J-15 carrier-borne fighter thread

KFX

New Member
Registered Member
AFAIK none of the trainers are hardened to conduct carrier landings. I remember reading this in one of the aircraft magazine featuring on Chinese trainers. Effectively for carrier qualification the rite of passage is landing in a J-15.

Engine and avionics upgrade is normally part of scheduled maintenance and would be unusual in my view to delay production especially the acute shortage.
J-15 could also be a dead-end given the issues they've reportedly In any event, CV-16 (Liaoning) and the latest carrier will not be operational simultaneously given the rule that to operate have one ship deployed at all times, you need three vessels: one operational, one working up, one refitting. The two ships may as well share the same aircraft.
 

Brumby

Major
J-15 could also be a dead-end given the issues they've reportedly In any event, CV-16 (Liaoning) and the latest carrier will not be operational simultaneously given the rule that to operate have one ship deployed at all times, you need three vessels: one operational, one working up, one refitting. The two ships may as well share the same aircraft.

I would not consider the J-15 a dead end because it is the only game in town for Chinese carrier aviation for the next 10 years. All the rumours about a J-15 replacement are simply that - rumours. It takes a long time to develop a 5th gen aircraft and even longer for a navalized version. Given that China has never developed a naval one I am sceptical that it can be done in a hurry.

The existing J-15 inventory is simply too few considering that CV-17 is coming online soon. It is a mystery why production numbers appear to be going nowhere given the demand. If you take into account availability i.e. discounting those down for maintenance, it is scrapping the bottom.
 

P5678

New Member
Registered Member
A lot of things are not making sense.

Building carriers with no naval trainers in the pipeline.

Hardly enough J-15s to fill CV-16 let alone CV-17.

Nothing specific about J-15 replacement except for rumours.
They just have too many things to catch up, if you look back just 5 years, there were even more things didn't make sense. But are they figuring things out? Definitely they are, step by step.
 

vesicles

Colonel
A lot of things are not making sense.

Building carriers with no naval trainers in the pipeline.

Hardly enough J-15s to fill CV-16 let alone CV-17.

Nothing specific about J-15 replacement except for rumours.

Does the PLAN need more fighters? ------ Absolutely YES! No question about it!

Does the PLAN need more fighters now? ------ YES! No doubt about it!

I agree that the PLAN needs to get more fighters for their carriers. And I agree that they need those fighters yesterday. However, I just don't understand why people think it makes no sense that they don't have enough fighters now.

It makes perfect sense that something is out of sync. They are in the middle of a major weapons development phase. This phase (PLA, PLAN and PLAAF) involves hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of people (maybe even more). Many programs, especially the mega-programs like the carriers and carriers fighters, do not sync. Anyone who has managed big programs know that it's difficult to coordinate multiple programs. To this day, I have not heard any company/organization, big or small, is able to sync their parallel projects so that one can tie with another smoothly. So it should not be surprising to anyone that the PLAN is having some kind of a gap between their carriers and carriers fighters. In fact, it would be weird if everything goes smoothly (especially that this is their first time doing these things)... We would be suspecting some kind of cover-ups...

Those who have managed big projects should know that, when this kind of mishap happens, you need to improvise. In fact, when managing big projects, you spend most of your time improvising, running from one end to another and trying to patch stuff together. And the PLAN is improvising when their carrier project and their fighter project cannot sync. Do you have a better idea for how they should improvise?

Should they stop the carrier project and wait for the fighters to come on line?

Should they skip steps and cut corners in their fighters project to speed it up?

Should they scratch their existing carrier design and make a new one at the last minute to fit the new fighters?

Should they continue with their old fighters manufacturing, while knowing that they can easily spend a short period of time and correct a major weakness in their fighters?

Keep in mind that a carrier is a moving air field that is supposed to serve many vastly different plane types, including fighters, bombers and AWACS. What if they completely change their fighter design? Will that affect how their carriers function? Absolutely not! The carriers will be there and serve many many different kinds of planes long after any current planes retire. Many USN carriers have served multiple generations of fighters simultaneously on their decks. And many of the current USN carriers are expected to serve unimaginable plane types in the future. So what's the problem with the PLAN carriers waiting a bit for their J-15's.

