About china's 4th fighter

[bjskyhorse]

Is there any news about PLAF'S forth generation fighter.There a lot of pictures about them on the china's website.But most of them are not true.We can still draw the conclusion it is a kind of fighter looks like F22,YF23 or F35.

[divedeep]

Is there any news about PLAF'S forth generation fighter.There a lot of pictures about them on the china's website.But most of them are not true.We can still draw the conclusion it is a kind of fighter looks like F22,YF23 or F35.

Anyone can pull off a decent photoshop job if given the time and the rather conspicuous lack of actual design work for a PRC 5th Gen means fan boys will use existing designs as a baseline for their dreams. If a design manages to come out in the next 10, 20 odd years expect it to look something like a "5th Gen" Saab proposed for the ROKAF's KF-X III requirement.

[SABRE]

Is there any news about PLAF'S forth generation fighter.There a lot of pictures about them on the china's website.But most of them are not true.We can still draw the conclusion it is a kind of fighter looks like F22,YF23 or F35.

There are very few credible pics, which I think might be available in our gallery section, but even those pics are outdated. They are from preliminary stages. The project design has come long way from them so we are not really sure how its going to turn out. Earlier common belief was that it would be modeled around Russian MiG-1.44. This was because many pics were photo shopped around MiG-1.44.

[Feanor]

Is there any news about PLAF'S forth generation fighter.There a lot of pictures about them on the china's website.But most of them are not true.We can still draw the conclusion it is a kind of fighter looks like F22,YF23 or F35.

4th gen.? You mean the J-10? Or did you actually mean 5th gen.?

[Type59]

4th gen.? You mean the J-10? Or did you actually mean 5th gen.?

Chinese disignate aircraft differently


Designation Manufacturer Quantity Type

4th Generation
J-XX
Chengdu / Shenyang - Multirole stealth fighter

3rd Generation
J-11 Shenyang 95 Multirole fighter
J-10 Chengdu 80~100 Multirole fighter
FC-1 (JF-17) Chengdu - Multirole fighter
Su-30MKK KnAAPO 100 Multirole fighter
Su-27SK KnAAPO 36 Air-superiority fighter
Su-27UBK IAPO 40 Air-superiority fighter / Trainer

Generation 2.5
J-8II Shenyang ~250 Interceptor fighter

2nd Generation
J-8 Shenyang ~50 Interceptor fighter
J-7 Chengdu 500+ Interceptor fighter


1st Generation

J-6 Shenyang Retired Interceptor fighter
J-5 Shenyang Retired Interceptor fighter
MiG-15 Mikoyan Retired Interceptor fighter

[SABRE]

J-XX refers to the 5th Generation program which were later unveiled as J-13 & J-14 by Shenyang & Chengdu respectively. I think J-14 (Chengdu) has been chosen.

[Feanor]

Really? Do you have any links to the unveiled J-13 and J-14?

[SABRE]

Really? Do you have any links to the unveiled J-13 and J-14?

Unveiled not as in unveiled the prototype or designs. Some 'information was unveiled' by Chinese magazines (I believe) & forums about CAC winning the contract. I myself learned the news from Pathfinder-x. Wait for him or Tphuang to show up. They can give you better information.

[tphuang]

there is no J-13 or J-14. We just know that the CAC design was chosen and got a designation, but SAC got some funding and no official designation. So, you know they will buy CAC's plane for sure, but they might also purchase SAC's product if it turns out okay.

If a design manages to come out in the next 10, 20 odd years expect it to look something like a "5th Gen" Saab proposed for the ROKAF's KF-X III requirement.

don't write stupid stuff like this.

[divedeep]

don't write stupid stuff like this.

While the Chinese aptitude for copying is well noted don't expect a design approximating the inherent VLO characteristics of a baseline "5th Gen" such as the Lightning or Raptor. They simply are not capable of designing something that advanced despite demonstrating significant advances. Therefore if you have seen the proposed Saab design then I believe that airframe would resemble the CAC design to a degree.

[zeven]

While the Chinese aptitude for copying is well noted don't expect a design approximating the inherent VLO characteristics of a baseline "5th Gen" such as the Lightning or Raptor. They simply are not capable of designing something that advanced despite demonstrating significant advances. Therefore if you have seen the proposed Saab design then I believe that airframe would resemble the CAC design to a degree.

And what make the F-35/F-22s design more advanced than Saabs??

are you aware SAAB has the patent of that design, and it is very hard to make a canard configuration very stealthy, with that said, SAABs design is more advanced.

[Feanor]

What makes them more advanced in my opinion is the VLOe features, as well as the avionics.

[ReAl PrOeLiTeZ]

While the Chinese aptitude for copying is well noted don't expect a design approximating the inherent VLO characteristics of a baseline "5th Gen" such as the Lightning or Raptor. They simply are not capable of designing something that advanced despite demonstrating significant advances. Therefore if you have seen the proposed Saab design then I believe that airframe would resemble the CAC design to a degree.
that so called attitude towards copying is your statement and is not true and has intellectual thinking around it. China is 3rd nation in space, and they caught up 30 years of technology in 10 years time. J-8 jumping to J-10 is a significant step and can challenge mainstream of western airforces around the world. Airframe China can come up with something comparable, weapons comparable, electronics not on par but still decent. C-802 one of the most advance anti ship missles in the world, PL-12 comparablity is between AIM-120B-C. People mistaken China as copying when its really is LICENSE MANUFACTURING. J-11, J-7, PL-9 etc...

[Feanor]

ReAL does your post have a point, other then "China is cool"? There is no evidence of Chinese experiments with LO and VLO technology. The J-10 is impressive, but it's only an early-mid 4th gen.

[ReAl PrOeLiTeZ]

ReAL does your post have a point, other then "China is cool"? There is no evidence of Chinese experiments with LO and VLO technology. The J-10 is impressive, but it's only an early-mid 4th gen.
im not gonna bother with you, read my post again and think 2 sides of the story and then post back with something decent except one liners.

china doesnt reveal significant projects until it slaps you in the face. so who knows china might already have it but not known to the community. on the other hand maybe not, who knows. j10 if it was developed with influence from Lavi meant to be superior to F-16/F-18 early models. so j-10 wouldnt be an early 4th generation platform, though neither is it a 4.5th generation. its inbetween.

[nevidimka]

Anyone can pull off a decent photoshop job if given the time and the rather conspicuous lack of actual design work for a PRC 5th Gen means fan boys will use existing designs as a baseline for their dreams. If a design manages to come out in the next 10, 20 odd years expect it to look something like a "5th Gen" Saab proposed for the ROKAF's KF-X III requirement.

interesting. I guess I missed this 1 out. What does this Saab Proposed design looks like?

[zeven]

interesting. I guess I missed this 1 out. What does this Saab Proposed design looks like?

http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ksaab108dh8.jpg

http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ksaab78xp4.jpg

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[Feanor]

Is it just a proposed design or an ongoing project?

[tphuang]

While the Chinese aptitude for copying is well noted don't expect a design approximating the inherent VLO characteristics of a baseline "5th Gen" such as the Lightning or Raptor. They simply are not capable of designing something that advanced despite demonstrating significant advances. Therefore if you have seen the proposed Saab design then I believe that airframe would resemble the CAC design to a degree.
For every air force, there are requirements on certain designs. Considering PLAAF's opposition as F-22/35, what makes you think PLAAF will lower it's requirement to the next generation Gripen?
There are reasons why China is not interested in su-35 (or the Eurocanards when they were possibilities in 2005). These platforms simply are not that helpful against 5th gen US fighters.

ReAL does your post have a point, other then "China is cool"? There is no evidence of Chinese experiments with LO and VLO technology. The J-10 is impressive, but it's only an early-mid 4th gen.

your analysis of J-10 is deeply flawed, but let's focus on the LO technology part.
have you seen the UAV that CAC is developing? Have you seen the UCAV models they have shown? They are all clearly developed to be LO platforms.

[Ozzy Blizzard]

For every air force, there are requirements on certain designs. Considering PLAAF's opposition as F-22/35, what makes you think PLAAF will lower it's requirement to the next generation Gripen?
There are reasons why China is not interested in su-35 (or the Eurocanards when they were possibilities in 2005). These platforms simply are not that helpful against 5th gen US fighters.

have you seen the UAV that CAC is developing? Have you seen the UCAV models they have shown? They are all clearly developed to be LO platforms.

Again there are limitations to what you can achieve with your first operational LO platform, no matter how clever you are. It has taken 30 years for the US to produce a VLO/LO fighter that outperforms its predecessors in terms of kinematics and aerodynamics, doesn't have a maintenance footprint as large as the kitty hawk, doesn't need RAM reapplied after every sortie and doesn't cost the earth (i.e. a 5th gen platform).

Achieving the balance between RCS reduction, reliability/maintainability and cost is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. In addition to the shaping the materials technology required to achieve comparable maintenance requirements to legacy platforms while providing the F-22 with an RCS smaller than the previous gen stealth technology are truly state of the art. That's why it has taken so much investment and so much time for the US to effectively achieve that balance. You think that just because CAC has rolled out a 1st gen LO technology demonstrator or two that it is anywhere near achieving something like the F-22 or F-35 in the short to mid term? I wouldn't hold my breath. There is a light year of difference between technology demonstration/proof-of-concept/lab work and operational experience. So unless the PLAAF wants their new fighter post 2020 i doubt they will get true 5th gen LO performance, as RCS performance will be the first thing to go when CAC doesn't have the materials technology required.

your analysis of J-10 is deeply flawed,

I don't see how his analysis of the J-10 is deeply flawed. Classifying the J-10 as an early 4th gen platform is spot on the mark as far as I'm concerned. The J-10 seems to be a relatively advanced 4th gen airframe, providing good supersonic and subsonic maneuver characteristics and energy management (typical of a delta-canard), however as a platform it distinctly lacks behind the benchmark 4.5th gen fighters. What platforms like the F/A-18F BII and Typhoon provide that puts them in front of the 4th gen pack is a emphasis on information dominance and information management technologies and techniques, which reach a contemporary apex in 5th gen platforms. This goes far beyond glassing the cockpit. The introduction of ESM systems as capable as DASS and AN/ALR 63 (v)3, world leading HUI (more advanced than 5th gen competitors) and extremely capable LPI radars such as the AN/APG-79 (although not capable as the AN/APG-79, notably in terms of LPI performance, but Captor is still a world leading radar), all has a massive effect on SA.

Additionally its not just the quality of the sensors that sets the above platforms apart, its the way the avionics suits collate and fuse the information and work with the HUI to present usable information (rather than data) about the battle-space. Its the ability of these platforms to improve tactical decision making that sets them apart from other 4th gen platforms, and raw performance or airframe design has little to do with it.

