Loads of new Su-30MKV pics, one of them showing as much as 5 aircraft. For people’s photo collections.

http://tuku.military.china.com/military/html/2007-06-04/38534.htm

http://tuku.military.china.com/military/html/2007-06-04/38535.htm

http://tuku.military.china.com/military/html/2007-06-04/38533.htm

The F-22 is banned for export supposedly because it contains sensitive technology. Yet the F-35 is going to be sold to just about any friendly country that can afford to buy it.
This poses the question – What’s so sensitive about the F-22 that it can’t be sold abroad when we know that in so many ways the F35 technology is more advanced than the Raptor’s. Or is it a case that the Yanks simply want to be the only country flying what they believe to be the most dominant A2A fighter?

Its probable that the export F-35s may be dumbed down compared to the US use variants.

In the F-22 its probably because all these classified systems are working in a highly integrated manner that will make if very difficult with substitution, but in the F-35, the plane was designed for substitution in mind from the ground up with cheaper, export approved systems.

Its not the R-77, but the R-27ER. The radar should be good enough to guide it for the necessary 120km paper range of the missile. Yes, this missile exceeds that of the R-77 in sheer range, and it is already been exported in numbers to China and India. Since its considered standard fare, the Su-30MKVs of both Vietnam and Venenzuela should be getting it too, not to mention that of Indonesia. Malaysia should be getting it too.

On the APG-70, it may have a slotted array, but the electronics are very eighties, while the N001VEP is early 200X. The twist cassegrain has great signal gain, but its the azimuth and elevation (FOV) of the radar that is in disadvantage against a slotted array. Even a fixed AESA or PESA has problems matching a slotted array in terms of sheer FOV.

The Kh-31A is guided by the same subsystem as the R-77, and not the air to ground subsystem. Why? Its pretty obvious. The Kh-31A is active radar guided, just like the R-77.

The air to ground system is a TV channel system with optical and IIR feeds. This is for all the bombs and missiles with a TV cam on those nose and uses optical guidance.

Since when do the UBKs have R-77 capability? They should be standard UBKs, twin-seat versions of the PLAAF’s basic Su-27SKs.

Some really old news.

Kanwa News March 10th 2001 Source form the Russian Air Force recently confirmed that Su27UBK fighters have been deployed in China’s Chengdu Military Command. The source said that on December 22 2000, 8 Su27UBKs flew to Chongqing from Irkutsk, indicating that Chengdu Military Command has started to obtain the latest model fighters after Nanjing Military Command.
The purpose of this deploy in Chongqing is obviously directed at India to some extent. Due to the adverse climatic conditions, Su27 may not be deployed directly in Qinghai or Xizang (Tibet) close to the China-India border, and Chongqing is 1600km from Lhasa and 950km form Changdu in Tibet respectively. The Su27 in Chongqing can give necessary support to the Nanjing Military Command in the future battle against Taiwan and it also suggests that Chongqing will possibly become an important training base for Su27 fighters. It is reported that the modified N001E radar systems on the newest batch of Su27UBK deployed in the Chinese air force have undergone some improvement. The fire control mission computer has been reprogrammed, enabling the aircraft to guide R77 active radar guided missiles when necessary. Kanwa

Its a very old article and still possible to discount this. What cannot be discounted is that if you look at the pictures of the Su-27UBKs closely, they have a box on top of the dashboard that looks like an MFD sitting on top of the original CRT display on the right side. The J-11s all have them though, but not the originally imported Su-27SKs and the early 12 Su-27UBKs. So definitely the dashboard, and quite probably the radar, is non standard. In that sense its also quite possible that the plain jane J-11s are R-77 capable. The issue really is whether China has enough stocks of R-77 to fill all these planes in addition to the Su-30s.

These mods can’t be ruled out later if they can be modified for the PL-12. Remember the N001 software was successfully disassembled by a Chinese programmer.

Another plane that is potentially capable of the PL-12 is the JH-7A and the modified second block of JH-7 with the JL-10A radar. Although operationally we have yet to see one PL-12 fitted on the JH-7A, the offiicial mockup had the missile and the PL-11 too.

In your eyes perhaps..

The MKI as it is in India, is not going to have significant commonality with other Su-30 derivatives beyond a point either. And as regards the J-11B, ask a Sukhoi official and you’ll realise…they know about it, they dont like it (they dont like India messing around & indigenizing the MKI either), but they’ll live with it…key customers after all.

I dont think there is enought information on the J-11 to make the conclusions of the kind you are drawing.

The MKI, bar the engine and radar, is well on its way to becoming iteratively local as well.

I am aware of the J11’s local – HUD, MFDs, radar and engines. That doesnt translate into all the other critical hardware that goes into the aircraft- its entire hydraulics, actuators, basic design (bar some reduced RCS band aids) etc. All these are things that the PRC sensibly picked up from the Su-27SK license manufacture. The avionics are but a small part of the overall aircraft, even as they are essential to its warfighting capability.

