crobato“There is no way to tell. If there are any pictures at all of a WS-10A in a plane, they would be of the test J-11 with a different engine in each nacelle.”
Which I suspect is the J-11 that appears in a number of CFTE photos. Remember there was a J-11 in a line of aircraft that included a number of JH-7A prototypes?
The CFTE stuff tends to be a prototype of something, and I bet that J-11 is.
crobatoOn the so called WS-10 pics, many people truly don’t know the difference of an engine whose nozzles are in an open or close position. It’s still the same engine.
Having said that, the proper way to compare would be to find an AL-31F picture whose nozzles are in an open or close position. The picture on the right with the nozzle petals in closed position is that of SU-27UBK 03 and is surely an AL-31F. The one on the left with the nozzles open is a little more suspicious since the nozzles of the AL-31F in open position seem longer compared to that picture. That is to my recollection. But it may only mean that the latest batches of AL-31F may have a slightly shorter nozzle. If you notice the nozzles on the AL-31FN on the newer J-10s appear shorter than the nozzles of those in prototypes.
We need to get a more definitive evidence if we are to say WS-10A has been deployed, and looking at nozzles ain’t the way to do it.
crobatoWow nasty, GD. These ones are spotter shots right over a security wall. A horde of brand new JH-7As, JH-7s and H-6s being made to threaten the Free World.
There is something new about the JH-7s and JH-7As here that I have not seen before.
The radome color has changed from black to a low visible grey. It looks much nicer too. It gives the plane more of a F-4B Phantom nose look.
Then there is something underneath the front part of the canopy on top of the nose. I think it’s an IRST of sorts.
Some of the J-11s in the 7th Div are sporting a lighter grey radome. I’m waiting for J-10 pics of later production to see if they will use grey radomes rather than the black.
crobatoIt is still MIG cockpit.
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_28.shtml
Precisely, and the FC-1 has a MiG engine. It’s not hard to believe that MiG has some advisory role over here.
If you note the old (and ugly) FC-1 cockpit mockup, it has the same general configuration as you see in the MIG-29M2 and SU-25KM cockpit. That is, two large MFDs left and right, analog dials in the center. That’s why people mistake this cockpit for the FC-1’s because of this general configuration. If you also notice, it’s also the same configuration for the SU-30MKK, the front cockpit of the JH-7A or second block JH-7, and the J-8C, which may be the prototype for the more modern J-8IIs like the J-8H version.
But since the cockpit layout is not set in stone yet, the powers at be might also elect something similar to the J-10’s layout, which seems to be three MFDs, left, center and front.
crobatoFrom Kanwa, suggesting that a NRIET KLJ model radar will be used on the FC-1 04 prototype:
Kanwa news May 21, 2004> A source from the Chinese military industry tells Kanwa exclusively that the third prototype of FC1 (JF17) fighter will have flying test in March 2004.
The prototype FC1 is expected to conduct flying control experiments. The fourth FC1 prototype will be fitted with domestic making KLXXX fire control radar. (For full story, see 410E issue 254 words)
As previously noted, KLJ-1 radar (factory designation) is the main radar of the J-8II family now, while the KLJ-3 radar is the radar for the J-10. Their PLA designations is Type 1471 and Type 1473 respectively.
crobatoThere are two J-5s there, and a J-7 with green and brown camouflage.
crobatoGD,
You fail to consider that the entire Federation has nearly 700 Flankers alone. These includes about 60 SU-27UBs. There are also 12 SU-35s doing development work and with the acrobatic teams, and a similar number of SU-30s for development work. A small number of Russian SU-27s are upgraded to SU-27SKM standard.
crobatoThat sure isn’t a very secret air base. Looks like an air base doubling as an airport.
What strikes me about the picture is not just the J-10, but the aircraft on the runaway. It’s a beautiful contrast of one plane of one generation meeting another. A genuine J-5 or JJ-5! In other words, the MiG-17, probably the finest handling jet fighter ever. Those planes are destined to be highly prized by collectors around the world.
crobatoLet me put it this way.
There is nothing wrong about an airframe being multiroled for interception or strike.
But requiring also a carrier version, and then a S/VTOL version, is something else.
crobatoI agree completely with you Elp.
It’s just the way our US Congress vs. Defense Establishment works.
US Congress/Bean Counters/Bureaucrats hate specialization. They will grill you in congressional hearings why this X weapons system can only do and so. As we face more government deficits, they will look at a long list of weapons systems and platforms and grill you more for justication. When they see a lot of weapons projects, their hairs go up.
In order to justify a weapons system you have to say it can do this and do that. So the specs go up. At the same time, they will grill you for any redundancies—why do you have Plane A and Plane D, when you can have Plane C do the same job as Plane A and D and save you money. The current basic system of having four fighters (F-14,-15, -16,-18 not including the Harrier) for three armed services has been under serious questioning for a long time. Not since the time of the F-4 Phantom II, the US has not have a single fighter design that could dominate all three services.
