Chinese Engine Development

O

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Restarting an entire program is quite common. Not fishy at all and actually explains delays in a country that usually does not usually do delays and would sometimes rather rush an immature product than delay it. An example of restarting a successful project is Lexus' LFA. They had everything working fine and progressing well and then the chief engineer and board of directors thought it would be better to investigate a composite material body rather than aluminium so they did and found it to be much better and decided to restart the program. Production methods and tolerances vary a lot between those two materials so pretty much most of the work needed a restart. That's just for something as simple as a car, albeit an amazing supercar. Comprehensive turbofan manufacturing technology is held by a total of 5 nations. Russia, USA, China, France, and UK. Redesigning for tech and performance advantage is seriously worth the delays because there are so few competitors. Actually only USA and Russia on this thrust level.
 
Deino

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
I would say too much detail from a so far not known member - similar to the FC-31V2 a few days ago - ... and as such unreliable !
 
L

latenlazy

Brigadier
Skywatcher said:
Wait, they restarted WS-15 development twice? Sounds very fishy, unless they actually started development back in 1990 or something.
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One way to make sense of this is to presume that the engine core the 624th institute tested and handed off to the 606th institute was ultimately rejected by the 606th, and the 606th started from scratch, which might make sense given some of the rumors we’ve heard about the 606 and 624 institutes having disputes over the engine core. However, that would mean the 606th institute also canned a second design and started a third design sometime between 2008 and 2018, with enough time get the third design ready for flight testing at the end of this year. I’m not sure how believable that is. It might fit with the fact that supposedly they had started building a full prototype in 2014 and we still haven’t seen any flight tests. Maybe it’s because between now and 2014 they pushed the reset button, or maybe that reset happened between 2014 and 2018. If they did push the reset button, it’s plausible that design and development the second and third times around were much faster by simple accumulation of experience and knowledge, and the reuse of research and other elements from their previous tries. It might also explain why we were hearing that the codename for the engine was E’mei for years, only to more recently hear it is actually Zhufeng (Everest).

That said, if I can piece together the tidbits of information we’ve gotten through the years to make these supposed leaks sound plausible, someone else can use the same bits of information to manufacture stories that fit the same fact patterns. What makes me *most* suspicious of this leak is the variable cycle engine claims. While resetting the engine’s design twice doesn’t sound too unlikely, going all the way to a VCE design sounds like a massively risky undertaking for a project that is already on a tight deadline and was already anticipated to be behind schedule, and for an industrial base that is still trying to catch up in expertise and experience compared to their competition, who themselves haven’t put a VCE design into production yet. Furthermore, how would anyone outside the US defense establishment know what the F119’s thrust at 10,000 ft is to know that the supposed VCE WS-15 could generate 30% more thrust in the same condition? Specificity can often be useful to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t when we’re trying to sort out rumors, but specificity can also be faked, and we should be careful not to bite onto details too assuredly if we don’t have ways of vetting those details.
 
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D

Dfangsaur

Junior Member
Registered Member
latenlazy said:
One way to make sense of this is to presume that the engine core the 624th institute tested and handed off to the 606th institute was ultimately rejected by the 606th, and the 606th started from scratch, which might make sense given some of the rumors we’ve heard about the 606 and 624 institutes having disputes over the engine core. However, that would mean the 606th institute also canned a second design and started a third design sometime between 2008 and 2018, with enough time get the third design ready for flight testing at the end of this year. I’m not sure how believable that is. It might fit with the fact that supposedly they had started building a full prototype in 2014 and we still haven’t seen any flight tests. Maybe it’s because between now and 2014 they pushed the reset button, or maybe that reset happened between 2014 and 2018. If they did push the reset button, it’s plausible that design and development the second and third times around were much faster by simple accumulation of experience and knowledge, and the reuse of research and other elements from their previous tries. It might also explain why we were hearing that the codename for the engine was E’mei for years, only to more recently hear it is actually Zhufeng (Everest).

That said, if I can piece together the tidbits of information we’ve gotten through the years to make these supposed leaks sound plausible, someone else can use the same bits of information to manufacture stories that fit the same fact patterns. What makes me *most* suspicious of this leak is the variable cycle engine claims. While resetting the engine’s design twice doesn’t sound too unlikely, going all the way to a VCE design sounds like a massively risky undertaking for a project that is already on a tight deadline and was already anticipated to be behind schedule, and for an industrial base that is still trying to catch up in expertise and experience compared to their competition, who themselves haven’t put a VCE design into production yet. Furthermore, how would anyone outside the US defense establishment know what the F119’s thrust at 10,000 ft is to know that the supposed VCE WS-15 could generate 30% more thrust in the same condition? Specificity can often be useful to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t when we’re trying to sort out rumors, but specificity can also be faked, and we should be careful not to bite onto details too assuredly if we don’t have ways of vetting those details.
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for the variable bypass thing the poster did say the engine has two versions, it could be planned for use in a later version?
 
Hyperwarp

Hyperwarp

Captain
Dfangsaur said:
It's rumour time, it's about the new WS-15? engine~~
Translation:
As I said, that you-know-what engine (WS-15?) will be installed on J-20 soon. Don't ask me where the information came from, just wait and see. There will be none stop surprises coming your way! The engine is no longer the same as the one previously shown in plans. It has completely changed and I can responsibly tell everyone that the development of the engine has started over completely twice. Thanks to the breakthrough in material science, the final version will be incredible. Just like the appearance of J-20 was incredible in December 2010.
Surprise 1: the target engine will be installed soon. Thrust is up from 10.x -- 15.x tons to 11.x -- 18.x tons.
Surprise 2: The new engine will have two versions. The later version is expected to reach a maximum thrust of 22.x tons. Both versions will have TVC.
Surprise 3 (biggest one yet): it will employ variable bypass technology. At an altitude above 10000m, it will produce 30% more thrust than F-119. Not only is the engine for J-20, it also creates the research preparation for the next generation fighter.

The serrated nozzle Taihang engine (WS-10B?) seen before is the back up plan for this new engine. As the development of the target engine is going well, the back up plan will not be used on the improved J-20. We should be able to see a prototype launched by the end of 2018 at the earliest.

yada yada doubt me all you want yada yada thanks F-35 for forcing our hands

(the end)

What do you guys think? I'm a little skeptical as a prototype TVC WS-10 was only shown last month and it's mature enough to be on the WS-15 already? Also I don't know about the variable bypass either. The author seemed confident though.
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Maybe be not impossible given enough time. The YF120 blasted the YF-23 to STILL classified top-speeds, but how do you jump from a P&W YF119 class to a GE YF120 class within a relatively short period? That is hard to digest.
 
SinoSoldier

SinoSoldier

Colonel
I'd trust PB19980515 over any other fanboi any day. According to PB19980515, the WS-15 is approximately 6-7 years away from debut (not sure if that's his insider scoop or his personal estimate).
 
L

latenlazy

Brigadier
SinoSoldier said:
I'd trust PB19980515 over any other fanboi any day. According to PB19980515, the WS-15 is approximately 6-7 years away from debut (not sure if that's his insider scoop or his personal estimate).
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I’m tentative about PB19980515. If he’s who he says he is there is information he won’t be reliable for.
 
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