wilhelmRIP to all on board.
That is a wonderful paintjob on that Turbo-Dak.
wilhelmWhen is China’s first indigineous carrier due?
I saw a Taiwan report that it’s due to be launched next year, with commissioning probably 2 or 3 years after.
I’ll take the report with a pinch of salt, but does anyone have any further, concrete info?
wilhelmSorry for resurrecting an old thread, but two questions:
Obviously this re-engining programme was not proceeded with, or recieved no firm interest?
As asked earlier in this thread, has the Sukhoi Su-24 ever been re-engined with the Al-31 turbofan? I was googling to see if it had, and it brought me back to this thread, which I’d forgotten.
wilhelmJSR
Rooivalk has Euro parts (engines turbomeca) so it is non starter.Why would Euro engine parts be a problem?
Out of those original 4 listed in the first post, the Rooivalk is the only one produced externally of the big power blocks Europe and the USA.
The Rooivalk has consistently scored high in technical evaluations in all the competitions it entered, but politics then enters the fray.
The US refused to have the Hellfire integrated onto the Rooivalk for the British competition.
Recently, and in light of the comments above, in the Turkish competition, Eurocopter made it very plain that it’s Turbomeca partner, who supply the Makila for the Rooivalk, would rather not support that helicopter (Rooivalk) over the Eurocopter Tiger.
Such is politics and money.
wilhelmalthough Pakistan hasn’t operated a twin engined fighter anytime and prefers single engined fighters due to their lower operating and maintenance costs
Pakistan operated the Nanchang Q-5/A-5 and the Shenyang J-6, both of which were twin engined.
wilhelmThe other thing Serbia would’ve lost with the breakup of Yugoslaiva was the aviation designers from other parts of Yugoslavia.
Same thing with production – from memory most of the J-22 and G-4 production was in Mostar, Bosnia.
That meant a large percentage of the workers, project managers etc were from Bosnia as well. I doubt many would’ve transferred to Serbia during the Bosnian War (Mostar was mainly Muslim and Croatian).
In any case most would be nearing retirement age by now.
Serbia upgraded 15 G-4s but I doubt it actually has any jet production capability.
We have no idea the ethnic makeup of SOKO Mostars management, so it’s best not to speculate.
I cannot for the world of me see why they have no jet production left. If they can make the Kobac turboprop trainer, they can make a jet trainer. Investment is what it would need.
They would be only building the fuselage, and other components, and assembling the total package, just like almost all jet producers do today.
The avionics, jet engine, ejection seat, landing gear(?) and perhaps other parts would be sourced externally, as is the norm the world over today, and integration would happen at the factory.
Like I said in this post and the previous, all this is rather dependent on investment, primarily.
wilhelmHaven’t you read anything? The Orao was designed 40 years ago, & hasn’t been built for almost 25 years. And where are the design & development skills, >20 years since the Novi Avion project broke up?
I’ve read it all, swerve.
I was pointing out that the documentation from SOKO in Mostar was likely not lost, as you assumed. It was highly unlikely, as another poster has pointed out, that the documentation was kept only at Mostar. Even if some was, the transportation of the SOKO jigs to UTVA illustrate that whatever documentation, unlikely to be unique in any case, probably went with.
And it was 20 years ago, February 1992, that the last J-22 came off the line, not 25 years.
I’m in agreement with you on skills lost, but disagree with your seeming conclusion that all skills were lost, and that this seems to be an impossible project. It’s likely that somewhere, somebody in Serbia has actually got a degree in aeronautics in the last 20 years, and that there are still original people around competent to design something like an updated Orao. The J-22 Orao I used as an example as a potential starting point for a project. Nothing more, nothing less.
This, whilst certainly difficult, is not an impossibility, and certainly not the same as starting from scratch, as intimated. It would require state investment, more than anything else.
The fact is that there is now domestic aircraft production taking place, which is an improvement over the last 20 years.
On the J-22, you may find it interesting that the J-22 as originally envisaged, was to be supersonic, and powered by a single engine of British origin. Britain didn’t want to release that particular engine, forcing the adoption of the Viper in twin format, with the development of an afterburner lagging behind airframe development.
wilhelmAny new project would be starting from pretty close to scratch…. snip……
…SOKO wasn’t even in Serbia: it was in Mostar, which was not a good place for preserving documentation for much of the 1990s.
Not that I’m saying anything about the accuracy of the initial report, but to indulge in the conversation:
First off, the various SOKO production jigs were transferred from Mostar back to UTVA in Serbia. You can guarantee that documentation went with it.
Would they really need to start from scratch?
The SOKO J-22 Orao, of which there is the 2 seat version, was the first Yugoslavian-designed aircraft to break the sound barrier. Whilst I know it didn’t do this at level flight, it’s level flight speed is close to Mach 1.
Perhaps this would be a good starting point, and go from there with a completely updated model, or at least use it as a design starting point?
The main problem would be suitable engine/s. (Maybe the Yugoslavians/Serbians would finally get the Snecma M88, albeit in the lighter non-afterburning format;))
wilhelmno I am not. Pak-fa might change this as Nicky said.
but looking at historical comparisons it tended to favor European designs for example:
Mirage 3 and Draken over MiG-21
Viggen and Mirage F.1 over Flogger
Tornado ADV and Tornado IDS over MiG-23,27 and Su-24 (only inferior in range)
Rafale and Eurofighter over MiG-29
probably argueable AMX over Su-25 (different approaches to the same problem)
C235 over An-26
You seem to have left out the Sukhoi Su-27.
