GoldenDragonFrom looking at the FC-1 DSI and the X-35 (and X-32) DSI I’d say that the U.S. version is much more pronounced, plus it is not rotary-symetric (!). The FC-1 solution might be a “me too” move, anyhow it seems little more than a shock-cone used since the F-104 without the diverter plate.
I think interaction with the aircraft nose and forward fuselage is the key to a DSI’s efficiency, meaning you probably can’t just take a traditional aircraft design like the FC-1 and add a DSI. It might not be worse, but it might not offer any benefits. Otherwise LMCO would added it to the F-16, since the structural differences would have been minmal in that case. Or the F-22, for that.
One, the main “benefit” of the DSI system is that it saves weight by doing away with the diverter plates. Any of the other benefits of a well designed DSI bump is secondary. The weight saving is the PRIMARY benefit. Just having the DSI gains you this benefit.
Two, the shock-cone of the F-104 (and the M2K) is just a variation of the standard diverterplate ensemble. The cone is use restrict air flow at various flight regimes. It is even heavier and more complicated than the regular diverter plate setups.
Three, there cannot be a “me too” attitude to DSI because you have to design your bump to deflect the correct airflow in the flight regimes you expect your aircraft to fly in. It’s not an accessory that you can “me too” like putting on conformal fuel tanks. Unless you’ve designed the planform corrrectly, you won’t be able to fly because your engine will be fouling itself.
GoldenDragonIndia not able to stop Russia military sales to PRC and India able to stop military sales to Pakistan is a totally different thing.
First,look at the scale of Russia military sales to PRC,IS HUGE!!! Who don want to earn big bucks? unless India is going to buy up whatever PRC going to buy from Russia….
Exactly. The RD-93 sales is to China not Pakistan. It impacts China’s bottom line and prestige. Russia does risk problems with China if this happens.
As I mention,FC-1 is meant only as export for PRC. Russia views this terminates of re-exporting will not damage its r/s with PRC much as PRC main line fighter J-10 and J-11 will continue to chunk out with full Russian assistance. Basically,JF-17 re-exporting issue is a Pakistan problem,not PRC problem….. The most China will lose 100 million which is only peanuts to PRC!
It most definitely is a China problem. China signed both contracts the one for the RD-93 from Russia and the one to supply the FC-1 to Pakistan. If the RD-93 cannot be exported then it should not have signed the contract and look for another engine. If China could not find another engine then it should not have signed the FC-1 agreement with Pakistan.
But the facts that the FC-1 is flying and the lines are being readied in Pakistan pretty much make this a non-issue. In order to believe that article, you have to believe that China’s negotiators have overlooked an obvious point that even members of an internet forum have pointed out.
Very unlikely. Negotiations are not done by kids where someone says “ooops” when reading fine print after millions of dollars of infastructure are put into place. The fine print is read BEFORE the money is spent.
GoldenDragonFor China,the most it lose. Is the deal of JF-17 with Pakistan. But Russian never stop China from re-exporting this plane with its engines to other countries like Iran,Libya,Mynmar,Blangledash or Venezuela…..
FC-1 as export will other continue other countries except Pakistan unless Pakistan is going to spend more than India on Russia techs!
Actually, the article said the RD-93 cannot be exported to any third country not just Pakistan.
I find the whole thing rather made up. Unless China negotiated the contract fully for domestic use only, this report doesn’t make no sense whatsoever.
The FC-1 was targeted for export from the very beginning and both the Russians and the Chinese knew it. Whoever negotiated the contract on both sides knew this.
Anyone who’ve been involved in contract negotiations would know that small details are hammered out. But where an engine ends up is a massive point, not a small detail. There is no way that this was overlooked.
I find this to be a no-brainer. India can’t stop the RD-93 going to Pakistan anymore than it could stop the RD-93 or Su-30 going to China. All the evidence reflect this. The FC-1 lines are being set up in Pakistan. The initial eight production will be in Pakistan by 2007. Countries don’t make this kind of investment because they overlooked contractual fine print.
Unexpected manufacturing problems stopping projects? Yes. But contractual hangups? No. If there was a contractual problem, the contract would never have been signed and China would not have pushed the FC-1 as an export.
GoldenDragonThe terms of the contract signed by Rosoboronexport and China in 2005 for the delivery of 100 RD-93 engines for FC-1 fighters, along with parts and service, for $267 million is also under strain for a different reason. Russia was supposed to deliver 15 engines by September, but only ten have been delivered so far: the Chinese have refused to accept the remaining five because of technical problems, and delivery has now been pushed back to December.
Link
Hardly worried about the supposed non-export to Pakistan. They would not be putting in the assembly lines in Pakistan if there were not contingencies (either an exportable RD-93 or the WS-13.) Nations don’t invest millions when there is even a chance of contractual hangups. The FC-1 would have never got off the ground if the FC-1 could be axed by an unexportable engine.
Now the high rate of rejection is the more worrying problem. Problems from manufactures are unforeseen unlike contractual ones. If one out of every three RD-93s from Russia is rejected then that is a huge production delay. If the WS-13 was based on this design then the problem is compounded.