I don't see any systems of that caliber anywhere near J-10, and at this point in time PROC has yet to demonstrate the capability to produce previous gen equivalent systems (only just in terms of MSA radar tech). Of course you could stick to the "we haven't seen what they've produced yet so maybe they have an AN/APG-79 in the bag", but personally I'm not into acts of faith. Thus the J-10 as a platform is IMO comparable to an F-16C, with possibly some advantages in raw performance. A long, long, long, way behind a Typhoon or Super bug.

[swerve]

Is it just a proposed design or an ongoing project?
Proposal.

[Feanor]

your analysis of J-10 is deeply flawed, but let's focus on the LO technology part.
have you seen the UAV that CAC is developing? Have you seen the UCAV models they have shown? They are all clearly developed to be LO platforms.

When they fly I'll be convinced. And even the I'll have my reservations. Until then, Russia is also developing an unmanned LO bomber meant to enter service around 2020, and it's also clearly an LO platform, at least the mockup looks like it. That doesn't mean anything. Not to mention that there is a big difference between an LO UCAV and an LO 5th gen. air superiority/multirole fighter.

[nevidimka]

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http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ksaab78xp4.jpg

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Thanks. This design looks much stealthier and more 5th gen then the Gripen, NG or not. Why didn't Saab go straight to this design compared to a 4th gen design in the Gripen? $$$ problem?

[tphuang]

Again there are limitations to what you can achieve with your first operational LO platform, no matter how clever you are. It has taken 30 years for the US to produce a VLO/LO fighter that outperforms its predecessors in terms of kinematics and aerodynamics, doesn't have a maintenance footprint as large as the kitty hawk, doesn't need RAM reapplied after every sortie and doesn't cost the earth (i.e. a 5th gen platform).

It's certainly not going to be their first LO platform. They already have LO UAV in service and are developing more. Their 5th generation plane is not going to be the first one.

Achieving the balance between RCS reduction, reliability/maintainability and cost is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. In addition to the shaping the materials technology required to achieve comparable maintenance requirements to legacy platforms while providing the F-22 with an RCS smaller than the previous gen stealth technology are truly state of the art. That's why it has taken so much investment and so much time for the US to effectively achieve that balance. You think that just because CAC has rolled out a 1st gen LO technology demonstrator or two that it is anywhere near achieving something like the F-22 or F-35 in the short to mid term? I wouldn't hold my breath. There is a light year of difference between technology demonstration/proof-of-concept/lab work and operational experience. So unless the PLAAF wants their new fighter post 2020 i doubt they will get true 5th gen LO performance, as RCS performance will be the first thing to go when CAC doesn't have the materials technology required.

It's not a technology demonstrator. GAIC already have LO UAV in service, the CAC prototype is another that they are developing.

Do you think they just started researching on this? They've been working on these for years. They had a local competition between SAC and CAC for the best design like USAF did for F-22 and F-35. Unless you think China is more than 15 years behind US in material technology. There is no reason to think that China would not have at least the same level of material used on F-22 when it was being developed in the late 90s and early this decade. And the electronics on the Chinese 5th generation plane will be better than the one on F-22 when it came out. Just think about how much faster processors got in the past 15 years.

I don't see how his analysis of the J-10 is deeply flawed. Classifying the J-10 as an early 4th gen platform is spot on the mark as far as I'm concerned. The J-10 seems to be a relatively advanced 4th gen airframe, providing good supersonic and subsonic maneuver characteristics and energy management (typical of a delta-canard), however as a platform it distinctly lacks behind the benchmark 4.5th gen fighters. What platforms like the F/A-18F BII and Typhoon provide that puts them in front of the 4th gen pack is a emphasis on information dominance and information management technologies and techniques, which reach a contemporary apex in 5th gen platforms. This goes far beyond glassing the cockpit. The introduction of ESM systems as capable as DASS and AN/ALR 63 (v)3, world leading HUI (more advanced than 5th gen competitors) and extremely capable LPI radars such as the AN/APG-79 (although not capable as the AN/APG-79, notably in terms of LPI performance, but Captor is still a world leading radar), all has a massive effect on SA.

do you know the performance of J-10's radar? From the numbers I got, it's comparable to Captor's performance (probably less range due to the smaller nose of J-10).

Additionally its not just the quality of the sensors that sets the above platforms apart, its the way the avionics suits collate and fuse the information and work with the HUI to present usable information (rather than data) about the battle-space. Its the ability of these platforms to improve tactical decision making that sets them apart from other 4th gen platforms, and raw performance or airframe design has little to do with it.

The J-10B that just flew this year is suppose to have avionics, situation awareness equivalent to any of the eurocanards, we will see if that's the case in a couple of year.

Even take a look at J-11B (which gives a good indication of what's on the current J-10), it has the holographic HUD, Quadriplex FBW, good modern cockpit, MAWs and IRST, fiber optic cable for data transmission. We can't really quantify the quality of the EW suite or knows what kind of system architecture it uses to process the data. How far behind is it compared to the super hornet, who really knows?

I don't see any systems of that caliber anywhere near J-10, and at this point in time PROC has yet to demonstrate the capability to produce previous gen equivalent systems (only just in terms of MSA radar tech). Of course you could stick to the "we haven't seen what they've produced yet so maybe they have an AN/APG-79 in the bag", but personally I'm not into acts of faith. Thus the J-10 as a platform is IMO comparable to an F-16C, with possibly some advantages in raw performance. A long, long, long, way behind a Typhoon or Super bug.
When did F-16C become early 4th generation?
Let's go with the "long, long, long way behind" statement. J-10 routinely dominates "early 4th generation" fighters in PLAAF like su-27 and su-30mkk and it has very little chance against F-22 even on its home turf. And I can say the same about the typhoon and the super bug. Even from a high level point of view, how much are you gaining when you go from a J-10 to a typhoon?


When they fly I'll be convinced. And even the I'll have my reservations. Until then, Russia is also developing an unmanned LO bomber meant to enter service around 2020, and it's also clearly an LO platform, at least the mockup looks like it. That doesn't mean anything. Not to mention that there is a big difference between an LO UCAV and an LO 5th gen. air superiority/multirole fighter.
Let's see now, the Russians are going from having nothing LO to having a LO 5th gen fighter, nobody thinks they will have a problem of doing so.
China is going from having no LO fighter but with a couple of LO UAVs to having a LO 5th gen fighter, everyone thinks they will have trouble to do so.

Realistically speaking, if China even thought they would not be able to develop something capable of countering F-22, they would've joined the Russian 5th generation project while pursuing a separate program on the side. China has plenty of resource to do this, but instead they held their own competition between Shenyang and Chengdu to get a design it wants. Looks like they are both getting funding (China has a lot of money), but Chengdu got a designation (so they will get orders for sure). At the same time, they are developing a new generation of sensors, missiles and avionics that they are testing out on J-10 and J-11 series. They also have next generation engine projects that are due to be completed around the time when the 5th gen fighters/UAVs are scheduled to join service. They have a very comprehensive program. It's not just CAC doing this. Their "big plane" project is not just to create a civilian airliner, but also to develop/buy the manufacturing process, machinery, material science, production/quality control, maintenance/repairs process needed to develop a successful military complex.

[Feanor]

Let's see now, the Russians are going from having nothing LO to having a LO 5th gen fighter, nobody thinks they will have a problem of doing so.

Russia has a far longer history of successful aircraft manufacture. Russia also has had multiple 5th gen. projects (which fell through due to lack of funding) from which it can learn. Russia has been experimenting with reduced-RCS technology since the mid 70's. I think all of this put together gives a pretty strong case that Russia will be able to produce an LO platform.

China is going from having no LO fighter but with a couple of LO UAVs to having a LO 5th gen fighter, everyone thinks they will have trouble to do so.

China is much newer to the manufacturing of aircraft. The J-10B and J-11B that you pointed out are very new aircraft, practically cutting edge for China. To go from a J-11B to a F-22 level aircraft is a very big leap.

[Ozzy Blizzard]

It's certainly not going to be their first LO platform. They already have LO UAV in service and are developing more. Their 5th generation plane is not going to be the first one.

The fact that you think having produced a UAV with LO features is comparable to a manned fighter indicates to me you don’t understand the complexities of the technologies involved. The US developed an LO UAV in the late 60’s with the SR-71 platform that was 30 years before they produced a 5th gen fighter, and they do have R&D infrastructure twice as extensive as PROC with a 30 year head start. The private sector does not significantly help in this area.

Just because you produced a tactical UAV with a significantly reduced RCS does not mean you are anywhere near ready to produce something like a US 5th gen platform, especially an F-22A. The requirements are miles apart and in terms of a 5th gen project a “LO” UAV would provide little more experience than lab work. The materials requirements would be totally different.

Additionally you have to ask the question as to what the actual level or RCS reduction is. With all of the RCS reduction on the F/A-18F one could argue the case that it is a LO platform too.

Do you think they just started researching on this? They've been working on these for years. They had a local competition between SAC and CAC for the best design like USAF did for F-22 and F-35..

And after all this work what previous gen capability have they demonstrated? A UAV?

Again so what if they have been working for a while, at the time they started work they had ZERO experience with LO technology and after 10 years they have a UAV to show for their efforts. Remember with more cash, R&D resources, 2 previous operational platforms (no their UAV projects don’t count) and 20 years experience it took the US 15 years to develop the F-22A, and PROC is planning on making up 30 years of ground with less resources, less experience and expertise in half the time?

Unless you think China is more than 15 years behind US in material technology?

In this area yes I most certainly do. The US is 10 years ahead of the rest of the world in this form of materials technology, and PROC isn’t coming second (the EU is). Advances in the private sector won’t dramatically help as LO technology is not commercially viable industry in the wider economy i.e. very few commercial applications. Thus there is little or no private investment in LO R&D apart for government contracts.

Just think about how much faster processors got in the past 15 years

Private sector advances in processor technology have nothing to do with materials tech in LO platforms. There is virtually no wider economic drive for LO technology, therefore PROC is going to have to either develop all of the materials tech required in their own labs and then figure out the production techniques, or acquire the information through espionage (which is unlikely considering the depth of the information base required). This form of materials tech is extremely, extremely advanced and sophisticated, its a lot more than carbon fibre. Right now not even the EU has demonstrated operational competency in this area, and PROC is still a developing nation (i.e. the R&D base is no where near as well developed). The F-22A is state of the art, in the true sense of the word, and your claiming that in 10 years PROC will move from just producing its first indigenous fighter that is not significantly behind the rest of the world generationally (and with a little help from the Israelis) to producing something that was the most advanced form of this technology known to man within 10 years, from scratch? Sounds like a huge leap of faith to me.

There is no reason to think that China would not have at least the same level of material used on F-22 when it was being developed in the late 90s and early this decade. And the electronics on the Chinese 5th generation plane will be better than the one on F-22 when it came out..

