New J-10 thread II

[crobato]

If one studies USAF/USN aviation history from the fifties to now, you will be amazed by the sheer number of designs and creativity of the planes. But as time goes further, costs and complexity begin to eat at this variety. You get joint project this, joint project that. The sheer number of designs in the fifties and sixties began to cut down to a few by seventies. In the fifth generation, you are now only down to two.

Third Generation:

F-100 Super Sabre
F-101 Voodoo
F-102 Delta Dagger
F-104 Starfighter
F-105 Thunderchief
F-106 Delta Dagger
F-111 Aadvark

F-4 Phantom
F-5A/E Freedom Fighter
F-8 Crusader
F-11 Tiger

A-4 Skyhawk
A-6 Intruder

3.5 to 4th Generation, you are down to four.

F-14 Tomcat
F-15 Eagle
F-16 Viper
F-18 Hornet

Fifth Generation, we are down to 2.

F-22 Raptor
F-35 Lightning II.

At the same time, companies began to consolidate.

Republic and North American was among the first to be gone. Then McDonnel Douglas. Then General Dynamics quit the business and sold to Lockheed. Grumman quit and consolidated with Northrop who also quit the aircraft making business altogether. Now you are left with Lockheed-Martin Marietta and Boeing, none of whom actually designed the four "teen" aircraft originally. F-14 (Grumman), F-15 (McDonnell Douglas), F-16 (General Dynamics), and F-18 (Northrop).

Its possible if the trend goes, by the sixth generation, there will only be one unified fighter.

What happens when technology advances faster than they can be fielded is to field what you have right now, then follow it up with more advanced models. This will make sure that whatever's in development won't become obsolete by the time it's finished and battle-ready. General Patton said something about a developed plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed a week later. So while the PLA is fielding planes like the J-10, it is also developing new models and improving on the current design.

There are two forms of technology current going on.

One is the platform technology. That remains fairly stable and long lasting.

The second is electronic technology. This happens too fast and is fairly abrupt.

Electronic technology can cycle itself into many generations on the same time span as a single platform generation, whose generational change is much slower. Thus, your platform should make allowances for electronic generational changes.

Lets use the J-10 as an example.

You cannot make too many samples of the current J-10 because its electronics is already outgrown even by Chinese standards. Both FC-1 and J-11B are showing electronic features not present even in the current J-10.

So you have to put an end to the current version

J-10 + Avionics/Radar set A + Engine A

to pause, develop, then produce the next batch.

J-10 + Avionics/Radar Set B + Engine B.

Then later, we progress to

J-10 + Avionics/Radar set C + Engine C

And so on.

So you have an entire production run, that are subdivided into blocks, and each block has improvement over the other. The Block system used on the F-16 makes a very excellent way to express this, where you have one constant platform, but the electronics change and evolve from block to block.

IMO, the current J-10 is ready to be stopped and put aside for the next block of J-10s. The current block appears to be already using a second generation (by Chinese standards) planar array radar; the original KLJ-1 on the first J-8C/D/F/H, JL-10A on the JH-7A, and the KLJ-3 used on the J-10 prototypes and evaluation models represent the first generation slotted array for Chinese terms.

The next block should feature a better cockpit with 9x13 MFDs, a third generation slotted array, probably improved RWR and MAWS, a more robust and higher bandwidth datalink, holographic hud and quite likely WS-10A engines. One may view the plane as mainly a refinement.

Down the line, maybe one can expect more powerful versions of the WS-10A, ESA radar (passive phase array or AESA), maybe TVC, and so on.

If historical trends are considered, we see that Chinese military industrial complex loves to continue refinining designs to the nth degree, while producing them indefinitely even in the face of more advanced models. By 2020, what are the chances do you think China may be making J-10 or J-11? I say quite likely, although these planes may now be in the bottom pecker of the pyramid in lieu of more advanced plane types.

[Scratch]

On 2nd may there was a nice article on Janes about a conference that was -among other isues- about future US aquisition policy.
It was warned that in the future high-tech weapon fielding may become too expensive to afford and take too long. The speaker advertised cheaper "low-tech" systems that can be introduced faster and in greater numbers.
Also the consolidation of the defence industry hinders DoD competition, leading to less innovation and higher costs.

Looks like the lead nation now comes to a point were always better leads into a dead end.
I'm sure that China also will inevitably come to a point were buying more less advanced systems will bring more benefit than to aquire the most advanced ones. However, this point is still some time away, maybe decades.

The J-11 is a somewhat given design wich the chinese seek to improve, while the J-10 seems to be their testing product from wich on they might design comming gens of fighters. In the wake of trends to go stealthy, an IRST should also be an option for the J-10.

As regards the 2020 timeline, form my outside standpoint, I would guess a J-xx to become operational, J-11B, J-10 block X and FC-1 to be the main force, augmented by JH-7B and J-8II filling gaps.

[aikea]

Newest J10 picture. Finally, the mustache disppeared.

------------

Forgot link to the source(Chinese)

[crobato]

Plane has the FTTC style camo. FTTC plane perhaps? No. The FTTC J-10S didn't have this pattern at all, even though the single seaters did. The FTTC J-10S were all plain colored.

It also appears that the antenna has been moved down the spine.

Seriously might be a new block version of the J-10S. Is PLAAF going back to adding camo patterns?

[fishhead]

P
Seriously might be a new block version of the J-10S. Is PLAAF going back to adding camo patterns?

Chinese site already said it's the one with WS-10A. So it's the first fielded J-10 with domestic engine.

WS-10A just goes on J10 today.

