-72 A-7 Barnett USN MiG-21 Atoll N. Vietnam Nguyen Duc Soat O’Connor Attributed to SAM
23-May-72 F-4D Byrns/Bean USAF MiG-21 N. Vietnam 921 Regiment Toperczer Attributed to AAA
23-May-72 F-4 MiG-19 N. Vietnam Pham Hong Son Toperczer Not confirmed
23-May-72 F-4 MiG-19 N. Vietnam Nguyen Hong Son Toperczer Not confirmed
Note that some of the MiG-19 achieved kills were gun kills too.
And you’re also wrong about J-7 time table. Chinese got the information and a few MiG-21Fs before 1962, but due to gaps in the information (MiG claims they gave all the info but the Chinese claim otherwise) they were only able to master J-7 production starting 1966 with limited production beginning in 1967.
China was already more than capable of manufacturing J-7 by the seventies. So I don’t know what the hell are you talking about.
Pakistan kept their J-6s until March of 2002. But they have had J-7s for a long long time before that. In fact, Pakistan started getting their F-7s in 1988. So the PAF did not keep their better “J-6”? They kept the planes for fourteen years after the first J-7s.
crobatoI think the Chinese would be buying the Tu-22M5 for Anti-Shipping reasons, not just for conventional land attack, because they already have a lot of platforms that can strike Taiwan. What they need is someting like the Kh-32 or whatever and a good platform to carry it.
It’s obviously for antiship reasons. But I fgured the chances of China acquiring the Backfire would be much less than for them to acquire the Su-32FN.
crobatoWell yes but what is the estimated cost of the J-8F?
Also what makes this BVR J-7 attractive is it’s cost, and as you said it’s very cheap to operate. It could be used in unlimited training(twin seat JL-7 and used for training for other platforms too) while it’s supersonic, it could be armed for strike and of course CAS missions(put in some ATGMs on it like Vikhr) and it could be a nice supersonic multirole and Air Defense fighter for some 5-7mn that would be able to stand up nicely to alot of the current 4th gen fighters. This is basically like a new and furtherly improved Mig-21-93.
I do’t know what is the cost of the J-8F. The problem of the BVR J-7 is that you would have to incur an additional development cost whereas the J-8F no longer does. And that is not all to the J-8F. Although it won’t be as maneuverable as the BVR J-7, it still has greater range from carrying 4200 to 4500kg of fuel, and much larger payload, as much as 4500kg. Furthermore, if you’re using the -21MF style nosecone, the J-8II antenna size would have it beat easy, not to mention the J-8II allows for more electronics on the back of the antenna, which helps you add more functionality to the radar.
Grafting the F-16 style nose and inlet onto the J-7 ala F-7MF would amount to quite some development work. Even if they did, they won’t use a Kopyo style radar on it—it would be something bigger, like the Zhuk-M. In fact the whole idea of the F-7MF was to put a J-10 class radar on it.
crobatoThere is a translation service in the web.
A scan of something, someone better buy first, before asking for links,
questioning again, instead using a translation service himself. Why do the work for you?
For the Israeli/GDR/Czech pilots the MiG-19/F-6 was a sluggish performer. The best to say about it, it offered some supersonic performance. Absolute
numbers and aerodynamic handling are not always the same side of a coin.
The same pilots agree, the the lightest Fishbed C (MiG-21F13) offered the
best handling qualities of all MiG-21 variants. The mix of thrust/weight and
wingload for agility was the best, but military the most limited too. So it gains
most from modern equipment. After the 1965 war (India-Pakistan) China had nothing better than the F-6 for the PAF. In 1971 it showed nothing special.
For the most part the Chinese preferred their J-6s over the J-7s, and it took wasn’t until the nineties J-7s numbered near the one thousand mark. when J-6s numbered to 3-4000. There is nothing sluggish about the J-6 if the type was able to run down an RF-104, took out a Phantom or two in Vietnam and J-6s successfully engaged Floggers that strayed from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Maybe its because the Chinese were running a couple of 3250 to 3750kg thrust engines in them. Figure that out when you add the total output.
The MiG-21F was most limited in range and radar detection. But after absorbing the MiG-21MF radar for the J-7C, the end result never amounted to over 20-30km detection range. So virtually there was little point. CG changes due to the consumption of fuel in the spine also makes the last parts of the tank unusuable. So the Chinese went back to the best handling F airframe, added a double delta with a higher aspect ratio, automatic slats and a greater wing area, then stuffed an R-13-300 class engine in it. The result was the successful J-7E. The radar, most probably tampered with Israeli help, was said to manage up to 50km in detection range, but the best thing it did was to que Python 3 all aspect missiles. The wings stored the fuel instead of the spine. One can imagine how fast this thing will fly if they ever decided to stuff the Kunlun engine in it.
crobatoYou don’t seem to notice the pattern here. The Yuan sub is consistent to a larger pattern where Chinese domestic development has become more advanced and aggressive. We have seen the AWACS and the 052C class ships as more testimonies to that pattern.
What we are seeing less and less are large scale Russian platform purchases. Other than the regular Su-30MKK and S-300 buys, we have not seen any new large platform purchases lately. The Kilo and the Sovremanny deals were inked in 2002 and there was no additionals ever since. In fact, the Chinese never bought any new platform from the Russians that the Chinese already never have in service. Both Kilos and Sovremannies are just follow ons to the Kilos and Sovies bought in the late nineties, and likewise, so are the Flankers and the S-300s. In short, the Chinese are only buying stuff that are merely improved versions of what they had bought before. They never did add another unique platform or system.