There are several, many of which are listed above.

A big one is the F-22A is still under development. Every platform or system has a development curve, and the further along the development curve the more capable said platform or system becomes. I’ve had this conversation with people re AESA radars many times, usually in response to a discussion on the Super Hornet. The usual response is “well platform XXX (Typhoon, Flanker, Grippen, whatever) will have an AESA in XX years and then the APG-79 wont matter (in this discussion) any more”. The reality however is very different, because by the time XX AESA is deployed the AN/APG-79 will be much more advanced, providing features like EA or high capacity data links in addition to significantly advanced D&T performance, when XX AESA will still be working out the bugs. In terms of LO tech the same rule applies, the F-22A of 2020 will be much more lethal than the F-22A of today, and the F-22A uses more advanced materials technology than was used/developed in the 90’s, and it will continue to be upgraded over the next 10 years. After that consider the fact that the F-22A is an order of magnitude more “stealthy” than even the F-35, yet PROC isn’t starting from the F-35, their not even starting from the F-117, they’re starting from the D-21 (well not exactly considering that UAV travelled at Mach 3). PROC has a long, long, long way to go to build a platform as ‘stealthy’ let alone capable as the F-22A of 2000, what about the F-22A of 2020?

do you know the performance of J-10's radar? From the numbers I got, it's comparable to Captor's performance (probably less range due to the smaller nose of J-10).

Do you know CAPTOR’s D&T radii? What about its side-lobe performance or beam integrity at XX range? What about it’s organic ECCM? Any hard data on how it performs in high clutter environments? What about its LPI features? AFAIK that sort of thing is classified. There’s a lot more to contemporary radar designs than aperture size or power output, or even detection and track performance. How did you come to the conclusion that the J-10’s radar is comparable to CAPTOR? What sources do you have? Do they know or did they do a Carlo Kopp esk Power/Aperture comparison and draw conclusions from that? Unless you have security clearance or know someone who does you won’t know real performance statistics for either system. Thus the above is pure speculation and when we are speculating there are very few things we can know for certain.

However there is one thing we do know, that the EU has demonstrated competency through previous gen systems such as Blue Vixen, which evidently proved to be extremely capable. What previous gen systems has PROC deployed and how did they perform??? Remember every form of technology HAS to move through a development curve, and again apart from processors COTS doesn’t help a heap in radar design. CAPTOR is a highly refined slotted planar array radar that stands at the apex of that technologies development curve. Even IF current gen PROC systems achieve D&T performance somewhere in the ballpark of CAPTOR (which I doubt given how refined that system is) there are several other PI’s that dictate radar performance. Now again you could claim that the J-10’s radar will be comparable to CAPTOR in terms of D&T radii, side-lobe performance & beam integrity, ECCM, LPI, IFF, missile support capability, high clutter performance, SAR mapping other advanced features, but since there is a lack of any verifiable data we have to weigh up how likely these claims are. As yet PROC has yet to demonstrate capacity through previous gen systems, the EU has. That says plenty in my book.

The J-10B that just flew this year is suppose to have avionics, situation awareness equivalent to any of the eurocanards, we will see if that's the case in a couple of year.

Again claims without demonstrated capacity.

Even take a look at J-11B (which gives a good indication of what's on the current J-10), it has the holographic HUD, Quadriplex FBW, good modern cockpit, MAWs and IRST, fiber optic cable for data transmission. We can't really quantify the quality of the EW suite or knows what kind of system architecture it uses to process the data. How far behind is it compared to the super hornet, who really knows?

That statement contradicts the previous one. Typhoon’s avionics suite is much more advanced than a glass cockpit, IRST/MAWS and FBW. The MMI is extremely sophisticated; an example is the ability to select weapons through voice recognition technology.

All of that stuff (outlined for the J-11B) is current on US F-15E’s (the IRST comes on the F-15K), and not 4.5th gen pedigree, just stock on a western platform. Again the HUI and information management systems on the SH are the most advanced on the planet, as is the software that drives it, and of course this is in addition to a 3rd gen AESA (2~3 gens ahead of current PROC radar technology).

When did F-16C become early 4th generation?
It’s a baseline 4th gen platform in contemporary terms, meaning it has the stuff that is considered stock on a 4th gen platform nowadays. Big difference between that and 4.5th gen platform.

Let's go with the "long, long, long way behind" statement. J-10 routinely dominates "early 4th generation" fighters in PLAAF like su-27 and su-30mkk and it has very little chance against F-22 even on its home turf.

That says a lot more about the quality of other PLAAF platforms than the J-10’s capability in a global context. I dare say an F-16C would also do pretty well when facing such opposition. In any case exercise results alone can not be the basis for a conclusion on capability, simply because there are far too many variables.

There’s a big difference between 4th gen, even rather advanced 4th gen and 4.5th gen platforms. IMO only 3 platforms make it into that category currently, F/A-18F BII, Typhoon and F-15E BII, SU-35 is a possibility but we’ll have to see how capable that platform is. Those fighters set them selves apart from all other 4th gen platforms primarily (as out lined above) because of the information management technologies introduced and the emphasis on information dominance. Again from everything I’ve read the J-10 or J-11B seem to be a long way from implementing anything like that, and as I said previously this technology means more than glassing the cockpit.

In any case why does PROC constantly compare itself to the US military, like they see a conflict with the US as inevitable? Like if a platform does not provide good enough capability vs an F-22A it’s useless. Attitudes like that will make such a conflict inevitable and at the moment it’s not a view shared by Americans on the whole.

What about your larger strategic threat, India? How many 5th gen platforms do they have currently? I dare say a typhoon would bring plenty to the fight in such a scenario.

And I can say the same about the typhoon and the super bug. Even from a high level point of view, how much are you gaining when you go from a J-10 to a typhoon?

This “F-22A standard or its useless” is an odd attitude. Typhoon or Super Hornet provide capabilities far greater than other 4th gen platforms, and its not the sole responsibility of a tactical aircraft to duel with an F-22A.

Let's see now, the Russians are going from having nothing LO to having a LO 5th gen fighter, nobody thinks they will have a problem of doing so.
China is going from having no LO fighter but with a couple of LO UAVs to having a LO 5th gen fighter, everyone thinks they will have trouble to do so.

I think they will have trouble. The Russians are much more advanced in RCS reduction R&D than PROC, and they again have yet to operationally deploy an LO platform (no current gen UAV’s don’t count). I think the PAK-FA will have a significantly reduced RCS technically making it a 5th gen platform, as will the J-XX, but claiming that the level of RCS reduction will be anything near US 5th gen platforms is a bit of a stretch as far as I’m concerned. Remember the AESA paradox? Just because you have produced a LO fighter (or AESA) does not mean you have one as capable as the world leaders in that form of technology. Achieving the balance between practicality, cost and RCS reduction is a very hard thing to accomplish, and when the materials tech is not capable of providing all 3 the first thing to compromise will be the level of RCS reduction.

Realistically speaking, if China even thought they would not be able to develop something capable of countering F-22, they would've joined the Russian 5th generation project while pursuing a separate program on the side. China has plenty of resource to do this, but instead they held their own competition between Shenyang and Chengdu to get a design it wants. Looks like they are both getting funding (China has a lot of money), but Chengdu got a designation (so they will get orders for sure).
It doesn’t automatically mean PROC thinks they can produce something as capable as the F-22A, it means they figure they have as good of a chance as the Russians do. ;)

There are a myriad of reasons why PROC wanted a stand alone project, you don’t develop you military industrial complex and R&D capability by buying off the shelf, and doing just that seems to be a key strategic requirement for PROC. Therefore even if they thought they could get a superior platform for less money by participating in the PAK-FA programme there is enough of a dividend in increasing domestic capacity and knowledge base to do the whole thing at home.

In any case I have no doubt that by 2025 PROC will have a “5th gen” fighter in the air, but again claiming it will be as capable, stealthy or lethal as an F-22A or even F-35 in contemporary terms requires Chinese designers to advance their forma of technology in leaps and bounds, much faster than western or even Russian designers have. And considering there won’t be much help from the private sector I think that is one tall order and IMO very difficult to achieve, even if PLA press releases say different.

[crobato]

Advances in the private sector won’t dramatically help as LO technology is not commercially viable industry in the wider economy i.e. very few commercial applications. Thus there is little or no private investment in LO R&D apart for government contracts.

This is quite untrue.

"Microwave-absorbing materials are currently in high demand
for many expanded electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding
and radar cross section (RCS) reduction applications with both
commercial and defense purposes. Consumer electronics, computers,
wireless LAN devices, wireless antenna systems, and
cellular phone systems are just a few device applications that
require these materials. Generally, magnetic or metal particles
are used for the microwave absorption materials. However, high
specific gravity and difficult formulation have limited their
practical applications. Thus, there remains a need for an efficient
microwave-absorbing material that is relatively lightweight,
structurally sound and flexible, and efficient in absorption in a
wide band range."

http://nanocenter.nankai.edu.cn/script/nanocenter/paper/jp0731396_LZF_2007.pdf

Interesting link. Especially where its coming from.

[tphuang]

Let me just state that I totally admire the fact that you wrote such a long response, it's taking me 2 days to reply to it.
The fact that you think having produced a UAV with LO features is comparable to a manned fighter indicates to me you don’t understand the complexities of the technologies involved. The US developed an LO UAV in the late 60’s with the SR-71 platform that was 30 years before they produced a 5th gen fighter, and they do have R&D infrastructure twice as extensive as PROC with a 30 year head start. The private sector does not significantly help in this area.

Just because you produced a tactical UAV with a significantly reduced RCS does not mean you are anywhere near ready to produce something like a US 5th gen platform, especially an F-22A. The requirements are miles apart and in terms of a 5th gen project a “LO” UAV would provide little more experience than lab work. The materials requirements would be totally different.

Additionally you have to ask the question as to what the actual level or RCS reduction is. With all of the RCS reduction on the F/A-18F one could argue the case that it is a LO platform too.

I don't recall saying that I think it's comparable, but rather it's refuting your argument that they haven't done anything that's LO. Developing stealthy cruise missiles/UAVs are orders of magnitude simpler, but that's still experience. That's why UAVs take less than half the time to develop. As for super hornet, com'on now, do you really think the Chinese 5th gen plane would not have internal weapon bay and showing engine blades? Even J-10 completely hides the engine blades.


And after all this work what previous gen capability have they demonstrated? A UAV?

UAV, UCAV, cruise missiles. If the qualification for having Lo-technology capability is having previously developed stealth bombers, then they haven't done that. But they've introduced LO features on Z-10, J-10. Looking outside of the AF, the naval platforms are all showing LO features.

