PLAAF Breaking News (including articles with Pictures or videos)

SinoSoldier

Colonel
Maybe I'm grasping at straws here, but one blogger with a keen eye has noticed that the supposed PLAAF (or AVIC?) structural test facility was spotted via satellite with a Flanker-type airframe on its field. According to him/her, this may indicate that structural testing for the J-16 (or another Flanker) has concluded and that its structural test airframe has been thrown out & replaced by a new one (possibly of the "J-35" naval fighter).

Sounds really far-fetched to me, but I've no idea how any of the PLAAF facilities work and this guy seems to have quite a following.
Does anyone know how credible this guy is?

这条微博背后的事过段没人看懂,鹘鹰舰载要上强度台架了,原来台架上的飞机就撤出来扔场外了,当初运20出来也是为了给大轰让位。强度所就一大一小两个台架位子

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Klon

Junior Member
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PLA has opened bids on aircraft mounted laser turret and ground/naval based laser defense systems.
The Global Times continues to have some of the best reporting on the Chinese military.

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By Liu Xuanzun Source:Global Times Published: 2020/1/7 0:03:39


The Chinese military is procuring a laser attack pod, which Chinese media speculated could be an aircraft-based tactical weapon.

If equipped on aircraft, the laser could potentially protect against incoming missile attacks and dominate in close-range combat, analysts said.

The procurement plan for the laser attack pod was revealed Saturday in a notice released on the Chinese military's weapon and equipment procurement website weain.mil.cn, Weihutang, a column on military affairs affiliated with China Central Television, reported on Monday.

The notice included the title of the procurement, but the details remained confidential.

Weihutang speculated that the laser attack pod was likely an airborne tactical laser, noting that if the weapon was used to guide bombs rather than directly attack, it would be called a laser guidance pod.

The report said China has already developed a prototype for an airborne laser weapon, citing a publically available academic thesis.

Since a laser travels at the speed of light, it shoots where it is aimed - with no time delay - a significant advantage over missiles and bullets, a military expert who asked not to be named told the Global Times on Monday.

This makes a laser a great tool for aerial interception, he said.

An airborne laser weapon could intercept incoming missiles and shoot down hostile aircraft in a dogfight, the expert said.

China has already developed land-based laser weapons.

At Airshow China 2018, state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) showcased the LW-30 laser defense weapon system, which could use a directional-emission high-energy laser to intercept aerial targets such as photoelectric guidance equipment, drones, guided bombs and mortars, according to a CASIC statement sent to the Global Times.

The US has been researching airborne laser weapons since the 1990s and made significant progress in related technologies, Weihutang reported.

However, this genre of weapon has not yet seen wide deployment due to remaining technical difficulties including power supply and energy loss problems, analysts said.
 
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Inst

Captain
Very good news, given that the F-35 and Su-57 are all slated to receive laser dazzlers as well. The GAU-22 traditional gun on the F-35 is going to have an engagement range of about 3.5 km, the GsH-30 is about 1.8 km.

So the laser attack pod has to achieve a range of 1.8 km to beat that. At 10 kw, the Low Air Guard can achieve a range of 2 km with 5 seconds needed to kill a UAV.

The J-20 radar likely operates at around 20 kW (consider the estimated peak power on the APG-77 of comparable size or the released peak power on the Irbis-E).

A Mach 2 missile is traveling at about 555 meters per second, giving about 3.5 seconds for a shootdown by a Low Air Guard-type system at 2 km range. A laser operating at 40 kw could achieve a shootdown in 1.25 seconds at 2 km range, or extend the firing range to 4 km.A laser operating at 100 kw could reach 5 seconds / 6 km range, which'd give it about 11.5 seconds to shoot down a Mach 2 missile or 6 seconds to shoot down a Mach 4 missile.

As I've said before, the rail set-up for the J-20's side weapons bay is excellent for pod weapons, as it can utilize a non-stealthy pod that's stealthy when stowed. It has two bays, so in theory it can hard-kill up to 2 Mach 2 missiles using a total output of 20 kW.

Funny thing is, we're back in poster MiG-31 territory as we now have to question how much power the J-20 can produce and output. It should be able to output at least 20 kW, given that's peak power on radar, but kN to joules calculation isn't easy.
 

Inst

Captain
SHIELD is about 50 kW

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So, roughly, 1 second within 2 km or 6 seconds within 5 km.

The intended mount target for Shield is the F-15, implying about 70 kW for the J-20 or maybe 100 kW if Shield works with the older F-15 100 kN engines.

The target date for the American program is going to be 2021. It remains to be seen how long it'd take for the J-20 to field such weapons, given that the MFP just came up this year and the Shield's been discussed since 2017. And Chinese subsystems development is relatively slow, given that the PL-21 is still not active.
 
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by78

General
An old concept study of piggybacking and launching cruise missiles from IL-76.

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anzha

Senior Member
Registered Member
And where is the relevance to the topic aka PLAAF breaking news?
Please give at least a summary or info on its content..

My apologies. My translation would be marginally better than Google's: it's easier to teach a stone than myself with new languages. :)

That said, these are workers for Xian aircraft protesting their pensions are missing or not being paid. This is tied, supposedly, to the Y-20 designer who was removed a while back.
 

Xizor

Captain
Registered Member
My apologies. My translation would be marginally better than Google's: it's easier to teach a stone than myself with new languages. :)

That said, these are workers for Xian aircraft protesting their pensions are missing or not being paid. This is tied, supposedly, to the Y-20 designer who was removed a while back.
Radio Free Asia is a non-profit news source funded by a foreign government.
( Their about page scream propaganda to my ears)
Are they subject to the ideological interference of their government? Possibly. What and how does Xi'an Production capabilities get affected by this " protest against looking down at pensioners" ? Any internal news from China (from local sources) regarding these protests and their implications for PLAAF Aircraft strength and production rates ?
How widespread are the protests ? Seems to me that fewer than 50 people are there in the group.
 
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