TRUMPETER'S KIT #01644 1/72 SCALE J-10S REVIEW & BUILD
Last updated: September 15, 2014</a>
The Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) J-10 Viforous Dragon Fighter:
The Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) saw in the late 1980s, that aircraft design by both Russia and the West was rapidly rendering their complete air force obsolete. Despite efforts to upgrade, modernize, and enhance the hundreds of older Q-5 (based on the Mig-19) attack aircraft, J-7 (based on the Mig-21)fighters, and J-8 (an indegenous aircraft originally designed as a answer to the US F-105 Thunderchief) fighter/interceptors, the newer US F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s, along with the Russian Su-27s and Mig-29s, were completely outclassing these older aircraft. Something had to be done.
The result was a new program to develop a modern, indigenous aircraft. Work started in January 1988. Development was delegated to the 611 Institute, also known as the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute. Initially projected to be a speicailized fighter, air-superiority aircraft, aircraft, the design developed into more of a a multirole aircraft capable of both the air to air and ground support/attack role. It was ultimately designated the J-10.
The developing aircraft bore significant resemblance to the Israeli Aircraft Industry's Lavi aircraft proposal and prototype, which first flew in 1988, and of which three were built. But that program was cancelled, and the Chinese development continued well after the Lavi had been discarded by the Israelis in favor of the US F-16 fighters. The principle designer of the J-10, Song Wencong, indicated in the 1990s that the J-10 was actually a of the indigenous J-9 which preceded the Lavi.and has been an abortive attempt by the PRC to develop an intial 4th generation fighter beginning in 1975. but that program was cancelled in 1980 because the PRC was simply not capable of full prodcution of such an aircraft (particularly the desired engine) in the late 1970s. However, the J-9 also bore very significant resemblance to the developoing J-10, with forward canards, a delta main wing, and a single engine. After cancellation, the PLAAF proceeded with the indigenous J-8 aircraft instead.
Thje development of the J-10 was slow and labored. Despite the intervening years, the development of the necessary avionics and engine technologies remained difficult for the PRC. Despite this, it was later reported that the initial J-10 prototype came off of the production line in November of 1997, and first flew on March 23, 1998 in a twenty minute flight. But the aircraft and its specifics was shrouded in the utmost secrecy. Again, it was later reported that the first production aircraft was delivered to the PLAAF and its 13th Test Regiment in February 2003, about five years after the first prototype was reported to have flown. The aircraft was secretly, and rapidly, declared to have achieved initial operational capabiliy (IOC) in December of 2003, only nine months after delivery to the Test Regiment of the PLAAF. At that point, the aircraft had been in development for 18 years. The first operational regiment that was stood up was the 131st Regiment of the 44th Division in the PLAAF in 2004 or 2005..
In 2006, the Russian Siberian Aeronautical Research Institute (SibNIA) announced that it was partoicipating with the Chinese in the development of the J-10. SibNIA claimed to principally observed and instruct their Chinese compatriots as as "scientific guides," in the program.
Finally, in 2007, the PRC and PLAAF officially unveiled the J-10 to the public, ten years after the intial prototype was completed.. Although the aircraft's existence was well known long before the official unveiling, many of the specific details remained unknown until the aircraft was officially announced.
The J-10 airframe is constructed from metal alloys and compisites which give high strength as well as light weight. The design is known as a "tail-less canard delta" which combines a large delta wing mounted low on the aircraft and towards the rear of the fuselage with two canard, mounted somewhat higher than the wing and forward on the fuselage below and just behind the cockpit. This allows for high manuverability for the J-10, particularly at low speeds. The aircraft has a large vertical tail on top of the fuselage and two small ventral fins underneath the fuselage to give more stability.