Even going smoothly, it might take up to a decade to complete and commission a carrier. It would make no sense whatsoever to change/compromise a carrier project that is going smoothly. You don't want to compromise your mega project for the sake of syncing with a smaller project... Thats most likely why they are pushing ahead with their carriers. Any alternatives would, in fact, make no sense.
 
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BoggedDown

New Member
Registered Member
Batch 03 from 2020 on and batch 04 following 2022 would be early enough, I think.
China is currently in middle of major breakthrough of engine technology which will enable her to pass a significant stumble stone in path of self reliant. So there is a small pause or hold or delay what ever you want to call it of current aviation programs for the time being. When they get confident enough they will double down on these programs and change her fate of aviation forever.
 

Brumby

Major
Does the PLAN need more fighters? ------ Absolutely YES! No question about it!

Does the PLAN need more fighters now? ------ YES! No doubt about it!

I agree that the PLAN needs to get more fighters for their carriers. And I agree that they need those fighters yesterday. However, I just don't understand why people think it makes no sense that they don't have enough fighters now.

It makes perfect sense that something is out of sync. They are in the middle of a major weapons development phase. This phase (PLA, PLAN and PLAAF) involves hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of people (maybe even more). Many programs, especially the mega-programs like the carriers and carriers fighters, do not sync. Anyone who has managed big programs know that it's difficult to coordinate multiple programs. To this day, I have not heard any company/organization, big or small, is able to sync their parallel projects so that one can tie with another smoothly. So it should not be surprising to anyone that the PLAN is having some kind of a gap between their carriers and carriers fighters. In fact, it would be weird if everything goes smoothly (especially that this is their first time doing these things)... We would be suspecting some kind of cover-ups...

Those who have managed big projects should know that, when this kind of mishap happens, you need to improvise. In fact, when managing big projects, you spend most of your time improvising, running from one end to another and trying to patch stuff together. And the PLAN is improvising when their carrier project and their fighter project cannot sync. Do you have a better idea for how they should improvise?

Should they stop the carrier project and wait for the fighters to come on line?

Should they skip steps and cut corners in their fighters project to speed it up?

Should they scratch their existing carrier design and make a new one at the last minute to fit the new fighters?

Should they continue with their old fighters manufacturing, while knowing that they can easily spend a short period of time and correct a major weakness in their fighters?

Keep in mind that a carrier is a moving air field that is supposed to serve many vastly different plane types, including fighters, bombers and AWACS. What if they completely change their fighter design? Will that affect how their carriers function? Absolutely not! The carriers will be there and serve many many different kinds of planes long after any current planes retire. Many USN carriers have served multiple generations of fighters simultaneously on their decks. And many of the current USN carriers are expected to serve unimaginable plane types in the future. So what's the problem with the PLAN carriers waiting a bit for their J-15's.

Even going smoothly, it might take up to a decade to complete and commission a carrier. It would make no sense whatsoever to change/compromise a carrier project that is going smoothly. You don't want to compromise your mega project for the sake of syncing with a smaller project... Thats most likely why they are pushing ahead with their carriers. Any alternatives would, in fact, make no sense.

I would agree if the conversation is about project management and the complexity to sync sub programs along planned critical paths. However the J-15 conversation is primarily production related rather than project management. As had been pointed out by others, it is already in production since 2013 with two known batches. The mystery is why production had supposedly stopped. Various speculations had been offered from prioritization to upgrade. I think it is associated with fundamental redesign of flight dynamics arising from the known crashes. Until that is sorted out further production is put on hold.
 

vesicles

Colonel
I would agree if the conversation is about project management and the complexity to sync sub programs along planned critical paths. However the J-15 conversation is primarily production related rather than project management. As had been pointed out by others, it is already in production since 2013 with two known batches. The mystery is why production had supposedly stopped. Various speculations had been offered from prioritization to upgrade. I think it is associated with fundamental redesign of flight dynamics arising from the known crashes. Until that is sorted out further production is put on hold.

This would be a sensible possibility. I also think it might be some kind of upgrade. Why did you then claim that it made no sense for them to have carriers without fighters?

Even if the J-15 became a complete failure (that would be huge IF), they would have no choice but to push ahead with the construction of the new carriers. The carrier project is going smoothly. They cannot change and potentially mess with a successful mega project. They will need to find other ways to sync their carrier fighters with their carriers later. But at this point, they cannot afford to compromise both high priority projects.
 
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