[fishhead]

A more clear photo, the paint is different(not finished)

Sorry my friend.
But for some reason my computer does not want to display this photograph. I keep getting a message "page opened but with errors". Help would be appreciated.
Regards
Araz

I repost the link, hope you can see now

[araz]

A more clear photo, the paint is different

[qimg]http://bbs.cjdby.net/attachments/day_070510/20070510_75337fdd7e1c80dd0c2dfniipJiozwXO.jpg[/qimg]

Sorry my friend.
But for some reason my computer does not want to display this photograph. I keep getting a message "page opened but with errors". Help would be appreciated.
Regards
Araz

[kursed]

http://www.kommersant.com/p764200/arms_trade_Pakistan/

The Russian government will soon have to decide on the re-export of Russian airplane engines to Pakistan again. Islamabad will soon sign a contract with Beijing on the purchase of 36 J-10 fighter jets (otherwise known as FC-20) for delivery by the end of next year. Experts say the deal will cost Pakistan around $1.5 billion. The planes will be equipped with AL-31FN engines made by the Russian MMP Salyut. Last month, Beijing reached an agreement with Moscow of 150 RD-93 engines to Pakistan by China. That deal was approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin personally.

[adeptitus]

Republic and North American was among the first to be gone. Then McDonnel Douglas. Then General Dynamics quit the business and sold to Lockheed. Grumman quit and consolidated with Northrop who also quit the aircraft making business altogether. Now you are left with Lockheed-Martin Marietta and Boeing, none of whom actually designed the four "teen" aircraft originally. F-14 (Grumman), F-15 (McDonnell Douglas), F-16 (General Dynamics), and F-18 (Northrop).
Its possible if the trend goes, by the sixth generation, there will only be one unified fighter.

This is just an opinion on my part -- I think we'll see a trend moving from manned to unmanned aircraft, and the UAV market will spur large numbers of aviation companies, not unlike the early days of manned aviation. However, like the manned aircraft market, the UAV market will also eventually consolidate down to fewer and fewer companies over time.

I live in Southern California and have seen the effects of the aerospace and defense sector consolidations. Areas that were once prosperous with large aerospace industry presence were left desolate and later redeveloped. I think the old GD site in Pomona is still a concrete wasteland. MD left Long Beach, and the Boeing offices that used to be in Fullerton (off Chapman) have been turned into residential housing tracts. I considered buying a house there but it was across the street from the smelly Del Monte cannery. =P

[crobato]

The J-10 above also seems to have a different nozzle design. You can see the seams in the nozzles that tell you there are less petals on the outside, but these petals are bigger, and the seams on the outer petals have a more noticeable seperation. The petals on the previous nozzles are smaller and finer, while being more numerous. The new petals remind me of the petals in the back of the J-11Bs.

[Deino]

A more clear photo, the paint is different(not finished)

[qimg]http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/9501/2007051075337fdd7e1c80die3.jpg[/qimg]

I repost the link, hope you can see now

Sorry guys to disappoint You but just when I saw this picture for the first time I had a strange feeling ... nuw I "refoud" this particular bird saved on my harddrive on "1. April 2006" with the same red block but in the right direction.
If You look closely You can see that the gun is located on the wrong side ....

Sorry, but just comparey by yourself ! Attached is the original picture facing to the left .. and the "mirrored one" facing to the right as above !

Cheers, Deino

[Gollevainen]

Good work Deino. Its nice to have atleast few who has enough spirit and time to really check out the facts and backing up when posting pictures....other than pretend to be an expert or having acses to information that other hasent

[Jon K]

This is just an opinion on my part -- I think we'll see a trend moving from manned to unmanned aircraft, and the UAV market will spur large numbers of aviation companies, not unlike the early days of manned aviation. However, like the manned aircraft market, the UAV market will also eventually consolidate down to fewer and fewer companies over time.

I agree. The large amount of competing designs and companies is also perhaps because no major country seems to be sure yet what kind of UCAV's it will want in the future. The US and European countries are also protecting the production runs of their current high tech fighters by not going overtly for the UCAV's yet. If various Air Force staff exactly defined what they want from UCAV's and what the UCAV's can be expected to do the current production runs might be threatened by cancellation.

And finally, but perhaps importantly, there is the Fighter Pilot's Trade Union issue. Top Gun 2020: A bunch of nerds sitting in a van eating pizza. What kind of a fighter pilot would want that? What would happen for the flight pay? And retirement jobs flying commuters between point A and B?

I'm 120% sure the F-35 will be the last manned US fighter, perhaps even the last manned US strike aircraft. As F-35 was specced during early 90's it's understandable it was designed as a manned aircraft. But PAK-FA and J-XX projects in their current manned form are really waste of money. It is very hard to see what Chinese and Russian air staffs are smoking when they require fragile biomatter to sit in a fighter to be deployed in 2020...

[fishhead]

Sorry guys to disappoint You but just when I saw this picture for the first time I had a strange feeling ... nuw I "refoud" this particular bird saved on my harddrive on "1. April 2006" with the same red block but in the right direction.
If You look closely You can see that the gun is located on the wrong side ....

Sorry, but just comparey by yourself ! Attached is the original picture facing to the left .. and the "mirrored one" facing to the right as above !

Cheers, Deino

Interesting, a fake photo. I never saw that original photo before, and I don't backup pictures.

[crobato]

For some reason I don't have that pic either. I thought I had all the pics. Having this on Jan 2006 means a big thing because it is a new prototype.

Plane apparently has bulge to accomodate the satlink on the spine already, by Jan 2006. Use of a different primer on different areas of the aircraft is quite interesting, as that may mean the material underneath the grey primer is not the same as the one used under the yellow primer. Yet this is in contrast to the other J-10s taken around 2006 which is still completely yellow.

Planes that are flying in this paint condition are usually prototypes. With those tanks and all, its going through a flight test with some pretty long flight times. Planes that are in primer condition in the ground may or may not be prototypes, as they may also be being carted to a seperate painting section.