And the Mig-31
CASA C235 vs An-26? The CASA entered service in 1988, the An-26 in 1970.
That’s almost 2 decades.
Perhaps you should be comparing it with the Antonov An-32? Even that beat the CASA C235 into service by over a decade.
The Mig-29 vs Rafale and Eurofighter? The Mig-29 was in service in 1983, the Rafale in 2000, the Eurofighter in 2003.
Again, about 2 decades seperate their service introduction. About the same time as the difference between the first flight of the F-86 Sabre and the F-14 Tomcat.
And if you want to go down the route of saying the end of the Cold War slowed down development of the Eurocanards, the same is true, and even more strongly, with the Soviet/Russian replacements, which should have come on line roughly the same time as the Eurocanards.
I hate to say it, but if anything, your “examples” destroy your own argument, and certainly do not favour Europe.
Try again.
wilhelmIt appears then that Tupolev will be designing it.
wilhelmSo to confirm, is the An-70 definitely being ordered?
I hope so, as when the plane was first unveiled years back, I thought it would do very nicely, with a bright future.
wilhelmWell, this thread went south quite quickly.
I know it is difficult on this topic, but could we keep the political posturing to a minimum please?
Obviously any straight out purchase may be fraught with political difficulties.
I’ve always thought Taiwan had the resources to develop a fighter domestically, albeit with significant outside input, particularly with regards to engines. They have a GDP approaching $500 billion, so are hardly a small economy. Twice the size of Israels, and approaching Swedens. And they have had successful aerospace projects extending back over 30 years, albeit again, with outside assistance.
I’m sure AIDC will want to build on the experience gained from the development of the AT-3 jet trainer, and the following F-CK-1 Ching-kuo.
I’ve always thought a radical development of the Ching-kuo, or a combat jet using it as a starting point should be Taiwans next step.
They should also keep in mind that the Ching-kuo’s production total was halved as a result of the conveniently timed release of F-16’s from the US. They should ensure this does not happen again, for economies of scale.
A redesigned Ching-kuo, with a EJ-200/F414/RD33MK, upgraded avionics and aerodynamics/radar treatment?
Or perhaps this is the ideal time to get in with SNECMA and develop/finance an advanced M-88 variant.
Or a clean sheet design?
wilhelmSo what is Taiwan looking at?
Has there been any intimation in the press?
I recall that there was something about a STOL fighter a while back, but I just assumed that this was them sounding out the F-35, which won’t happen.
wilhelmAnd who needs political union to cooperate? As economic and social ties between Taipei and Beijing get stronger the policy of military antagonism has little sense opening the door of cooperation.
Recently we have seen how Japanese didn’t pull a finger to stop the fishing flotilla stunt of mainland but when Taiwanese boats tried to emulate them aproaching to Diaoyu islands there was no shortage of water cannons from Japanese Coast Guard vessels. Even symbolic gestures between Beijing and Taipei like anti-piracy exercises in the strait could be used to boost the political
After the F-16 upgrade drama over the last years the chances for a local stealthy design appearing on scene are quite small and with the risk of spionage and defection, specially if Beijing copies the strategy of money incentives offered in the past by US, F-35 becomes even less plausible.
Cooperation with South Korea or Japan on the basis of communist containment is doomed to fail as they are as much tied to Beijing as is Taipei.
Any deal with Europeans is going to become a political nightmare with endless strings attached and Russian equipment is not an option unless they plan to heavily invest there to compensate the political outrage from its neighbors.
Owlcat.
Almost the entire of Taiwans military strategy is geared towards the mainland.
If, and until unification, this is how it will be for the future, for obvious reasons.
Therefore, Taiwans airforce top brass will have to consider putting something in train now, to come to fruition in the next decade or so. This is their job, even if I agree with you that economically, no one wants a war.
And this is what the thread aims to discuss.
Slowman brings up some very good points about India and Russia.
It seems it will be those 2 countries, or an indigineous development, perhaps with collaboration with others.
Is their anything AIDC are looking at?
wilhelmWhat about J-20 or J-31? :dev2:
On a serious note, given the reluctance from western countries to supply Taiwan with modern equipment a bit of technical cooperation between both sides of the strait could open new opportunities to further developed their domestic aerospace and defense industries while gaining more political leverage when dealing with international affairs.
My post is assuming there will be no political union between Taiwan and the mainland in the next decade or two.
Airforce planners surely must have short, medium, and long term plans to induct a new fighter in the next decade or so. With developments on the mainland, at which Taiwans airforce is geared towards, certainly they must be looking at the fact that after 2020, only 7 years away, they will be operating a 20 year old, and older, fighter fleet.
The last Mirage 2000 was inducted almost 15 years ago, and the F-16 about 12 years ago.
The Ching-kuo entered service over a decade ago, and AIDC is approaching the ending of the MLU of the last Ching-kuo to be modified.
It would be interesting to know what they have in the pipeline thereafter.
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