Still, the aircraft is designed to be aerodynamically unstable, which allows for its high degree of manueverability. In order to address the inherant unstable design, a digital fly-by-wire flight control system is used, which is quadruple redundant. This system monitors pilot inputs, preventing the pilot from inadvertantly exiting the flight envelope during high performance flight situations. This also allows the aircraft to reach the much tighter radius turning that its design allows over mpore conventional aircraft. A rectangular air intake is located underneath the fuselage, providing the air supply to the engine. Also under the fuselage and wings are 11 hardpoints, used for carrying various types of weaponry and drop-tanks containing extra fuel.[citation needed]
There is a bubble canopy on this aircraft somewhat similar to the F-16. This provides the pilot(s) with 360 degrees visual coverage of the airspace. The J-10 uses a conventional conventional center control stick and a throttle located to the left of the cockpit. "Zero-zero" ejection seats are used for both the single seat and dual seat variants. This allows for safe ejection, all the way down to zero altitude and zero speed. Within the cockpit, the pilot utilzes three liquid crystal (LCD) Multi-function displays (MFD) along with a Chinese developed holographic head-up display (HUD). The pilot also utilizes an indigenous advanced helmet mounted sight (HMS) which allows off bore sighting, target acquisition, and firing.
The J-10 uses an indigenous multi-mode fire-control radar with a mechanically scanned planar array antenna. Chinese reports indicate that this ystem is capable of tracking 10 targets at a time. Of those ten, two can be engaged simultaneously. The radar, designated as KLJ-10, was developed by the Nanjing Research Institute of Electronic Technology (NRIET), and is reported to be comparable to western th generation aircraft.
The J-10;s engine is the a single Russian Lyulka-Saturn AL-31FN turbofan engine. The AL-31FN is based on the Russian AL-31F used in Russian aricraft like the Su-27. The AL-31FN was re-designed to fit the smaller engine bay in the J-10. Originally, the J-10 was planned to be powered by an indegenous Chinese WS-10 Taihang turbofan, but problems with the development of the Chinese turbo fan engine forced the Chinese to use a Russian engine instead.
The J-10 can be well armed for either the Air-to-Air or Air-to-Ground role. It insludes an internal 23 mm twin-barrel cannon, located underneath the port side of the intake. Other weapons can be mouinted on any of the eleven external hardpoints available to the J-10, three under each wing and up to five under the fuselage. The aircraft is capable of carrying up to 6,000 kg (13,228 lb) missiles, bombs, fuel tanks, or other equipment and pods on these hardpoints.
For air-to-air missions, the types of missiles that the J-10 carries include PL_8 and PL-9 short range missiles, or either PL-11 or PL-12 medium-range missiles .
For the air to ground role, the aircraft can carry Chinese unguided and precision guided munitions. These include laser-guided bombs, YJ-9 anti-ship missiles, PJ-9 anti-radiation missiles and other indigenous Chinese air to ground munitions.
To date, approximately 250 J-10 aircraft have been deployed within the Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) and another 24 are deployed within the Chinese Navy (PLAN) The J-10S ia the two seat version of the aircraft. it is fully functional not only for training but for the air-to-aor and ground attack roles. it is stretched to accomodate the second seat, and has a ventral spine that houses additional sensors.
A sginificant uppgrade, called the J-10B has been developed, prototyped, and is now well into the testing phase on production aircraft.
This new J-10B will replace the current radar system with a active phased array airborne (AESA) radar. THis is a significant advancement as many felt that the next step would be a Passive Phased Array radar. However, during a brief by the 7th China International Defense Electronics Exhibition (CIDEX) in May 2010 and the 6th International Conference on Radar held in Beijing in Sept 2011, Chinese official sources have claimed that the radar to be instralled in the J-10B will be an AESA radar. In addition, the J-10B is intended to be powered by the new WS-10B indigenous, and more powerful Chinese engine. , showing a prototype J-10 modified with Tyhe chinese are also adding more radar absorbant material and more composite material to the J-10B. Other improvements include a next generation, integrated EW suite, next generation avionics, a diverterless supersonic inlet (DSI), an infra-red search and track (IRST) sensor, and a modified vertical stabiliser and ventral fins
Supposedly the first prototype J-10B flew in December 2008, and the first production J-10B appeared out of the factory in July 2013.
