future plaaf's flanker upgrade

ok, we all know that the su-27s and j-11's are pieces of crap, especially in terms of bvr. what king of upgrades do you guys the plaaf should instal on its flankers to extend their service life? make em realistic(cost, how easy it is to intall...)

i would: fit all existing j-11 and su-27s with canards, and have the russians instal some new hotas style avionics and bars radar.

for all future j-11, i would fit an indegedous radar, possibly with imput from pakistans f-16s, put canards, and fit indegedous avionics to support chinese weapons suites.

stick to flankers! no j-10 or j-xx.

it'd be quite dangerous to add things to plane's structure. I say just get upgrade the avionics and AAMs. J-11B should be using better avionics and a slightly improved structure already.

I don't see how you can say flankers updated to use R-77s are crap.

it's mainly their avionics and the fact that they don't have the canard in su-35

China's Su-27sk and early J-11s aren't able to fire R-77s

some, if not all, have been retrofitted to fire the R-77.

i think that the engine needs to be upgraded for the current one is crapper than the original Su-27SK.

First of all when some topic starts saying that something is "piece of crab" I usually loose all the interest towards it. Althoug many of you are kids, try to still act maturely and best thing to do so is cut out childish language. Anyone saing some system is "piece of crab" looses all his greditability in my eyes...

But to the topic. Su-27 isen't "piece of crab" (or as now on supporting the mature use of english, lets say you ment that Su-27 is uncapaple) at least when comaring to other chinese fighters in use. It's BVR capapility is best of PLAAFs inventory even whitout using the R-77 (Excluding Su-30s but they are basicly the same family, just improved version of it) as the R-27 is superior to any chinese BVR missile in service. But that doesen't mean SU-27 should not be modernised, all planes needs to be modenised after the time is cathing them.

Modernisations differences lots from each others, there can be major modernisation where the whole airframe is partially rebuild and fitted whit new engines and avionics. Or there can be minor modifications wich usually only affects on avionics tough in that way to the weapon delivery capapilityes or even to the manuvrability. As for Chinese Flanker fleet, i would go to the later one as the Su-27 isen't being surpassed in general terms by any major inovation except the F-22 (wich is years and years away from full time operational service). As to boost chinese own aviation technology industry and capapility, i would go for indegenious radar and from there to the ability to use the newest chinese weoponry like SD-10 and C-803 missiles. (yeas a multipurpose capapility would be given tough i'm not sure if china have any radar system to able to do so in the near pipeline...)

But as china have the licence manufacturing faciliatetes, an improved production line should be opened. For my obinion china should no longer manufacture the first generation Flankers nor shift to Russian improved models like Su-35 or Su-37 but developt an own 4.5 half generation fighter based on Flankers airframe. It would require new avionics, (similar that the modernised Flankers would have) new indegenious engine whit better thrust to weight ration than Al-31F, improved airframe whit canards and perhaps redesinged wings. Also more capaple fly-by-fire system would be usefull. Now thats may sound bit farfecthed when taking notice to chinese aviation industrys overall capapilityes, but i bet it is easyer and cost-effective than to produce completely indegenious J-XX wich should be compared to F-22 but will whitout doubt be inferior to it. This J-11M or what ever it should be called would give china back those decades wich would be required to developing 5th generation fighter.

Gollevainen.

Applause people.

I couldn't have put it better myself. This forum is so childish. what radar do you like, which plane is better

Jesus get over it. A few planes arent going to win a war.

And this is from the cream of the crop of this forum.


Back to topic

The Su-27 with any half decent radar could be made into a effective ground attack plane. Large warload + excellent airframe.

BVR hasn't developed to the point where you can fire from 50km and get a 100% chance to hit your target.


How many BVR Kills in Iraq Kosovo? Answer is not many


The PL-12 is a very promising missle for china because it is Produced in china and is able to be used with chinese aircraft.

Any upgrade the J-11 is getting, a must have is ability to fire the PL-12 the future standard PLAAF missle


Most future PLA acquisitions will be joint-development or production rights and will steer away from the off the self purchases.


PS: Would carnards be worth the effort to change the airframe and the adtional cost?

Well, since there already are Su-27 variants with canards, namely the Su-34, -35 and -37, fitting canards to Chinese Su-27's wouldn't be that much of a problem. Also, today most of the cost when building/upgrading an aircraft comes from r&d costs, and quite a small part from the actuall material and work being done. This means, of course, that the fitting of canards probably would be quite cheap also. Based on these facts I think that canards should be a logical part of any major upgrade program on any PLAAF Su-27, since they're relatively cheap and easy to intsall.