GoldenDragonOne more useless thread.
It was going okay until you let envy get the better of you.
You can’t call a thread useless after you yourself attempted to turn it into a flamewar on the second post.
That’s being both jealous and disingenuous, friend.
GoldenDragonSo, what’s the different DSI between JF-17 and F-35?
No difference in the concept. The difference would be in execution.
“Diverterless supersonic inlets” is just a new technique which deals with the airflow boundary layer with a simple bump instead of the diverter plate ensemble used by most current fighters. This saves weight and improves current airflow to the inlets during different flight regimes.
GoldenDragonWell, chinese will say that JF-17 is FAR AWAY the best fighter in the world untel the X-Wing fighter.
It can go Mach-200 and kill anything living at 5000 light-year distance.
All that for 2000 US$ with parts and the full of High-Octane.F-35 is only the next evolution of the P-51D.
A pretty bad jealousy complex speaking there, my friend.
GoldenDragonYou need to go for a canard mounted over the main wing to keep interference drag to a minimum. Works like a biplane.
The CY-1 design (by a PLA-related startup called SuperWings) actually uses a sectioned lift device over the wing along the entire fuselage and right behind the forward canard.
It was designed for short takeoff, extra lift for warload and a way of bypassing complicated FBW for unstable designs with mechanical controls.
GoldenDragonAll of the canard-deltas except for the EF2000 have their canards set behind the cockpit. Only the Typhoon has it at the nose. This magnifies the benefits (and problems) of canards.
All movable canards are designed to influence pitch primarily and the closer they’re to the nose, the greater the effect on pointing the plane up or down. Rolls are more influenced by the elevons.
GoldenDragonSopwith Camel hands down….
The Fokker Tri-plane had a better climb and can turn just as tight. Less performance than the Camel though.
GoldenDragonF-16A and MiG-29A set the benchmark. New newer design exceeds this benchmark significantly. Some newer designs (EF2000) have I guess better performance in supersonic region.
After all, it is pointsless. With the performance of the MiG-29A/F-16A you have everything you ever need. I think the F-15A was already OK. The battle is finaly decided by the missile at hand.
Point of reference. The F-16 and MiG-29 set the benchmark for fast jets in the so-called modern “missile age.”
While both were immensely more maneuverable than high performance missileers from the 1960s like the F-4, F-101, F-106 and the rest of the interceptors group, they were not more “maneuverable” than the dedicated small gun-armed dog-fighters like the MiG-17, MiG-19/J-6 or the F-5.
The A-4 wasn’t even a dedicated gunfighter but had phenomenal maneuverability on top of its ability to carry a massive load for its size. A remarkable design.
GoldenDragonThose Chinese Aviation mags are by no means reliable. They are tarred and feathered one day for some data and held to be true the next minute. The fact is that the specs will only be known as and when CATIC itself announced the figures or put it up on its website or via the PAF.
Evem if you take out the mags on the new batch production and the estimated 04 numbers, the CATIC specs for the FC-1 (1200KM range, 3800kg load, 1.8m top speed) are still better or equal to those of the LCA.
Second thing is that you cannot say DSI is used on the JSF so this is proof of the JF-17s design superiority- thats akin to me saying that the LCA uses glass cockpits so its akin to a Rafale.
Actually, the only ones talking about “superiority” are those supporting the LCA. The incorporation of the DSI design is evidence that the LCA is not superior to FC-1 by design since the FC-1’s design could incorporate modern techniques in shory order.
In fact, you ARE suggesting the LCA because it is using “composites” like Western aircraft and because it was designed to “beat the F-16, MiG-29 amd the Mirage 2000” as somehow superior.
If using composite somehow makes the LCA superior then conversely the DSI would do the same for the FC-1.
DSI is just an aerodynamic solution for foibles with the JF-17 design that had to be fixed.
DSI is a modern weight saving technique that provides an aircraft was designed to use it a major advantage because it saves weight by doing away with the whole splitter-plates ensemble.
So the solutions to whatever JF-17’s design foibles were solved with techniques that wasted no more time than the LCA’s design which had not undergone any aerodynamic changes.
The LCA was from day 1 designed to be a much more complex aircraft than the FC-1 and the program by its very nature is far more ambitious.
Again, I already said the LCA is a more ambitious and I might agreed possibly a more complex aircraft. But it is neither better nor more modern than the FC-1. The rapid integration of radical changes to the FC-1’s aerodynamic planform like the DSI is ample proof of that.
The FC-1 is probably a fine aircraft, but it mostly makes use of simpler mature technologies and hence its natural that its debugging and flight eval will be smoother.
There is nothing in the LCA that is not mature. The tailless delta has been around for five decades. Composites and FBW are not immature technology either. They are present in both the J-10 and JH-7A.
There is no guarantee that the FC-1 will not have composite parts in the future.
Secondly, the PAF will rely on a high degree of external OEM purchased items for key aspects of the FC-1 which will speed up the program. The LCA cannot do this since its meant to build local competence. So its apples to oranges.
