Chinese Aviation Industry production rates ...

Blitzo

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Nice, but IMO overall the manufacturing rate in china is much too low !:(

How many of them are operational? We know 11051 & 11052 confirmed + two more un-serialled ones from Zhuhai (however reportedly on of them the final prototype) ... so this would be the 5th delivered to the 4. Transport Division.

Similar the rate at CAC producing J-10s and J-20s is much too low and even worse is the rate at SAC.

And a timely demonstration of my previous post, here's a satellite photo from 11/11/16 last year picked up by oedosoldier with two Y-20s and five H-6(Ks), freshly produced, which we weren't able to pick up from photos on the ground.

ePwUUrj.jpg


Just think about how many airframes for CAC J-10s, J-20s, SAC Flankers, and XAC Y-20s and H-6Ks and SAC Y-9 and KJ and GX variants they produce per year but which we have no photos of.
 

Deino

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Since I started with my off-topic post this very interesting discussion, I decided to move this part into this new thread.

So thanks for Your replies and please continue here...

Deino
 

Deino

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First of all thanks a lot for Your reply ...

How is production rate too low?? It's been steadily increasing for years. Y20 is quite new still, one can't expect them to ramp it up from 2 per year to 12 per year within 12 months. C17 was adding 1-3 airframes per year, compared to year before. And there were years where they produced less than year before. It took them 7 years from first flight to production rate of 10 per year. So i'd say there's quite a lot of breathing room for Y20, it's not doing bad at all.

And J10 production rate being too low?? It hit 40-something a year or two ago. Per year. How many other planes have such production rate nowadays? F35, and that's it. It was contracted for 90 planes in 2016, but that's for ALL customers altogether. US is buying 55 of those.

US, overall, is buying maybe 70 manned combat planes per year, with various superhornet/growlers included.

China can add to those 40ish j10 several j20 as well, as well as 30-ish or so J16/j15 per year. While there was a hiatus in j16 being delivered to plaaf, we don't really know if there was hiatus in production as well. And from previous years we know that SAC can produce 24 flankers per year alongside several other planes (j8fr back in the day. today that line has perhaps been replaced by additional flankers)

Adding to that 8 or so h6 per year.

So China is actually putting into service more combat planes than US for the last few years. US is trying to ramp up the f35 buy, but at the same time their hornet/growler buy will stop and it's not looking likely they'll get over 90 f35 per year due to budget issues. China may lag a bit behind that figure in a few years, but not by much. Given the discrepancy in funding, i'd say china can't be labeled as producing too few planes. It's really doing a very good job, all things considered.

Maybe I should have made more clear that it is MY OPINION, and if this discussion led to other results, I'm eager to revise my opinion.
I also know that the rate is surely not - and it never has to be so - comparable to the F-16-rate during it's peak-time.

Anyway - again my feeling - is that 40-45 J-10s per year is quite low if You compare how many J-7/-8s still need to be replaced, the Flanker rate is also - again IMO - quite low even if I indeed see Blitzo's point ...


Ahh yes, but you forget... Deino speaks, breathes, and lives efficiency! Anything less than 100% is worthy of a frown. :p:p China might be at 90% efficiency but that translated into German means there's 10% waste! :mad: I, for one, fully support endeavouring to achieve those last few percentage points. Every bit counts!

Oh my friend, I think I need to correct You: since I'm now close to the age of 50, I'm surely no longer at a rate of 100% and especially in mind of what was long, long ago ... anyway time is some sort of predator and we all are its prey, at least some day.

Deino
 

Totoro

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I also know that the rate is surely not - and it never has to be so - comparable to the F-16-rate during it's peak-time.

I agree that rate isn't necessary to be reached, more so because it got to 300 per year at one point, and in 5 more years it was above 250. But then again, F16 was produced for 7 NATO customers, during Cold war, when all those customers combined had to upkeep their air forces with combined number of fighters got approached 11 thousand fighters. And there were some extra F16s sold for third party exports in 1980s like Isreael, Egypt etc.

Actually, when one thinks about it, 250ish average production rate for combined air forces using the plane that numbered something like 11500 planes isn't that far off from what china is doing today. Ratio of 46 for F16 versus ratio of 48 or so for J10.


Anyway - again my feeling - is that 40-45 J-10s per year is quite low if You compare how many J-7/-8s still need to be replaced, the Flanker rate is also - again IMO - quite low even if I indeed see Blitzo's point

Current buy rate for chinese air forces is so high that, if china wanted to use their older planes for some nominal life time of 30 years, china would need to get more pilots and form more regiments. That current buy rate points to a 2400 fighter strong air force/planaf. So it's really hard to see how on earth the rate is not high enough. Some J7s were put into service just 15 years ago. A few regiments worth of J8 as well. Those planes certainly don't need replacement for another decade or two.