You see the pattern here?
For the Chinese to buy an entirely new Russian platform that they never had before would be inconsistent to the other pattern of increasing domestic development.
crobatoWell what makes it attractive is that it’s much cheaper. The BVR J-7 would cost at most some 5-6mn, while the FC-1 at around 15-20, 3-4 times more.
It uses existing facilities and tooling too for one thing. But it may also be a bit short ranged. Chengdu won’t certainly go for a round inlet MiG-21 to get a BVR J-7 that is for sure—they already made clear their direction on this with the F-7MF. We don’t know what these airframe changes would affect the overall cost. The problem of a 5-7m BVR J-7 fighter cheapie is that the J-8F (Kunlun-2 engines, SD-10 capable radar) can do this now with not much upfront development cost and time.
And it appears that the PLAAF won’t go with the F-7MF anymore, and even the FC-1 is still a 50-50 chance. J-10 and Sues will be the mainstay with J-7G and J-8F rounding up the legacy end.
crobatoin this link you can check that the J-8II has a G load limit of +7Gs, -3Gs and the J-8IIM is claimed to have a max overload of +8Gs,-3Gs however it is in Chinese and at the bottom of the Page but the numbers and G remarks are clear nevertheless i can not read Chinese although i read some Japanese and i can read the Chinese characters for J-8II but some one who reads Chinese can confirm my assertions here is the link
That’s what basically it said.
F-8IIM max G overload is 8G+ -3G, J-8II is +7G, -3G.
The climb rate is at follows
274m/sec at sea level
224m/sec at 1,000m
160m/sec at 5,000m
Note:
F-8IIM has a heavier (10,371kg empty) but sturdier airframe that allows for higher G overload. I do expect later variants of the J-8II to use the heavier airframe, starting among the later Ds right up to the H and F. The sturdier but heavier airframe is also better suited for strike roles.
crobatoOh sure. The story is pure nonsense. Russia will never sell a weapons system with a potential to be used against them in a strategic manner. If they would sell Backfires, they won’t sell the missile. Besides, China has its 2nd Artillery for its strategic option. If China manages to develop a strategic LACM, they could easily fire it from the ground or existing Badgers, and you don’t need a supersonic bomber for that.
crobatoBecause they tell stories like that and would never be validated in the coming years, e.g. China wants to buy MiG-31s and Akula subs.
crobatoWell, I was just asking how you think it might perform as an Air Defense fighter given how Mig-21-93 performed in recent exercises against F-15s IF it was armed with something like with lets say Kopyo-F and R-77 and various Russian avionics, or Israeli ones are an option too. I mean it’d be 5mn BVR capability. You might as well customize it with other things too like HMS+R073, and etc. The Chinese could very well deliver the bare airframe with engines and such for maybe 2-3mn and the avionics and weapons and such would cost more.
Kopyo is too big for the J-7G, and for the planes that can fit it, China has no plans of upgrading the J-7C/D and the J-8E further than the radars they already have, which is the JL-7A radar also AKA known as the Type 226. The best these planes could shoot is a PL-8. Only FC-1 could fit Kopyo but the current radar specs being asked for the FC-1 exceeds that, which is why the Grifo S-7, Thales RC-400 and a KLJ type radar being ground tested. China appears to have at least two Kopyo sets for evaluation.
J-7 program is already at a shoestring budget, or they would have gone through with the F-7MF program where you can jam a 700mm antenna right up the plane’s nose. And if they need a small dogfight only radar, why should you even bother to import one? We’re only talking about a simple radar here with the dogfight modes (e.g. boresight, vertical scan) with RWS.
crobatoIs there any credible source for this or just internet rumor? It is hard to believe PLAAF flighter pilots can now get three times the flight hours they were getting three years ago, especially in light of the high priority the PLAAF puts on conserving fuel. Last year a pilot in Guangzhou set a new record for over 200 hours, but he was an instructor. This year, a pilot in the 3rd Div went over 300 hours. I suspect he is an instructor also and that the time in the backseat is being counted, giving the Su-30 pilots the extra hours.
I do but you have to pay a subscription for it.
crobatoNo. The J-8II was quoted at 6.9G while making a 1K radius turn at 5,000m. That’s not maximum G per se. I suspect the Chinese use this as a kind of measure for their own. 8G is probably what the airframe is stressed at.
Yes but are even the latest J-7s as trainers able to simulate the J-10 in anyway?
YOu don’t need an exact plane to work out tactics, become proficient in night flying or low level flying.
Also Crobato, what do you think of arming someting like J-7G with latest Russian or Israeli avionics, radar(like Kopyo-F) and various weapons AA weapons like R-77 or Derby and some lighter A2G weapons mostly for CAS and such and not some heavy strike due to it’s limited payload and range? How do you think it might be able to compete in the BVR arena? Of course you could probably squeeze all of this in around 5mn, very cheap for a BVR supersonic fighter.
The J-7G isn’t equipped with Russian or Israeli radar. It is equipped with the KLJ-6E slotted array radar, which functionally should be similar to the Super Skyranger on the F-7MG or the Grifo S-7 on the F-7PG. It’s basically a dogfight radar with a range while search mode. They’re not going to make it BVR. At best, they will have the latest blocks of PL-8/9 as well as PL-5E on the plane, aided with helmet sighting.
I don’t think the Chinese were that impressed with the Kopyo-M or -F in a way sufficient to make a buy, even if the radars are said to be priced well below the FIAR Grifos.
Sign In