The answer to all this, and one most suitable for an establishment/bureaucratic mind—a joint platform that could do everything and fit all square holes. You only present one platform to the Congress—then actually convince them that spending more in the short run equates to spending less in the long run. The politician, the CEO, the bureaucrat does not understand weapons technicalities. But they understand slogans. “Joint”. “Integration”. “Combined”.
The result is a committee created Frankenstein—essentially the very opposite of the KISS philosophy that has served American engineers so well in the last four decades. Committees love even more commitees, so you invite commitees from other countries in. More and more like the ISS (International Space Station) you create a bureaucratic entanglement as commitees and sub commitees add their own specs, change them, add them again. Then they have their disputes and the whole web threatens to unravel.
The original X-35 tech demonstrator was a brilliantly concieved plane. Somehow between that and the first actual F-35 prototype, a lot of the translation would have been lost.
I’m not personally optimistic about the JSF. Somewhere along the line, it’s going to produce something overpriced, overweight, and overcomplicated.
But they will produce it, because that is the inevitable nature of the beast. Like I said before, if you don’t have one, they will create one. A “joint” fighter is fated and destined to appear. In fact I’ve never seen a weapons system that is so “predestined” for success like this one. Because of the heavy political capital and “bet” expended on this, the JSF will be considered a success even if the actual product is a turkey.
crobatoThere are selected screen captures from a video clip of a PLAAF SU-30MKK doing a cobra. Probably as part of a military parade. The captures can be found posted in the Chinese Defense Forum. The clips were also posted here sometime ago, but the thread seems long buried already.
crobatoFirst poster,
You are comparing contract cost of Mirage 2000-5 to flyaway cost of FC-1. Contract price includes service, support, training, spare parts, and even missiles. Flyaway cost is just plain unit cost without margins and so on. The 60 million cost was for the UAE, and probably includes margins to cover for the expense of “influencing” officials to buy the plane.
The flyaway cost of a Mirage 2000-5 is about 30 to 35 million estimated, probably the most 40 million (possibly 30 to 40 mil for a Block 52 F-16 now flyaway cost). As a rough rule, flyaway cost tend to be 50% to 60% of the contract price.
crobatoMaybe J-11 and JH-7As are coming out from the same country, but they’re not coming out from the same company.
As China’s government owned industries become more and more capitalistic, they start to compete with each other and upstage each other for attention, with respective provincial governments behind their efforts. A twin engined J-10 would easily be CAC’s counter to SAC’s J-11 and XAC’s upgraded JH-7.
It could create a fighter in the Rafale or Typhoon weight and power class if you use twin RD-93s. The resulting plane could benefit from the joint experience of the J-10 and FC-1 development, incorporating the FC-1’s canted intakes, which gives a lower RCS and provides a more compact and robust engine duct than the squared underslung intake of the J-10. The lack of wingtip rails on the J-10 was a surprise but this model would remedy that situation, adding more hardpoints into the configuration.
There is only so and so ways to design a canard delta, and one approach can easily make the plane resemble an existing plane that has previously taken that approach. Put two tails on the plane and it looks like a MiG 1.44. Put canted inlets and it starts looking like a Rafale. Put a large squared intake and it screams Typhoon.
If this computer model did come from CAC (I still have doubts and this may still be a documentary that just happens to show an intended Rafale), it also shows that CAC may still be messing around with a variety of candidate designs for the twin engined J-10—the MiG 1.44 lookalike being one, and this Rafale lookalike being another. They would in other words, still have a long way to go.
crobatoWhat is the cause of the weight increase? Is this because LM Fort Worth decided to go for an all aluminum alloy structure rather than a hybrid composite-alloy one? I personally would feel more confident in an all metal airframe for various reasons, but on the other hand, there are so many demands made on the aircraft that all that is going to add weight.
Elp, while you seem to prefer specialization, the trend with our goverment and bureaucracies lies in a common slogan and a common word—“joint”. Joint this, joint that, joint missile, joint fighter and soon joint ships, joint tanks, etc,. That’s why stuff like the JSF is inevitable, and if there is not one around, the Pentagon bureaucracy would invent one.
crobatoMaybe four computers running the flight control rules, one computer handling the interface to the cockpit and the flight surfaces, one computer handling the “votes” from the four computers and deciding on the final flight solution.
The first plane may be FBW pitch only but the second appears to have it on all 3 axis (pitch, yaw, roll).
Quadruplex redundancy is not just about safety, it is finding the optimum flight solution. Basically it is like a democracy, you have four computers processing and each coming up with their own solutions. The results are then compared. The solution that the computers agreed on the majority is the one picked for the plane. This guards against software bugs, errors, and variations.
Then you have a mechanical backup system if the whole thing is shut down by battle damage.
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