Perhaps the hydraulics will still be there. The actuators? If the plane gone digital FBW, you’re going to have to use different linear motors than the ones used in the analog FBW. Basic aerodynamic design is still there, but there are changes in the structure and skin of the aircraft to adapt to composite and different metallurigical sciences. The Russians have their own which they did not share to the Chinese, and the Chinese have their own, learned from the West.

If we see the MKI- pretty much the same, local kit being included- displays, avionics etc.

And if the Russians had been as open with a good radar (read Pits comments on N001V mode denial to the PRC) – say a Phased array, and engine technology, I doubt that the PRC would have reinvented the wheel there either. They too might have preferred a JV approach for these items.

JV approaches have been previously offered to the J-10, JH-7, and FC-1 projects. China does not accept them because China has its own growing industry on missiles and precision guided muntions. If missiles and munitions is the software, the radar and fire control system is the operating system. A JV would have required China to reveal information and access codes of such weapons to the Russians, and this is not on the platter. Regardless, China would have gone indigenous in their radars even if Russia did offer the non-nerfed package of the N001VEP1. And it won’t matter if its Bars, Zhuk AESA, or Irbis, and selling these to China will only result in near clones later. The J-11B project after all was hatched in 2001, well before the Su-27SM project. The locally developed systems have commonalities with the J-10, J-8F, JH-7A and even should the JF-17 come into PLAAF service, which would benefit in logistics and maintenance.

The closer parallel to the J-11B are the Japanese projects, the F-15J and the F-2. In the F-15J, the radar is heavily modified with indigenous content and manufactured under license, and can be made to accomodate local AAMs. In that sense, the Mitsubishi manufactured APG-63s are unique, heavily modified radars. In the F-2, the radar is of local design, even though more proven alternatives from the US exist. If the F-22 is ever sold to Japan, chances are good they will develop their own radar for it (APG-77 will never be licensed). Another example is what Israel tried to do with the F-16I but the US did not approve, which is to use their own ELTA 2032 on their F-16I rather than the APG-68V9.

I have a detailed list on the MKI including each & every component and subsystem, and what is going to be license manufactured, and what has local programs directed towards replacement- its not that hard to make out, given the amount of public GOI information that exists on the matter. Theres a pretty striking parallel with the PRCs J-11 in terms of overall intent over time.

If the MKI’s latter intent would be like the J-11B, in the end, this is what it would have over time.

A larger version of the MMR
A AL-31FP thrust class engine with the Kaveri core
Your own IRST
Your own FBW, perhaps derived from the Tejas
Your own MFDs and HUDs
Use local AAMs
use local RWRs and ECW systems but this is already incorporated.

In the long run, there will be greater commonalities with the Tejas and the post Tejas medium fighter project.

FYI, China has done the same thing with the J-11 that India has done with its MKI. It too has licensed production of the Su-27SK design and is replacing select subsystems with its own units, which is exactly what India is doing with the MKI. Nor is China developing all components locally, it has the brains to take help as and when necessary. The only two truly vertically integrated aviation powerhouses were the Soviet Union & the US, and today, both are looking towards international cooperation in a time of shrinking budgets. And that level of vertical integration affected the Soviet economy summat horrible.

Lol the motivation behind the J-11B and the MKI is so different. The MKI is a true partnership, a definite sharing of ideas between two countries. The J-11B on the other hand, is a cynical attempt to completely engineer the Russians out of the aircraft, so China could completely build the J-11B even if a new Sino-Russo split will occur. The MKI is done with Sukhoi’s blesssing and cooperation. The J-11B is not. Sukhoi offered the Su-27SM to China. China did not accept. The J-11B has no connection to any of Sukhoi’s templates for its future vision of the Flanker. It represents a true split in direction.

The J-11B is born from the 1960s experience of the J-7, when the Soviet Union and China split, cutting the technology umbelical cord, forcing the Chinese to realize the need for self sufficiency in technology. Just about every major component in the J-11B is either Chinese designed, or coped from the Russian design so it can be manufactured indigenously. The J-11B is filed with technologies previously developed for the J-10, including radar, engine, FBW system, avionics, and airframe construction.

From one of the technical manuals of Sapfir-23E (that uses similar class of antenna that N-001/019 and family)…

From MrDetonator post at ACIG.org…you can read more at Secretprojects forum.

The pics from the Secretprojects forum show a radar with a flat disk, a hole on the side, and the emitter horn coming out from that. This is true of the Saphir, true of the N010 and true of the N001. I’ve seen enough pictures of all three radars to tell you there is no “two parabolic antennas” (which is true only of the Su-24). All three systems are using twist cassegrain, where you have two reflectors, one big and one small, facing each other (think of a reflective telescope), with a feeder horn on the big disk which moves around the perimeter.

To do GMTI you need at least three feeder horns with at least three sectored receivers (two needed for clutter). For symmetry with existing systems, it all becomes four.