Specifications:
Crew: 1 or 2
Length: 15.49 m (50.82 ft)
Wingspan: 9.75 m (31.99 ft)
Height: 5.43 m (17.81 ft)
Wing area: 33.1 m² (356.3 ft²)
Empty weight: 9,750 kg (21,495 lb
Loaded weight: 12,400 kg (28,600 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 19,277 kg (42,500 lb)
Powerplant: 1 × Saturn-Lyulka AL-31FN
Maximum speed: Mach 2.2 at altitude, Mach 1.2 at sea level
Combat radius: 1,600 km (with air to air refueling), 550 km (without air to air refueling)
Ferry range: 1,850 km
Service ceiling: 18,000 m (59,055 ft)
Armament:
Hardpoints: 11 (6× under-wing, 5× under-fuselage) 6,000 kg (13,228 lb) capacity
Air-toAir Missiles: PL-8, PL-9, PL-11, PL-12
Air to Groundf Missiles: PJ-9, YJ-9K
Rockets: 90 mm unguided rocket pods
Bombs: laser-guided bombs (LT-2), glide bombs (LS-6) and unguided bombs
External Fuel: Up to 3 external fuel drop-tanks (1× under-fuselage, 2× under-wing)
Guns: 1× 23mm twin-barrel cannon
The Trumpeter J-10 1/72 Scale Model Aircraft:
This is a Trumpeter model and it, as is typical with modern Trumpeter kits, is loaded with good detail. There is little to no falsh, and the kit contains seven sprues (tone modled in clear plastic for the canopy, HUD, and lights, and six modled in grey) and contains upwards of 150 parts.
The kit can be built in one of two configurations. One is the Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) acrobatic team, another is a production J-10A aircraft.
The kit allows for the canpoy to be shown either open or closed. It can have the landing gera either down or retracted. The kit allows for only an air to air weapons configuration, but does include all three fuel tanks and allows for PL-8 short range missiles (similar to the sidewinder) or either PL-11 (similar to Sparrow) or PL-12 (similar to AMRAAM) medium range missiles to be located on any of the three hardpoints under each wing. A centerline hardpoint for the location of the centreline fuel tank is includied. The two under-wing fuel tanks can be located on the inboard pylons under the wings. The different types of pylons for the different types of missiles and fuel tanks are included.
I intend to build mine for a long range air-superiority mission with two PL-8 short range missiles and two PL-12 medium range missiles and all three fuel tanks.
The kit includes an excellent deacl sheet with all the necessary decals for depicting either version of the aircraft. That sheet includes 196 decals.
There is an excellent, full color paint scheme for both version of the aircraft, showing various paint numbers for four different paint companies.
As always, Treumpeters; instructions are excllent. Very straight forward, detailed, and yet intuitive. This kit includes an eight page instruction booklet in addition to the full color paint schemes and decal ssheet.
here are some pictures of the box, its contencts, the individual sprues, the decal sheet and the paint scheme.
THE BUILD - Cockpit assembly, Fuselage, and wings September 14, 2014
I began by building the cockpit area. This required to get all the various parts painted in their appropriate colors first. The kit comes with a very dcent set of ejection seats. The instrumentation is covered by eight very decent decals. I used Model Master engine Graey (which is a very dark gray) for the ejection seats and the surfaces in front of and behind the pilot and rear seat, I used Model Master Olive Drab foir the seats, and flat black for the control sticks. I used yellow for the ejection pulls handles. I painted the rest of the internal surfaces of the cockpit in a medium grey.
Once I had all of the pieces painted, I detached them from their sprues, did some touch-up, and then added the decals. Once that was completed I then built the cockpit up for both front and reaer seats.
It made for a very decent looking cockpit
Then it was tme to build the fuselage. The fuselag comes in two main parts (with three or four other smaller parts). The left and right halves. Before gluing these together, you have to add the cockpit assembly (from above) and the housing for the front landing gear when they are raised. Once this was accomplished, I then glued the two halves together and used my clamps to hold them that way until dry. I also added the air intake assembly (three parts) which I built while the cockpit was drying.
Finally, I prepared the wings for glueing, painting the rear landing gear areas accordingly.