Again so what if they have been working for a while, at the time they started work they had ZERO experience with LO technology and after 10 years they have a UAV to show for their efforts. Remember with more cash, R&D resources, 2 previous operational platforms (no their UAV projects don’t count) and 20 years experience it took the US 15 years to develop the F-22A, and PROC is planning on making up 30 years of ground with less resources, less experience and expertise in half the time?

Don't give me this. You have no idea how long CAC/SAC has been researching into this. Do you know how long their 5th generation fighter project has been going on for? Do you know how much resource they have? If you haven't checked, Chinese economy is booming, the American economy is going through a depression. If there is anything China is not lacking, it would be money.

In this area yes I most certainly do. The US is 10 years ahead of the rest of the world in this form of materials technology, and PROC isn’t coming second (the EU is). Advances in the private sector won’t dramatically help as LO technology is not commercially viable industry in the wider economy i.e. very few commercial applications. Thus there is little or no private investment in LO R&D apart for government contracts.

See, what Crobato wrote. They've devoted a lot of resource in China to this recently, there are many institutes in China researching into this. Let's put it this way, China got some of the material used on F-117 that got shot down in Serbia. They actually found it to be not as advanced as the material they already have.

Private sector advances in processor technology have nothing to do with materials tech in LO platforms. There is virtually no wider economic drive for LO technology, therefore PROC is going to have to either develop all of the materials tech required in their own labs and then figure out the production techniques, or acquire the information through espionage (which is unlikely considering the depth of the information base required). This form of materials tech is extremely, extremely advanced and sophisticated, its a lot more than carbon fibre. Right now not even the EU has demonstrated operational competency in this area, and PROC is still a developing nation (i.e. the R&D base is no where near as well developed). The F-22A is state of the art, in the true sense of the word, and your claiming that in 10 years PROC will move from just producing its first indigenous fighter that is not significantly behind the rest of the world generationally (and with a little help from the Israelis) to producing something that was the most advanced form of this technology known to man within 10 years, from scratch? Sounds like a huge leap of faith to me.

You could easily argue that the jump from J-7 to J-10 was just as large if not larger. I mean prior to J-10, CAC has never successfully developed its fighter. It had been modifying J-7s all along. And the J-10 project produced an entirely new generation of engineers/workers in China + improved the entire production quality. Of course, a lot of their contracting work with civilian airliners help too.

Now, looking aside, I don't think you appreciate how long China has been working on this project. You keep on using 10 years, yet they've been working on this since the early 90s. As for material tech, they are testing out their latest composite material on J-10/Z-10. Nobody knows for sure how far behind these things are. And they are putting a lot of resource behind developing this over the next 10 years.

There are several, many of which are listed above.

A big one is the F-22A is still under development. Every platform or system has a development curve, and the further along the development curve the more capable said platform or system becomes. I’ve had this conversation with people re AESA radars many times, usually in response to a discussion on the Super Hornet. The usual response is “well platform XXX (Typhoon, Flanker, Grippen, whatever) will have an AESA in XX years and then the APG-79 wont matter (in this discussion) any more”. The reality however is very different, because by the time XX AESA is deployed the AN/APG-79 will be much more advanced, providing features like EA or high capacity data links in addition to significantly advanced D&T performance, when XX AESA will still be working out the bugs. In terms of LO tech the same rule applies, the F-22A of 2020 will be much more lethal than the F-22A of today, and the F-22A uses more advanced materials technology than was used/developed in the 90’s, and it will continue to be upgraded over the next 10 years. After that consider the fact that the F-22A is an order of magnitude more “stealthy” than even the F-35, yet PROC isn’t starting from the F-35, their not even starting from the F-117, they’re starting from the D-21 (well not exactly considering that UAV travelled at Mach 3). PROC has a long, long, long way to go to build a platform as ‘stealthy’ let alone capable as the F-22A of 2000, what about the F-22A of 2020?

Well, to think from PLAAF perspective, developing something that achieves IOC in 2018 would have to be more capable in many areas than F-22 of 2000, but also be able to handle F-22 of 2018 in possible war scenarios (ie: around Taiwan factoring additional support from both side).

Also, when you already see someone developing something, it gives you a head start in a way vs when the thing you are trying to emulate has never existed. So in terms of stealth and AESA radar, US is on its second/third generation, whereas most other countries have yet to develop either. But due to the fact that US has led the way (shown the path on what's needed to develop these things, published journals on non-confidential material), it's a shorter path. They don't necessarily have to go to the first generation before moving to the second generation.

Do you know CAPTOR’s D&T radii? What about its side-lobe performance or beam integrity at XX range? What about it’s organic ECCM? Any hard data on how it performs in high clutter environments? What about its LPI features? AFAIK that sort of thing is classified. There’s a lot more to contemporary radar designs than aperture size or power output, or even detection and track performance. How did you come to the conclusion that the J-10’s radar is comparable to CAPTOR? What sources do you have? Do they know or did they do a Carlo Kopp esk Power/Aperture comparison and draw conclusions from that? Unless you have security clearance or know someone who does you won’t know real performance statistics for either system. Thus the above is pure speculation and when we are speculating there are very few things we can know for certain.

by looking at the publicly available numbers in D&T range for J-10's radar/Captor, they are very similar. By looking at the Zhuk series which China rejected and comparing that to the public stuff on captor. I certainly don't have ECCM figures or performance in high clutter and such, but even if J-10 is weaker in these area. I don't see why using the word comparable is wrong. I don't see any reason why I should believe that J-10's radar would be a generation behind Captor on the more specific performance.

However there is one thing we do know, that the EU has demonstrated competency through previous gen systems such as Blue Vixen, which evidently proved to be extremely capable. What previous gen systems has PROC deployed and how did they perform??? Remember every form of technology HAS to move through a development curve, and again apart from processors COTS doesn’t help a heap in radar design. CAPTOR is a highly refined slotted planar array radar that stands at the apex of that technologies development curve. Even IF current gen PROC systems achieve D&T performance somewhere in the ballpark of CAPTOR (which I doubt given how refined that system is) there are several other PI’s that dictate radar performance. Now again you could claim that the J-10’s radar will be comparable to CAPTOR in terms of D&T radii, side-lobe performance & beam integrity, ECCM, LPI, IFF, missile support capability, high clutter performance, SAR mapping other advanced features, but since there is a lack of any verifiable data we have to weigh up how likely these claims are. As yet PROC has yet to demonstrate capacity through previous gen systems, the EU has. That says plenty in my book.

well, the D&T range for J-10's radar is mentioned by the person in charge of avionics for J-10. I'd say that's a pretty good source. The tracking and concurrent engagement numbers are also from people working on the project. It's the same idea, PROC did not demonstrate that it could develop anything prior to the past 10 years, but now it has developed an entire range of weaponry even though a lot of its project started in the 80s/90s when it had even less advanced R&D base + funding. And Pakistan even chose China's radars for JF-17 over it's western rivals and said that it fulfilled all of their requirements.


That statement contradicts the previous one. Typhoon’s avionics suite is much more advanced than a glass cockpit, IRST/MAWS and FBW. The MMI is extremely sophisticated; an example is the ability to select weapons through voice recognition technology.

All of that stuff (outlined for the J-11B) is current on US F-15E’s (the IRST comes on the F-15K), and not 4.5th gen pedigree, just stock on a western platform. Again the HUI and information management systems on the SH are the most advanced on the planet, as is the software that drives it, and of course this is in addition to a 3rd gen AESA (2~3 gens ahead of current PROC radar technology).

I have contradicted nothing. There has been an upgrade for J-10B from the stuff used on J-10 and J-11B. As for MMI, that's the kind of stuff that we don't have the ability at the moment to verify whether or not China has them. There are things that we can spot with our eyes. Now if you want to say that all the HUI/situation awareness/system architecture (things that no one can actually quantify) is that much further behind for Chinese fighters even though the stuff you can see are all there, then I don't see what's the point of us even going through with this.


That says a lot more about the quality of other PLAAF platforms than the J-10’s capability in a global context. I dare say an F-16C would also do pretty well when facing such opposition. In any case exercise results alone can not be the basis for a conclusion on capability, simply because there are far too many variables.

I doubt F-16C can dominate MKK the way that J-10 does, lol. And they've had so many exercises by now, the results are pretty valid imo.

There’s a big difference between 4th gen, even rather advanced 4th gen and 4.5th gen platforms. IMO only 3 platforms make it into that category currently, F/A-18F BII, Typhoon and F-15E BII, SU-35 is a possibility but we’ll have to see how capable that platform is. Those fighters set them selves apart from all other 4th gen platforms primarily (as out lined above) because of the information management technologies introduced and the emphasis on information dominance. Again from everything I’ve read the J-10 or J-11B seem to be a long way from implementing anything like that, and as I said previously this technology means more than glassing the cockpit.

and I'm not saying J-10/J-11B are at that level, but J-10B will be. And it's not just me thinking this way, that seems to be what PAF believes too.

In any case why does PROC constantly compare itself to the US military, like they see a conflict with the US as inevitable? Like if a platform does not provide good enough capability vs an F-22A it’s useless. Attitudes like that will make such a conflict inevitable and at the moment it’s not a view shared by Americans on the whole.

What about your larger strategic threat, India? How many 5th gen platforms do they have currently? I dare say a typhoon would bring plenty to the fight in such a scenario.

India? There is this natural barrier called the Himalayas that would prevent anything from there to seriously threaten China's heartland. Please check the range on MKI and see how far it can fly with useful missile load. There has been a lot of analysis done on this (you clearly have not read any of them if you are bringing this up) and you would see that geography would prevent either side from launching successful land incursions into the other country.

This “F-22A standard or its useless” is an odd attitude. Typhoon or Super Hornet provide capabilities far greater than other 4th gen platforms, and its not the sole responsibility of a tactical aircraft to duel with an F-22A.

that's the thing, J-10/J-11B with AWACS/ground support can already handle anything from surrounding countries (especially against fighters in ROCAF). Now when we are talking about next generation (so 2015 to 2020), US would be pretty much fielding F-22, F-35 and super hornet in any kind of confrontation. If China's 5th generation fighter is going to get creamed by F-22/35, why would it matter how well it fares against F-16C/F-15J/MKI? If you will have to spend another 5 years to improve your design so that its a true 5th generation fighter, then do it. There is no point spending 20 years working on a 5th generation fighter and come out with something that's slightly better than a super hornet/typhoon.


I think they will have trouble. The Russians are much more advanced in RCS reduction R&D than PROC, and they again have yet to operationally deploy an LO platform (no current gen UAV’s don’t count). I think the PAK-FA will have a significantly reduced RCS technically making it a 5th gen platform, as will the J-XX, but claiming that the level of RCS reduction will be anything near US 5th gen platforms is a bit of a stretch as far as I’m concerned. Remember the AESA paradox? Just because you have produced a LO fighter (or AESA) does not mean you have one as capable as the world leaders in that form of technology. Achieving the balance between practicality, cost and RCS reduction is a very hard thing to accomplish, and when the materials tech is not capable of providing all 3 the first thing to compromise will be the level of RCS reduction.