I don't think the flanker production rate of last two years is representable. Blitzo explained why. But we know SAC can make 24 per year, from the period of 5-10 years ago. And in that time, alongside those flankers, SAC made J8FR as well. So 30 or so planes per year is something SAC can do no problem, if the order/money is there. China is currently close to 80 fighters a year, i'd say. If it went any higher it'd suggest a 3000 combat plane strong force sometime in the future.

Important to keep in mind is chinese history of sticking to a steady production plan. Unlike Russia or US, who have these ups and downs, where at one point they're hardly producing anything and 15 years later they're making 80-150 planes a year, china has for decades now been steady and any increases or decreases have been gradual. In my opinion that's definitely the more efficient way to go about it.
 

delft

Brigadier
I remember reading, twenty or so years ago what it cost to Boeing to reorganize B737 production to increase or decrease the production rate. That is series production of course. For batch production the cost of change is less but still considerable. I understand that Flanker production was modernized to improve quality, reduce weight &c., some time ago and that J15 and J-16 are improved in that sense but I expect that the batch size remained the same and the time to produce a batch remains the same. Has anyone certainty on these matters?
 

Franklin

Captain
Talking about production rate. What is China's helicopter production rate like these days. In 2015 China had 927 civilian helicopters and 802 military helicopters. Compare that to the US with 9751 civilian and 6084 military helicopters. I heard that China in 2008 only had about 500 helicopters in the whole country. So in about 8 years time the number of helicopters in China four folded.

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Equation

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Talking about production rate. What is China's helicopter production rate like these days. In 2015 China had 927 civilian helicopters and 802 military helicopters. Compare that to the US with 9751 civilian and 6084 military helicopters. I heard that China in 2008 only had about 500 helicopters in the whole country. So in about 8 years time the number of helicopters in China four folded.

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Wow, I didn't know Canada has such a large helicopter fleet.
 

Deino

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Just since it fits here much better ...

...
So remember that just because we have photos of something, does not mean that it is the "maximum" of something, but rather it is the "minimum" of something.
I've noticed this with your "production rate" discussion in the other thread a week or so ago as well, where you talked about the lack of photos of production aircraft from various SAC, CAC etc -- but the problem is that photos do not show us a "maximum" of a number of aircraft which have been produced but rather it is only a "minimum" and there are likely many events such as newly produced aircraft which we do not have photos of.
....

Here I cannot agree with You totally even if Your point is - al always - more than correct. My point is that we have - even if again not a complete - quite a good image of how many new units were reequipped with what certain type.

This again does not mean that we are up to date (in fact more likely we are not) nor complete, but I don't think esp. for the Y-20 that there are already 10 or more at Chengdu, 4th Transport Division and also for the J-11-family and J-10 the numbers do in fact fit quite nicely to the number of operational units.

Again, my point is simply even by considering the rate for the Y-20 is still increasing it is in my opinion quite low. If we predict an overall number of about 100 Y-20s and there are right now only about 4-8 being built per year it would equal to the last one being delivered in 25 - 12.5 years.

But again it might only be my own - wrong ! - perception.

Deino
 

Blitzo

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Just since it fits here much better ...



Here I cannot agree with You totally even if Your point is - al always - more than correct. My point is that we have - even if again not a complete - quite a good image of how many new units were reequipped with what certain type.

This again does not mean that we are up to date (in fact more likely we are not) nor complete, but I don't think esp. for the Y-20 that there are already 10 or more at Chengdu, 4th Transport Division and also for the J-11-family and J-10 the numbers do in fact fit quite nicely to the number of operational units.

I would argue that having "quite a good image of how many units were re-equipped and with what type" is very much related to being "up to date and complete".

The problem is that much of knowing which unit is equipped with what type is dependent on photos and videos which may happen to show their unit number, and often those photos and videos may only reveal which unit is equipped with a new type months if not a year after it is equipped, and sometimes we may not even get that information!


Again, my point is simply even by considering the rate for the Y-20 is still increasing it is in my opinion quite low. If we predict an overall number of about 100 Y-20s and there are right now only about 4-8 being built per year it would equal to the last one being delivered in 25 - 12.5 years.

But again it might only be my own - wrong ! - perception.

Deino

For the matter of Y-20 I don't disagree that its starting production rate is probably low, but as they produce more and get more experienced the rate will likely significantly increase.
I will be surprised if their production rate of Y-20 in the 10th year of production is the same as their production rate in the 1st year of produciton.
 
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