Whether or not the PAF will make use OEM (which is mainly CAC) have any bearing on the speed of development. You are suggesting that the “time-consuming” changes such as the DSI and increased LERX had impacted the FC-1’s timetable. But it hasn’t by much.
Especially in comparision to the LCA which with its frozen planform should be much further ahead by your logic since it didn’t have to make any “time consuming” changes.
It can also be pointed out that no visible changes of the magnitude of the DSI should be visible in the prototypes at this stage unless the designers were forced to undertake redesign- again, nothing bad per se- but hardly a virtue, more of a necessity.
Again, the fact that these massive changes could take place with hardly any major dropoff in speed of development is a plus for the design. Now if it took the FC-1 an extra five years of development than it would hardly be a virtue. But we saw a rapid progression from 01 to 03 (no wing fences) to 04 and 06 which speaks volumes for the adaptability of the design.
Again, I highly doubt CAC would be able to use diverterless inlets as a solution if DSI was not envisioned as a possibility for the design from the very beginning.
What is this DSI machine? Lets have some perspective please. DSI is no panacea or bleeding edge solution by itself or equivalent to (for example) an AESA set in terms of combat ability or technology. Its just a solution.
I don’t understand why you want to call DSI a “panacea” when nobody else has.
DSI is a technique just like using composites is a technique. Both of which is an attempt to save weight which is one of the cardinal rules to fighter design. You save weight where you can.
Both techniques have secondary effects as well. Composites (depending on the material involved) can reduce radar reflection while a well designed DSI can actually enhance AOA and flight regimes.
But main point is to save weight. Once you save weight, you enhance a whole range of things important to fighters — greater warload, longer range, higher TWR, etc.
So yes, if you can use DSI you would do it. The fact that the FC-1 can quickly incorporate this and other technologies into its planform speaks volumes about the flexibility of its design.
GoldenDragonThe DSI was incorporated because the FC-1 had issues in some aspects of its flight envelope. Using your line of reasoning, it can be pointed out as being evidence of FC-1 having design flaws since its being changed so late into the program.
Even if the FC-1 had issues with flight envelope, its design is able to incorporate some radically new ideas in a very short period in time.
In fact, there are signs that far from having to make changes in order to make up previous flaws, the DSI had decreased weight and increased range much greater than the original specs. The initial specs called for a top speed of 1.6m and combat range of 1200km. The latest Chinese aviation mags report that the 04 increased the range to 1800 km. You can look those up in this thread and in the Chinese news, pics and specs threads.
The FC-1 design being changed in prototype stage only goes to show that they are being forced to change because of deficiencies observed during flight testing. Otherwise nobody would bother with time consuming and expensive changes this late into the program.
Let’s accept everything that you say about the FC-1 being full of design flaws so its designers are forced to make changes.
But that still means the FC-1 is incorporating new technologies to handle whatever flaws imagined. The DSI is a prime example.
Now has the LCA’s ability to avoid the “time consuming” changes made it closer to induction than the FC-1? Not really. In fact, it looks more likely that the FC-1 will reach batch production and induction earlier than the LCA.
Truthfully, the speed of the second prototype 06 appearing in the new configuration is a pretty good sign that new DSI planform is not a tentative step to fix earlier problems. It is almost impossible to change the FC-1 in prototype form from standard inlet to DSI without the tolerances already factored in the basic design.
Even the US cannot simply change the latest build of the F-16 into a DSI machine without a protracted test period. That’s because the original F-16 was not designed for DSI.
The FC-1 has two radically different sets of prototypes. It simply wouldn’t been able to do this if DSI had not been factored in as a possibility for the original design. It’s almost certain that they’ve tested the 04 planform at the very beginning at least in windtunnels and simulations.
GoldenDragonThe Mirage 2000 doesn’t have canards, it has strakes.
There was a small discussion about it in this thread. http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=63394&page=2&pp=30
Strakes, fixed canards or turbulators. They’re pretty much semantics for spoilers that change air flow. The pieces on the Mirage 2000 are called “canards” in more than one publication just as the larger fixed pieces on a Mirage variant like the Kfir are called “canards.”
The real difference is between variable devices like the canards of the EF2000 and J-10 and the fixed ones.
The FC-1 is a more conservative design than the LCA, true. But it is also a more modern design. We could see it in the elements incorporated. The DSI is a new design element with only the F-35 using it aside from the FC-1.
As a single-line project (not attempting to link in predeccessors like the Super 7 or Marut,) the LCA is much older than the FC-1 but incorporates far less changes externally than the FC-1 which indicates that its planform is more or less static. The FC-1 design has shown an ability to rapidily even during its initial set of prototypes. These are not new marks but prototypes before the first production machines. (According to Chinese news groups, the first two batch machines are already being built.)
850 km is the combat range we see in most publications for the LCA.
GoldenDragonI’ll see if I could find an evaluation by the Navy. Most of what I read came from a range of Jane’s monthly periodicals during the 1990s. Check Naval Proceedings.
The F-16Ns were actually retired way back in 1994-5 (because of cracks and the expense of maintenance ) so maybe there is an USN eval in the web by now.
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