We will see. Your entire argument falls along the line that they don't have the material technology or technical base for it and my argument is that they have better material technology than you realize and that the amoung of investment they are putting in rivals anything that US put in.

It doesn’t automatically mean PROC thinks they can produce something as capable as the F-22A, it means they figure they have as good of a chance as the Russians do. ;)

There are a myriad of reasons why PROC wanted a stand alone project, you don’t develop you military industrial complex and R&D capability by buying off the shelf, and doing just that seems to be a key strategic requirement for PROC. Therefore even if they thought they could get a superior platform for less money by participating in the PAK-FA programme there is enough of a dividend in increasing domestic capacity and knowledge base to do the whole thing at home.

In any case I have no doubt that by 2025 PROC will have a “5th gen” fighter in the air, but again claiming it will be as capable, stealthy or lethal as an F-22A or even F-35 in contemporary terms requires Chinese designers to advance their forma of technology in leaps and bounds, much faster than western or even Russian designers have. And considering there won’t be much help from the private sector I think that is one tall order and IMO very difficult to achieve, even if PLA press releases say different.
As I said, they have enough money to join the Russian project and work on their own project at the same time. Yet, they chose to fund 2 separate projects at home. And they are also working on building a state of the art assembly line for 5th generation production. Btw, the recent economic depression provides China a lot of opportunity to buy out bankrupted Western machinery companies for their technology. They've already done some purchasing, which will help their general aerospace production capabilit in the future.

As for Chinese 5th generation not being a true 5th gen fighter, I would say that if it does turn out that way, it would be because they underestimated the performance of F-22/35. Which is actually quite possible.

Alright, that was like an hour and half of my time, I don't think it was worth it.

[Transient]

I doubt F-16C can dominate MKK the way that J-10 does, lol.

You don't know. ;)

And Pakistan even chose China's radars for JF-17 over it's western rivals and said that it fulfilled all of their requirements.


"The first 50 JF-17s will be outfitted with Chinese avionics, radar and missiles. But under an agreement with France in February, newer JF-17s will be outfitted with MBDA Mica air-to-air missiles and Thales RC 400 multimission radars."
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3637167
14 July 2008

Pakistan Spending Falls With Economy
"Khan said several foreign arms purchases are likely to be curtailed, including frigates, the next-generation submarine, the option for further F-16 Block-52Ms, French weapons and avionics for the JF-17, Hawkeye 2000 AEW&C-equipped P-3s, improvements to the Al-Khalid main battle tank, a navalized JF-17, new helicopter gunship and replacements for the Navy's Sea King helicopters.

The poor economy may further hurt programs delayed by the October 2005 earthquake, which forced Pakistan to reduce the number of F-16 Block-52Ms on order from 75 to 18, with a further 18 as options. It also reduced the planned number of Saab Erieye AEW&C aircraft from seven to six."
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3736501
22 September 2008

When cash is scarce, they make do with chinese avionics.

the amoung of investment they are putting in rivals anything that US put in.

Oh. Please, tell us how much is China spending on R&D, and specifically on the J-XX and J-10 project? Having a lot of money doesn't necessarily produce results you know. Throwing money into a rubbish bin wont get you LO technology. You need the industrial base with the depth of experience and quantity of technical expertise. China doesn't have that, even if it really did spend more money on R&D. And I doubt that. :rolleyes:

[Totoro]

if we assume that original jh7 was something in between sepecat jaguar and original tornado, technology wise, that's a 17 year gap. If we assume that j10 is about as good as f16blk40, that is a 11 year gap. jh7 first flew in 1988, j10 in 1998, so if some new chinese plane flies for the first time in 2008 it should be lagging western tech at least 5 years. (probably a few years more, due to the technology development curve) It has to be less than 11 years so a middle value would be 8 years. That way a chinese plane today would be as good as top european plane in 2000.

If we go to 2018, we have enough previous point to draw a decent curve which would lead us to 5-6 year gap in 2018. in 2028 the gap would be 4-5 years.

Providing the investment in europe remained the same through the future years.

Yeah, i know, its far from scientific, but what the hell, it's no worse than some of the figures being thrown here. :D

[crobato]

You can't put gap or makes assumptions on "years" when it comes to technology. History is no precedent when it comes to assessing technology base. First of all, technology is based standing on the shoulders of others. How long did Xerox worked to develop the first GUI and how long does it take to develop a new one now? The amount of basic LO technology information available simply by open source today is exponentially far greater than it was in 1980. Neither does the technology tree have to work from the bottom. For a country to start developing fighter aircraft, it does not need to start from the Wright Brothers flyer to Fokker Eindecker and complete nearly a hundred years before you get into a modern 4th generation jet fighter. Technology also works in leapfrogs. It is a tree after all, not a ladder. You only need to go up one branch and no need to try everyone of the branches. When people are trying to abstract technological development in gaps of years what they are essentially trying to do is trying to express a "comfort zone" or the need for one.

[Grand Danois]

Actually one can put years to it....

http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1688&d=1184546676

Anyhow, what you say apply to single or less interdependent technologies.

"Stealth" is a very large number of technologies requiring a knowledgebase on how they work together. Experience & corporate knowledge in the industrial base.

[ReAl PrOeLiTeZ]

It still sounds like a ridiculous claim. China's development in technology and technology alone doesnt move in a linear pattern. Look at China as an example, the Western society has a well developed land line system and then the mobile system, while China has a average line system but a well developed mobile system. Go back to China and people will have little knowledge of what a VCR is. The skipped VCR and went into VCD/DVD straight away. Attack heli were non existant but now their own domestic version is in flight testing.


You dont need to start with the basic fundamentals if the their is current technology exposed and on the market. The knowledge can be spread and the basic principles can be skipped. China produces technology cheaper and comparable to Western technology, even India cannot achieve this. India can produce the technology but its cost is somewhat higher then China. China J-10 project started with a budget of less then US$100 million, and F-16 project cost what +$1 billion, and yet the J-10 is comparable the matured F-16 blocks. America's F-16 after entering service took +25 years to develop the F-16 Block50/52 yet China started to produce J-10 without development after service to C/D level. AESA isn't known to be on Chinese fighter platforms but that isnt to say they dont have them, AESA is fitted on their latest destroyers.

If at all China is behind America is like 4.5-5 years, Europe 2-2.5 years. America and Europe have had larger budgets and Economy while China has had 10 years of decent money. By 2020 I would in theory see China ground/air force be on par with America, but its navy still 10-15 years behind

Put to the current financial crisis of America and Europe and don't see how the 2 will have enough funds to run new future projects or even acquire enough units to maintain their force. Decommissioning old fighters to allow F-22 is a step to re-invert cash into acquiring new fighters but then their is a large quantity shortage despite however the F-22 is capable in the end quantity still counts. Its a balance of both.

JH-7 was never mean't to be technologically superior it was an affordable bomb delivery truck with better range and payload then the Q-5/H-6.

[funtz]

Well lets just all wait till 2015, and we will know, easy.
Why talk of things that are that far down the line.

In the now with J-10s, J-11Bs(Su-30 with chinese gear right), JF-17s etc. etc. China has no need of importing any fighter from now to the point when this VLO fighter enters PLA-AF, thats one part of the job well done.

[localhost127]

If at all China is behind America is like 4.5-5 years, Europe 2-2.5 years. America and Europe have had larger budgets and Economy while China has had 10 years of decent money. By 2020 I would in theory see China ground/air force be on par with America, but its navy still 10-15 years behind
6.

but has any of it been proven/tried in battle? systems working together, experience, etc?

[tphuang]

You don't know. ;)

I guess so.

"The first 50 JF-17s will be outfitted with Chinese avionics, radar and missiles. But under an agreement with France in February, newer JF-17s will be outfitted with MBDA Mica air-to-air missiles and Thales RC 400 multimission radars."
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3637167
14 July 2008

Pakistan Spending Falls With Economy
"Khan said several foreign arms purchases are likely to be curtailed, including frigates, the next-generation submarine, the option for further F-16 Block-52Ms, French weapons and avionics for the JF-17, Hawkeye 2000 AEW&C-equipped P-3s, improvements to the Al-Khalid main battle tank, a navalized JF-17, new helicopter gunship and replacements for the Navy's Sea King helicopters.

The poor economy may further hurt programs delayed by the October 2005 earthquake, which forced Pakistan to reduce the number of F-16 Block-52Ms on order from 75 to 18, with a further 18 as options. It also reduced the planned number of Saab Erieye AEW&C aircraft from seven to six."
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3736501
22 September 2008

When cash is scarce, they make do with chinese avionics.

The original choice was made in 2006 when they still had a really rapidly growing economy. And even when the French option came in, it was really just one of the options for the second batch. China at that time had yet to present their competition to the French option.


Oh. Please, tell us how much is China spending on R&D, and specifically on the J-XX and J-10 project? Having a lot of money doesn't necessarily produce results you know. Throwing money into a rubbish bin wont get you LO technology. You need the industrial base with the depth of experience and quantity of technical expertise. China doesn't have that, even if it really did spend more money on R&D. And I doubt that. :rolleyes:
They spend 20 billion RMB on J-10 and that was from 86 to 2004. Take into consideration how much their economy has grown in the past 20 years, you can do an estimation of how much would be spent from when the research started in the early 90s to let's say somewhere between 2015 and 2020. And their aerospace industry back in the early 90s were stuck in the 60/70s, now at least they are building regional jets and doing a lot of subcontracting work.

[kay_man]

Well lets just all wait till 2015, and we will know, easy.
Why talk of things that are that far down the line.

In the now with J-10s, J-11Bs(Su-30 with chinese gear right), JF-17s etc. etc. China has no need of importing any fighter from now to the point when this VLO fighter enters PLA-AF, thats one part of the job well done.

i agree with funtz on this one.
its not like China is gonna go to war with USA anytime soon.
any confrontation is likely to be via proxy.
and for that the j-10 / j-11 are more than sufficient.

as fo future development , i think china is on the right track....albeit behind the USA but still on the right track.

[SABRE]

i agree with funtz on this one.
its not like China is gonna go to war with USA anytime soon.
any confrontation is likely to be via proxy.
and for that the j-10 / j-11 are more than sufficient.

as fo future development , i think china is on the right track....albeit behind the USA but still on the right track.

I would disagree.

