Future Single engine PLAAF fighter

Power is important because it's what drives the machine. If you sacrifice on power you have problems. The engine needs to produce enough thrust to drive the fighter and gain lift. It's got to produce enough thrust to do that despite its weight, the pilots weight the fuel load the armament and rest to a point where in enough lift is established to negate the weight of the machine.
If one engine won't do that you go to two.
But it's not just power. If the reliability is poor there is no point in putting it in the machine. It needs to be able to operate problem free for a set ratio of thousands of flight hours to maintenance or it's a no go.
You could build a key engines to lift a Y20 off the ground all on its own but if it only works once there is no point.
Service life is critical as well if you can only fly 50 hours then need to pull the engine it's worthless you may be able to skimp a little on in service life like the Russians used to but that got made up for in production.
Production is the ability to build them in numbers, if you can't build them in numbers then all the other points are null as you can't actually equip the fighters with them. If you short fall in production then you need a way to prolong service life as the engines become more valuable.

Efficiency kicks in at the end as that factors for range that is where variable cycle comes in more for late 5th into 6th gens.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Power is important because it's what drives the machine. If you sacrifice on power you have problems. The engine needs to produce enough thrust to drive the fighter and gain lift. It's got to produce enough thrust to do that despite its weight, the pilots weight the fuel load the armament and rest to a point where in enough lift is established to negate the weight of the machine.
If one engine won't do that you go to two.
But it's not just power. If the reliability is poor there is no point in putting it in the machine. It needs to be able to operate problem free for a set ratio of thousands of flight hours to maintenance or it's a no go.
You could build a key engines to lift a Y20 off the ground all on its own but if it only works once there is no point.
Service life is critical as well if you can only fly 50 hours then need to pull the engine it's worthless you may be able to skimp a little on in service life like the Russians used to but that got made up for in production.
Production is the ability to build them in numbers, if you can't build them in numbers then all the other points are null as you can't actually equip the fighters with them. If you short fall in production then you need a way to prolong service life as the engines become more valuable.

Efficiency kicks in at the end as that factors for range that is where variable cycle comes in more for late 5th into 6th gens.

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I’m not disagreeing about the importance of reliability and service life as parameters of performance. I’m just saying those don’t have to be as stringent if the immediate goal is to be able to get to production.

I think it would be a terrible idea if the Chinese went solely with dual-engine aircraft. They are much more expensive. While I think the FC-31 is a great platform for naval applications, where the extra reliability and small aircraft size are desirable, I would not want to see it as a mainline fighter to replace either the J-7 or the J-10. Not for a country like China which has great manpower reserves and a huge pilot pool. It makes sense for modern Russia with its much smaller population vs area to have an all huge twin-engine fleet. But not China.



There are plenty of ideas the Chinese could use as a base for a next generation single engine fighter. For example they could make a single engine fighter similar to the tailless McDonnell Douglas X-36 or Boeing Bird of Prey prototypes. The Chinese already dominate advanced fly-by-wire with canards and have TVC engines. So the logical next step would be to use those on a more modern platform with increased maneuverability and all aspect stealth.

With regards to the variable cycle engines once that technology becomes available, and depending on the top speed available with such an engine, we could see significant differences in aircraft design but I doubt China will have such technology in less than 8-10 years given the state of their current engine technology.

If it enables a Mach 3+ design we might see something which looks like a waverider design.

Variable Cycle engines I don't think are pushing for the hypersonic regime that would be more of a scram jet or a Liquid Air or Precooled engine. Variable Cycle is focused more on efficient operation in subsonic, Transonic and super sonic flight. As of yet manned hypersonic is still more for space programs.

Just noticed this thread only now ... and I must admit since some time I have a similar idea.
A friend of mine, who helped me with his artwork in the first book - Bai Wei - already drew a concept of such a type ... what do you think?

Very nice - I've not checked the edge alignment (some artists don't adhere strictly enough, but that's what you call artistic license) though. What seems clear however is that he likes GD's ATF submission a lot

Deino said:

Just noticed this thread only now ... and I must admit since some time I have a similar idea.
A friend of mine, who helped me with his artwork in the first book - Bai Wei - already drew a concept of such a type ... what do you think?

View attachment 50183

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Its not bad actually! Reminds me of the PAK FA.

Deino said:

Just noticed this thread only now ... and I must admit since some time I have a similar idea.
A friend of mine, who helped me with his artwork in the first book - Bai Wei - already drew a concept of such a type ... what do you think?

View attachment 50183

Click to expand...

Something like this makes sense. I dont think PLAAF will ever buy J-31 because it has two engines. I think for lo, single engine makes more sense because of price/maintenance. I dont expect to see anything soon though. Towards to the end of the next decade.

Deino said:

Just noticed this thread only now ... and I must admit since some time I have a similar idea.
A friend of mine, who helped me with his artwork in the first book - Bai Wei - already drew a concept of such a type ... what do you think?

View attachment 50183

Click to expand...

Looks like the focus is on stealth rather than maneuverability.