Arms Race in terms of both Quantity & Quality in itself is a Conflict (if not a war). Quality translates into your military superiority & Quantity into your military strength. You not only have to show your adversary your military strength & superiority but also to your friends & proxies, otherwise they would start looking else where. This is one reason Space Race became so important. Both USA & USSR knew victory into Space will insure technological (qualitative) superiority of one power over the other & the rest of the world will start following the victor.

So it does not matter if you are at war or going to fight a war soon. You cannot compromise on Technological qualitative superiority. USA does not need F-22s right now they would need them may be 15 years from now but they are producing & inducting them already. China in a same way cannot afford stay behind. If not the product then at least they would have to show off designs & plans.

In almost very same manner you also maintain the military deterrence (also nuclear deterrence) which prevents the powers from violently conflicting.

[Falstaff]

You dont need to start with the basic fundamentals if the their is current technology exposed and on the market. The knowledge can be spread and the basic principles can be skipped.

You seem to lack a basic understanding of how technology development works. There is a very big difference between knowing how to build something and understanding properly how it works which is the only thing that enables you to design something. Of course they started with the fundamentals. They just did it very fast but they're still some years, in some cases decades behind.
Did you ever think about how many experience and knowledge is contained in the technologies we are watching today? Generations of engineers laid the foundations for that. And you can't just leave out and skip this.


China produces technology cheaper and comparable to Western technology, even India cannot achieve this. India can produce the technology but its cost is somewhat higher then China.


Not true. In terms of production technology (material science, special tooling, welding technology etc.) China is appr. 15-20 years behind Western Europe, e.g. friction stir welding. And at the moment, India is closing the gap faster than China.


China J-10 project started with a budget of less then US$100 million, and F-16 project cost what +$1 billion, and yet the J-10 is comparable the matured F-16 blocks. America's F-16 after entering service took +25 years to develop the F-16 Block50/52 yet China started to produce J-10 without development after service to C/D level. AESA isn't known to be on Chinese fighter platforms but that isnt to say they dont have them, AESA is fitted on their latest destroyers.

Pure BS. All you're saying is that China now can deploy technologies comparable to those that have been developed in the US more than 30 and more than 20 years ago. And btw, how do you know the J-10 is comparable to a present day F-16 systemswise? Ah, you don't? What a shame.
If China would be able to field a F-22 class fighter right now that would be a different thing. But they aren't. If they would be able to make a 787-class plane fly next year, ok. They can't. Can they build an S-class car with a similar quality and technology level as Mercedes does? No.
No doubt that they achieved a lot and they are working fast and someday they perhaps will close the gap. But development doesn't stand still here either :D


Put to the current financial crisis of America and Europe and don't see how the 2 will have enough funds to run new future projects or even acquire enough units to maintain their force.

The financial crisis will have a dire impact on China as well and will possibly strike much harder there than in Western Countries due to lower general wealth and less developed infrastructure and industry.
Economy will be back again in a few months and then it's business as usual. Until then, a few more billions of federal deficit, but that's it.
The fact that many western militaries are reducing numbers and ending some projects in favor of others has nothing to do with the current crisis.


JH-7 was never mean't to be technologically superior it was an affordable bomb delivery truck with better range and payload then the Q-5/H-6.

So they made an outdated, underpowered fighter intentionally? :rolleyes:

[ReAl PrOeLiTeZ]

Lack knowledge thats pretty funny since I'm a Mechanical/Material Engineer. So I know alot of fundamental basics thank you very much. So you say basic can't be skipped oh is that so then China should go all the way back to foward propellor planes with manned machine guns. And since China never design cars before, their future car must be like those in the colonial days then hey? And their airliners don't exist, oh well what is the ARJ-21 then? A hot air ballon?

I know well that J-10 system is comparable to F-16. Pakistan F-16 was examined fully by Chinese Engineers, and if reports are true then most of Lavi technology would've been shown to them also. Lavi was mean't to be superior to both F-16/F-18 in respective terms of technology, America pulled out of the development cause they knew it would harm their sales.

China and India doesn't need to go toe-to-toe in technology, just cause some nation has this and the other doesn't. It doesn't prove that the other nation technology is inferior or not comparable. We are in a military forum, so we are talking technology within military not other area's.

China was the least hit by the financial crisis, and your so called developed Western countries being least effected. BS!!!! Europe, Australia, Japan, America, South Korea all well developed nation are hit very hard. China not that developed was hit the least. America knows this and are angry, and now eventually which China knew sooner or later would happen, are poking the finger at China saying its their fault. America yeah not effected much and recover soon BS!! And ontop of that their in debt to China and Japan with $15 trillion in debt to them. Have some knowledge in technology and economy before posting BS. JH-7 read my post again, oh sorry your illiterate aren't you awwh. From the post you wrote I can clearly see that you have little knowledge of technology and military hardware.

[Falstaff]

Lack knowledge thats pretty funny since I'm a Mechanical/Material Engineer.

I don't believe you. If you were, you wouldn't talk like that.


So you say basic can't be skipped oh is that so then China should go all the way back to foward propellor planes with manned machine guns. And since China never design cars before, their future car must be like those in the colonial days then hey? And their airliners don't exist, oh well what is the ARJ-21 then? A hot air ballon?


That Chinese industry is able to do what they do today is due to the fact that started with much simpler things and they developed their skills, sometimes with outside help. Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was Chinese industry. If you're so knowledgeable you should know very well what I'm talking about.
I agree that the ARJ-21 is a huge achievement for the Chinese aviation industry, but it comes nowhere near the Embraer 190, the MRJ or CS-Series in terms of technology or economy. That's a fact.


I know well that J-10 system is comparable to F-16.


How do you know that? No really, I (and a lot of people here) am very interested how good the J-10's systems are.


Pakistan F-16 was examined fully by Chinese Engineers, and if reports are true then most of Lavi technology would've been shown to them also. Lavi was mean't to be superior to both F-16/F-18 in respective terms of technology, America pulled out of the development cause they knew it would harm their sales.


What block? 15? What a comparison. And if Lavi technology was given to China is questionable at best. Won't comment on the last sentence.


China and India doesn't need to go toe-to-toe in technology, just cause some nation has this and the other doesn't. It doesn't prove that the other nation technology is inferior or not comparable.


Well you started comparing, didn't you? :confused:


China was the least hit by the financial crisis, and your so called developed Western countries being least effected. BS!!!! Europe, Australia, Japan, America, South Korea all well developed nation are hit very hard. China not that developed was hit the least. America knows this and are angry, and now eventually which China knew sooner or later would happen, are poking the finger at China saying its their fault. America yeah not effected much and recover soon BS!!

I'm basing my claim on an analysis in one of the biggest of our newspapers which happened to examine the impact of the financial crisis on Asia last weekend. If China is the least hit country will have to be seen. But I do think that the all the nations you mentioned will recover very soon.


Have some knowledge in technology and economy before posting BS. JH-7 read my post again, oh sorry your illiterate aren't you awwh. From the post you wrote I can clearly see that you have little knowledge of technology and military hardware.

This paragraph doesn't require a comment, kid.

[merocaine]

Just as a quick aside

Economy will be back again in a few months and then it's business as usual. Until then, a few more billions of federal deficit, but that's it.
The fact that many western militaries are reducing numbers and ending some projects in favor of others has nothing to do with the current crisis.


Thats a very optimistic view of the situation, most indicators point to a very tough couple of years, for everyone.
And it will never be business as usual again. We're in the middle of a world changing event.
America is going to have to prioritize, from now on its going to a series of tough calls, perhaps investment in new fighter aircraft will continue as before,
maybe it wont, that for the next couple of presidents to figure out.

I would say that the producer countries will suffer more than most in the short term (in relative growth terms). Thats commodities and countries like China that rely on exports to supply there growth. This crisis will spur China to increase domestic consumption to spend more rather than saving, something they have begun to do anyway. Thats a healthy development in the longterm IMV.

The impact of this crisis will def have a big effect on military budgets world wide. I dread to think what will happen to european budgets, they've been pared down enough as it is!

[Falstaff]

Yes, it's a shame this is way off topic and doesn't belong here. I'd love to discuss some aspects of it, esp. concerning producer countries. Sigh!

In order to clarify my opinion a bit concerning defense budgets: I believe that the US have overstretched their defense budget for many years for reasons we all know- it will decline in the future. In Europe, defense budgets have stagnated at best for several years. They won't rise much in the future. ReAl PrOeLiTeZ put this into context with the current crisis. I believe it won't have that much impact really. That's what I wanted to say with business as usual.

[crobato]

Not true. In terms of production technology (material science, special tooling, welding technology etc.) China is appr. 15-20 years behind Western Europe, e.g. friction stir welding. And at the moment, India is closing the gap faster than China.

http://www.twi.co.uk/content/spswkjune07.html

"There are many types of aluminium alloy ships, ranging from 5m long rigid inflatable boats, 50m long military patrol boats to more than 200m long luxury cruise ships. Therefore, the shipbuilding industry needs aluminium panels of different shapes and sizes. In 2003, China FSW Center (CFSWT) in Beijing designed and fabricated its first FSW industrial product-line for a small company in Chang Zhou ( Fig.21). This PLC controlled equipment can weld 2600 x 1100mm panels from 6mm thick aluminium extrusions for use in various sectors of the transport industry."

"China FSW Center designed and produced the first large FSW machine for wide ship-panels in China in 2006 after considering production, weight and transport aspects. This FSW machine ( Fig.22) is designed in separate modular parts."

"Nowadays, the concept of using prefabricated FSW panels for shipbuilding is popular at shipyards in Dalian, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangxi and Guangzhou. These wide panels have successfully been used in many shipbuilding projects, including ships designed and fabricated in China for export to Vietnam and Micronesia"

"The Type 022 Houbei Class is the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy's new-generation stealth missile fast attack craft (FAC). The boat features a unique high-speed, wave-piercing catamaran hull with evident radar cross-section reduction design features ( Fig.26). A number of Chinese shipyards across the country have been involved in the construction of the boat and it has been reported that FSW aluminium alloy panels have been used to produce this very advanced navy vessel in China."

"The Chinese Friction Stir Welding Centre was founded in 2002, after an agreement was signed by TWI and Beijing FSW Technology Ltd, which is an offshoot of BAMTRI - Beijing Aeronautical Manufacturing Technology Research Institute. The Centre has made remarkable progress in the last five years, employing over 30 people and building a number of different machines for customers. TWI now has 22 FSW licensees in China, most of them as a direct result of the collaboration with BAMTRI. So far the following Chinese companies have been licensed to use the patented FSW process:"

[crobato]

What block? 15? What a comparison. And if Lavi technology was given to China is questionable at best. Won't comment on the last sentence.

If you want a more valid comparison, you need to start comparing the J-10's systems with F-16 Block systems that would at least support AMRAAM and Sparrows, as well as with PGM and FLIR support. The J-10 is verified to support active and semi active BVRAAMs, PGMs and FLIR. Block 15 does not cut this. This is at least on the F-16C Block ranges.

I agree that the ARJ-21 is a huge achievement for the Chinese aviation industry, but it comes nowhere near the Embraer 190, the MRJ or CS-Series in terms of technology or economy. That's a fact.

Explain, since all the aircraft you mentioned are using the same West sourced engine and component avionics suppliers.

Generations of engineers laid the foundations for that.

Exactly. Except that the knowledge of these engineers aren't excluded from the Chinese knowledge base.

[funtz]

i agree with funtz on this one.
its not like China is gonna go to war with USA anytime soon.
any confrontation is likely to be via proxy.
and for that the j-10 / j-11 are more than sufficient.

as fo future development , i think china is on the right track....albeit behind the USA but still on the right track.
That is not what i said, all i said is that their is no point talking of a system that we know nothing about, nothing about its engines, its avionics, its weapons, not even its design.

[ReAl PrOeLiTeZ]

I don't believe you. If you were, you wouldn't talk like that.



That Chinese industry is able to do what they do today is due to the fact that started with much simpler things and they developed their skills, sometimes with outside help. Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was Chinese industry. If you're so knowledgeable you should know very well what I'm talking about.
I agree that the ARJ-21 is a huge achievement for the Chinese aviation industry, but it comes nowhere near the Embraer 190, the MRJ or CS-Series in terms of technology or economy. That's a fact.



How do you know that? No really, I (and a lot of people here) am very interested how good the J-10's systems are.



What block? 15? What a comparison. And if Lavi technology was given to China is questionable at best. Won't comment on the last sentence.



Well you started comparing, didn't you? :confused:



I'm basing my claim on an analysis in one of the biggest of our newspapers which happened to examine the impact of the financial crisis on Asia last weekend. If China is the least hit country will have to be seen. But I do think that the all the nations you mentioned will recover very soon.



This paragraph doesn't require a comment, kid.
Comparison, F-16 early blocks could only be equipped with SRAAM, No FLIR/PGM/AMRAAM, while the J-10 from its first batch has BVRAAM, FLIR, PGM, SRAAM and in order for these to be operational their system must support this. Which if you cross check it with F-16 production history it comparable to the C models or better. So you see China first multirole fighter wasn't from the baseline F-16, it was in the matured phase.F-16 development plus years of refinment after service to C model, while J-10 from development was on C model.
Economy, once economy crashes it'll take years to recover, why do you think that governments are acted in such emergency status if it'll recover soon? Media keeps the nation under control and in order, last thing they'll want right now is chaos and anger within their society.
Everybody learns basic foundations about everything, but you don't spend as much time as people did back then. What I'm saying is if your building technology thats already out there, you don't need to start building on its ancestor technology as starters before going larger, you can neglect this procedure. China helps builds parts for Boeing aircrafts parts, and in the end they would examine the technology, equipment and methods for their own purposes also.
In end I was talking about military technology, not industrial technology. Even if the military sector has the equipment and tools doesn't co-respond to the industrial sector having them.

"Through a joint venture company based in China, an Australian business, AMD, has sold designs for the hull and propulsion system of high-speed catamarans to the Peoples' Liberation forces. The Chinese military has built vessels based on those designs and then armed them with weapons systems including anti-shipping missiles."

"China's newest attack helicopter is powered by Canadian-built engines, a development military analysts say could spark a backlash against ..."

All of this China has technology exposure too, even they don't have it themselves they can jump start and acquire their own domestic technology faster.

[SABRE]

@ ReAl PrOeLiTeZ

I know well that J-10 system is comparable to F-16. Pakistan F-16 was examined fully by Chinese Engineers

Do you have any credible proof & source for this piece of information? Because officially & unofficially it is now recognized that China neither received any F-16 from Pakistan nor the Chinese engineers visited Pakistan to look at F-16s.

> LH-M team was regular to visit Pakistani F-16s even during the period of sanctions (untill sanctions were doubled when Pak tested nukes). [Pic available of LH-M team visiting PAF F-16s here on DT]

> PAF only had 40 (later 34) F-16s & with sanctions looming around it could not afford to rip open its limited number of F-16s to show it around to the Chinese.

> So far all studies show that J-10 is closely related to Levi (as you pointed it out) rather then F-16 but no credible proof is available on that. All expert who have written the piece of information have actually taken word of mouth from defence forums.

> At the most Pakistani engineers who worked on self upgradings & modifications of F-16s might have visited China & may have given out some information but not before 1990s.

I request that next time provide sources & proofs to such statements.


China was the least hit by the financial crisis, and your so called developed Western countries being least effected. BS!!!! Europe, Australia, Japan, America, South Korea all well developed nation are hit very hard. China not that developed was hit the least. America knows this and are angry, and now eventually which China knew sooner or later would happen, are poking the finger at China saying its their fault. America yeah not effected much and recover soon BS!! And ontop of that their in debt to China and Japan with $15 trillion in debt to them. Have some knowledge in technology and economy before posting BS. JH-7 read my post again, oh sorry your illiterate aren't you awwh. From the post you wrote I can clearly see that you have little knowledge of technology and military hardware.


Such behavior is unwelcomed under any circumstances. Refrain from being abusive, flamming, insulting others & personal attacks . This is th 1st Warning. If the other guy is creating some problems for you, you PM a moderator rather then misbehaving in front of everyone. It is assured that an action would be taken.

[SABRE]

General Warning:

- No discussion on economy

- No this vs that discussion

- If you claim "A" is equivalent, superior or even inferior to "B" then do so by providing facts.

- Provide sources/proofs to your claims.

- No off topic discussions.

& remember 3 warnings & you are banned for a week or more (depending on your violations).

- SABRE

[Feanor]

Guys I think that you both have a point. Nobody expects China to pull out a Raptorski tomorrow. Or in the next 5 years. But the truth is that China is catching up in terms of technology to many other developed nations. It may be some time before they get there, but it's really only a question of how long, not if. And even with how long we're at this point counting years not decades. Maybe the next Chinese fighter won't be a 5th. gen multi-role with super modern penetration capabilities, but there is no doubt that they will develop one eventually. Ultimately you're both very close to claiming the same thing, just approaching the question of when from two different sides.

I think it would be fair to conclude the discussion saying that China is likely to produce a 5th. generation platform and have it ready for serial production before 2025, but no sooner then 2015.

[Falstaff]

@crobato:
I know that FSW technology is used in many countries today and is used in China as well. The Welding competence center at my university worked on several occasions with Chinese partners on that. But as with every welding technology the question is: which materials can be connected, what are the process parameters and is your process applicable.

For those who speak german and are interested in welding technology: www.wir-fuegen-alles.de (http://www.wir-fuegen-alles.de/) ("we connect everything" :))

Explain, since all the aircraft you mentioned are using the same West sourced engine and component avionics suppliers.

Well, the ARJ-21 uses some components of the MD-90 and represents a somewhat conservative structural and areodynamical design approach (except perhaps for the wing) as well, possibly due to the adaption to harsh conditions. So there is a bit of structural overweight. This tranlates into a single digit % economical disadvantage compared to the Embraer 170/190 family and the SSJ-100 and a low double digit disadvantage compared to the upcoming MRJ and CS-series. IIRC the MRJ will be the first to utilise a geared fan, which probably will be seen on earlier models as well after some time.
Can all be read in FLUG REVUE 08/2008, which gives a brief summary and comparison of all the programs on the occasion of the SSJ-100's first flight.

Exactly. Except that the knowledge of these engineers aren't excluded from the Chinese knowledge base.

Yes, true, but if you want to design something innovative and new you have to do research and for that you have to know the principles. If you only apply the technologies that are publicly available you will always be a follower. And esp. in the military sector you don't want to be that, I guess. Would the Chinese engineers be able to design a J-10 if they hadn't built the J-5 and J-6 for decades?

If you want a more valid comparison, you need to start comparing the J-10's systems with F-16 Block systems that would at least support AMRAAM and Sparrows, as well as with PGM and FLIR support. The J-10 is verified to support active and semi active BVRAAMs, PGMs and FLIR. Block 15 does not cut this.

And that's exactly why it's rubbish to support the claim that the J-10 is on par with late model F-16s by claiming that the Chinese laid their hands on an early F-16, as ReAl PrOeLiTeZ did.

@ ReAl PrOeLiTeZ
China helps builds parts for Boeing aircrafts parts, and in the end they would examine the technology, equipment and methods for their own purposes also.

And then you can do technology that has been developed years ago elsewhere. And by that the time there already is something new evolving elsewhere. If you want to be a technology leader you can't just skip everything and just utilise what's on the market, you have to do research yourself.

@ SABRE

So far all studies show that J-10 is closely related to Levi (as you pointed it out) rather then F-16 but no credible proof is available on that. All expert who have written the piece of information have actually taken word of mouth from defence forums.

When the J-10 appeared some years ago the people who claimed any connection to the Lavi were slaughtered over at sinodefence-forum. I once had a discussion with a chinese who claimed he knew one of the engineers working on the program who rejected any connection between the two programs. Funny enough that sinodefence changes what is said about this topic from time to time. Obviously nobody knows for certain.


@ Feanor
Well said, I agree.

[SABRE]

@ SABRE
When the J-10 appeared some years ago the people who claimed any connection to the Lavi were slaughtered over at sinodefence-forum. I once had a discussion with a chinese who claimed he knew one of the engineers working on the program who rejected any connection between the two programs. Funny enough that sinodefence changes what is said about this topic from time to time. Obviously nobody knows for certain.


As I said the so called experts & Journalists who have written on J-10 being based on Levi have taken word-of-mouth from various defence forums & people on these forums have nothing but claims. There is no proof of either F-16 or Levi being the base of J-10. However, closer studies on design put J-10 closer to Levi. Nevertheless, there is nothing to base J-10 & Levi in terms of avionics & capabilities.

[crobato]

And that's exactly why it's rubbish to support the claim that the J-10 is on par with late model F-16s by claiming that the Chinese laid their hands on an early F-16, as ReAl PrOeLiTeZ did.

No but China did had direct access to the APG-66 before 1991. In the eighties, the Reagan Administration was trying hard to get some F-16 sales to China, which wasn't possible because the Chinese could not even afford it at that time. Nonetheless there was a program head by Grumman to upgrade the J-8IIs with the APG-66. That would have provided the Chinese with some degree of exposure. The possibility that the Israelis was also teaching the Chinese radar technology is there as well, through the ELTA M 2035 that was used on the Lavi. The modifications on the J-7 and J-8II radars to be able to use and que the PL-8, the Python-3 license, could have direct Israeli assistance and through this contact, the Chinese could have learned something.

In fact, it was rumored that after Tianammen Square, and the Grumman Peace Pearl project canceled, that the Israelis are in line with their own Peace Pearl like proposal for a J-8II modernization program using the ELTA 2032 or 2035. Later that was rejected and it was the Russian's turn to offer their own version of the proposal, leading to the F-8IIM with the Zhuk-8II.

Nonetheless, by 1995, the J-8C prototype was flying with the first Chinese made slotted array radar, the KLJ-1.

[crobato]

I know that FSW technology is used in many countries today and is used in China as well. The Welding competence center at my university worked on several occasions with Chinese partners on that. But as with every welding technology the question is: which materials can be connected, what are the process parameters and is your process applicable.

If you are asking me these, how do you know the Chinese are behind by 15 years as you stated?

To be able to fully access their level of technology, you would need to spend hours and even days first finding, then translating, and then going through dense abstracts like this.

http://www.shvoong.com/internet-and-technologies/1606172-microstructures-mechanical-properties-al-li/

Website Review by: TsingHua
Author : Acta Metallrugica Sinica
Published: May 11, 2004

Friction stir welding (FSW) for 5 mm thick Al-Li alloy rolled sheet material has been completed with a cone-shape screw thread pin. The metallurgy experiment demonstrates that the dynamic recrystallization occurs in the weld nugget zone (WNZ), fine equiaxed grains form, and a large number of segregation phases appears at grain boundaries. The microstructure in the heataffected zone (HAZ) consists of coarse bar-shape recovery grain, and that of the thermo-mechanically affected zone (TMAZ) exhibits bent band-like character, but the deformation degree at the advancing side is bigger than that at the retreating side. Microstructures in TMAZ are also recovered, and the amount of recovery grain at retreating side is more than that at advancing side. Tensile test shows that the joint strength and elongation are 345 MPa at welding rate v=40 mm/min, and 9.6% at v=60mm/min respectively. Hardness measurement shows that the FSW joint is soften during welding, and the softened zone at advancing side is wider than that at retreating side. Fractographs confirm that the fracture of the joint is mixed mode of ductile and brittle fracture.


Well, the ARJ-21 uses some components of the MD-90 and represents a somewhat conservative structural and areodynamical design approach (except perhaps for the wing) as well, possibly due to the adaption to harsh conditions. So there is a bit of structural overweight. This tranlates into a single digit % economical disadvantage compared to the Embraer 170/190 family and the SSJ-100 and a low double digit disadvantage compared to the upcoming MRJ and CS-series. IIRC the MRJ will be the first to utilise a geared fan, which probably will be seen on earlier models as well after some time.
Can all be read in FLUG REVUE 08/2008, which gives a brief summary and comparison of all the programs on the occasion of the SSJ-100's first flight.

And so that qualifies this statement?

I agree that the ARJ-21 is a huge achievement for the Chinese aviation industry, but it comes nowhere near the Embraer 190, the MRJ or CS-Series in terms of technology or economy. That's a fact.

You have any access to the ARJ-21 for that matter?

[zeven]

Thanks. This design looks much stealthier and more 5th gen then the Gripen, NG or not. Why didn't Saab go straight to this design compared to a 4th gen design in the Gripen? $$$ problem?

its not about money, its about demand. right now.

why invest a lot of money in a LO platform is the demand aint there? no countries except SK, have had LO on their demand specifikations.

thats why the Demo plattform are here, other demands that needs to be satisfied, like longer range, increased T/W and so on. if Norway,Denmark,Holland,India,Brasil,Croatia,Bulgar ia,Sweitz,Romania,Canada just to mention a few, had VLO as a demand. SAAB would have invested the extra money and time to make a Stealth Gripen reality.

SAAB has long experience with stealth like Sharc, FILUR and now Neuron.

its all about the custumers demands. and less about technology capability

[Todjaeger]

its not about money, its about demand. right now.

why invest a lot of money in a LO platform is the demand aint there? no countries except SK, have had LO on their demand specifikations.

thats why the Demo plattform are here, other demands that needs to be satisfied, like longer range, increased T/W and so on. if Norway,Denmark,Holland,India,Brasil,Croatia,Bulgar ia,Sweitz,Romania,Canada just to mention a few, had VLO as a demand. SAAB would have invested the extra money and time to make a Stealth Gripen reality.

SAAB has long experience with stealth like Sharc, FILUR and now Neuron.

its all about the custumers demands. and less about technology capability

Discussion of the Saab Gripen is getting rather far afield from PRC aircraft and aircraft production. Having said that...

Being able to product a LO aircraft is very much dependent on technological capability. Also, given the potential for "game-changing" operations against opponents, it is a feature virtually every nation would like to field on at least some of their combat aircraft. However, most nations do not have the technological and economic base to develop, field and support such an aircraft. In point of fact, there has been a shrinkage in the number of countries which have the needed base to develop frontline fighter aircraft independently and keep them at a 'reasonable' cost.

I strongly suspect that the Gripen did not include LO features because at the time of design, Saab had not developed sufficient relevant measures to make the Gripen LO and therefore could not.

As I understand it, the shaping of an aircraft comprises something like 90% of the RCS reduction, IR management, etc which to large measure would explain why the F-117 has such odd shaping. The other ~10% covers materials developments like RAM, etc.

If this is correct, in order for the Gripen to be LO, it would have to started with the design of the airframe. Given that the first Gripen flew in ~1988, the design work for this would have pre-dated the US ATF program, the product of which is now known as the F-22A Raptor. As for using examples of UAVs as evidence of LO/Stealth competencies, they do not apply to making a LO Gripen, as the Gripen pre-dates these UAVs. The FILUR (http://www.saabgroup.com/en/ProductsServices/products_az.htm?url=http%3A//products.saabgroup.com/pdbwebnew/generic.aspx%3Fentrance%3Dproduct%26productid%3D12 58) stealth demonstrator had a first flight in October 2005, almost 17 years after the first flight of the JAS 39 Gripen. The first flight for the Neuron UCAV has a first flight currently planned for 2011, again not something shows evidence applicable to a LO Gripen.

What is likely feasible would be to include a number of LO features and new materials to reduce the sig of the Gripen, but that is not the same thing as making the Gripen in a LO aircraft. Short of a total redesign of the aircraft, with the likely result of it looking quite different, the best which likely could be accomplished is like some of the sig reduction features included in the F/A-18E/F Superhornets (which incidentally is a completely different aircraft from the F/A-18A-D which it is based on).

-Cheers

[zeven]

If this is correct, in order for the Gripen to be LO, it would have to started with the design of the airframe. Given that the first Gripen flew in ~1988, the design work for this would have pre-dated the US ATF program, the product of which is now known as the F-22A Raptor. As for using examples of UAVs as evidence of LO/Stealth competencies, they do not apply to making a LO Gripen, as the Gripen pre-dates these UAVs. The FILUR (http://www.saabgroup.com/en/ProductsServices/products_az.htm?url=http%3A//products.saabgroup.com/pdbwebnew/generic.aspx%3Fentrance%3Dproduct%26productid%3D12 58) stealth demonstrator had a first flight in October 2005, almost 17 years after the first flight of the JAS 39 Gripen. The first flight for the Neuron UCAV has a first flight currently planned for 2011, again not something shows evidence applicable to a LO Gripen.


-Cheers

I'm very much aware how stealth works,

You might be right about SAAB capability in the early 80.
However, if Stealth was one of the demands, for the new platform, (today the girpen platform) i'm pretty much convinced SAAB would have been able to meet Swedens demands on the stealth capability too.

but my post, was an answer: why not Gripen NG have the stealth characteristics shown on the photos of Gripen South Korea

ps.
sorry for the OFF topic.

[ReAl PrOeLiTeZ]

@ ReAl PrOeLiTeZ



Do you have any credible proof & source for this piece of information? Because officially & unofficially it is now recognized that China neither received any F-16 from Pakistan nor the Chinese engineers visited Pakistan to look at F-16s.

> LH-M team was regular to visit Pakistani F-16s even during the period of sanctions (untill sanctions were doubled when Pak tested nukes). [Pic available of LH-M team visiting PAF F-16s here on DT]

> PAF only had 40 (later 34) F-16s & with sanctions looming around it could not afford to rip open its limited number of F-16s to show it around to the Chinese.

> So far all studies show that J-10 is closely related to Levi (as you pointed it out) rather then F-16 but no credible proof is available on that. All expert who have written the piece of information have actually taken word of mouth from defence forums.

> At the most Pakistani engineers who worked on self upgradings & modifications of F-16s might have visited China & may have given out some information but not before 1990s.

I request that next time provide sources & proofs to such statements.





Such behavior is unwelcomed under any circumstances. Refrain from being abusive, flamming, insulting others & personal attacks . This is th 1st Warning. If the other guy is creating some problems for you, you PM a moderator rather then misbehaving in front of everyone. It is assured that an action would be taken.
when i say fully examined it doesnt always refer to as being in the hands of Chinese engineers for examination etc...fully examined i mean fully researched, given close attention to in aerial warfare combat that countries have deployed in battle. It like saying China has examined the F-22, doesn't mean they got there hands on its. But have just studied it, meaning examined.
And for each post you cannot always insert data to prove your claims, some are common knowledge and shouldnt need data to prove it. But your right some do. If F-16A/B<Lavi and J-10 is "influenced" by the Lavi/F-16 (tail design) then J-10 should in theory be F-16A/B<J-10. And remeber this early F-16A/B didnt precision bombs, FLIR and AMRAAMS. While J-10 has, so it is at least within the matured blocks of F-16.
For its manuverability, from official video release you can see the J-10 has a much superior rate of climb. And for proof here you go:
"The pilot did none of the show tricks like post-stall or tail slide or pitch-back, but turns were very tight, initial rate of turn very high. It was clear there is a lot of potential in this airplane to achieve the same maneuvers more quickly.

The pilot rarely used afterburner and the degrees of canard deflection were small. Still, the airplane flew very well. I reckon it will beat F-16C or MiG-29/SMT easily."
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/th...chinas-j1.html

But that isnt official just someones thoughts.

Its foolish for people to compare J-10 with F-22, different weight class, different roles, and designed initially for different specifications. J-10 was meant to defend China airspace against regional threats, Japan, SK, Tawain, Russia. For doubts on J-10 performance view the Zhuai airshow videos to get some form of an idea. All these are not claims but opions and inputs to this thread.

[Feanor]

Its foolish for people to compare J-10 with F-22, different weight class, different roles, and designed initially for different specifications. J-10 was meant to defend China airspace against regional threats, Japan, SK, Tawain, Russia. For doubts on J-10 performance view the Zhuai airshow videos to get some form of an idea. All these are not claims but opions and inputs to this thread.

This is the real point that needs to be made. The J-10 is an airplane produced for a different set of requirements, on a different level of technology, and as such should not be compared to the F-22 on any level.