J-10 Thread IV

siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
minime said:
Hi, what's the general consensus on J-10C's RCS?
I think J-10C is better than Rafale due to DSI intake considering they are on par of material and coating & similar layout.
How accurate is this for a simulation?
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First of all, don't use Grim Reapers as a source. Doing so will cause @Patchwork_Chimera to start convulsing uncontrollably and I am not sure it is good for his health.

Second of all, even though we don't have precise numbers we luckily do have user testimonials:

siegecrossbow said:
Latest article from Second to None magazine leaks more interesting details on the J-10C.

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Some key takeaways:
1) The radar/avionics are very sophisticated and there is a high level of automated decision making that significantly reduces pilot workload, hence the "supersonic computer on wings" moniker.
2) The J-10CP is an omnirole aircraft equally capable in air to air and air to surface roles.
3) Engine is very good.
4) Has very low rcs for a fourth gen aircraft. Almost stealthy under some conditions. (reiterated, as with engine).
5) Maneuverability is excellent.
6) Sophisticated tech makes maintenance very easy.
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The observation by PAF is inline with what we know about the aircraft from PLA sources. During one of the flyby parades ground radar operators were told to give special care when tracking J-10C and J-20 (with luneburg lens) since their signal can be sporadic and hard to track. Here is how I think the J-10C's RCS compares with that of the Rafale:

1) The AESA radar is tilted at an angle instead of mounted parallel to the radome. Unless the Rafale uses bandpass radome the radar itself can be a large contributor to RCS.
2) Rafale does have S-ducts, but the J-10C has DSI inlet that blocks most of the fan blades frontally, so I don't think the advantage is that clear cut.
3) Both planes use spherical IRST, which adds anywhere between 0.05 to 0.1 m^2 to the RCS.
4) The Rafale incorporates sawtooth patterns into the aircraft skin, which is a boon to RCS reduction. J-10C does not, so advantage to Rafale there.

At the end of the day neither plane can be consider LO, much less VLO, during standard operations because the missiles/fuel tanks must be carried externally. There is also the issue of the fueling probe, which probably sticks out like a sore thumb at some angles. When clean however, I think that both can dip into LO territory.
 
TK3600

TK3600

Captain
Registered Member
Rast said:
Poor has many aspects to it. Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt are poor, yet these are African countries that have the capacity to maintain large effective modern militaries including modern air forces. North African countries for all their problems are infinitely more competent and capable than sub-Saharan African countries. Even for sub-Saharan Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo is poor and completely dysfunctional. A large portion of the wealth from extraction is either lost to internal corruption or given away to foreign mining companies.

More on the systemic dysfunction, the DRC is fighting a rebellion in the east against a militia equipped primarily with AK's and pick up trucks, and the DRC nearly lost a few years ago. Their only plan to fight the rebels recently was bribing the other competing groups of anti-government militias to fight for the DRC and to throw waves of poorly trained civilian militias with rusty AK's at the problem because the DRC's actual army is incapable of fighting a small regional rebellion by themselves. This plan has not worked, and now there is another group rebelling in the region. The DRC was reduced to begging their neighbors Angola, Burundi, and Kenya to send their troops to help fight the small rebel militia groups. That has not gone that well and Uganda and South Sudan will also now send troops. If you have been keeping count, it is now six allied sub-Saharan countries that have so far failed to stop small rebellions in the DRC.
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Sounds like they have a pretty competent army if they just let rebel take over.
 
Viperzero

Viperzero

New Member
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
First of all, don't use Grim Reapers as a source. Doing so will cause @Patchwork_Chimera to start convulsing uncontrollably and I am not sure it is good for his health.

Second of all, even though we don't have precise numbers we luckily do have user testimonials:



The observation by PAF is inline with what we know about the aircraft from PLA sources. During one of the flyby parades ground radar operators were told to give special care when tracking J-10C and J-20 (with luneburg lens) since their signal can be sporadic and hard to track. Here is how I think the J-10C's RCS compares with that of the Rafale:

1) The AESA radar is tilted at an angle instead of mounted parallel to the radome. Unless the Rafale uses bandpass radome the radar itself can be a large contributor to RCS.
2) Rafale does have S-ducts, but the J-10C has DSI inlet that blocks most of the fan blades frontally, so I don't think the advantage is that clear cut.
3) Both planes use spherical IRST, which adds anywhere between 0.05 to 0.1 m^2 to the RCS.
4) The Rafale incorporates sawtooth patterns into the aircraft skin, which is a boon to RCS reduction. J-10C does not, so advantage to Rafale there.

At the end of the day neither plane can be consider LO, much less VLO, during standard operations because the missiles/fuel tanks must be carried externally. There is also the issue of the fueling probe, which probably sticks out like a sore thumb at some angles. When clean however, I think that both can dip into LO territory.
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In fact, an AESA flew on Rafale in May 2003. According to Ramstein, a migration to AESA has been considered from the early days of the programme, and the RBE2 is designed so that an AESA front end can replace the current passive antenna and TWT. Power and cooling are adequate for the job. A programme called Demonstrateur de Radar a l'Antenne Active (DRAA) started in 2000, and the radar flew on a Falcon in late 2002 before flying in Rafale B301. "It was a difficult integration, taking two or three days," jokes Ramstein. The problem, however, is that DRAA relied on US-sourced high-power processing chips - which, after Korea and the Iraq war, no longer seemed like a good idea. A new AESA version of the RBE2, DRAAMA (DRAA modes avancées), using all-European technology, was launched in July 2004 and will be ready in 2007-08. "We have a firm commitment to AESA, which allows us to propose it for export," Ramstein says.
However, Dassault and Thales are not proposing to make the AESA the all-encompassing RF Cuisinart that Boeing (for example) envisages for the Super Hornet, with features such as passive detection, multi-beam operation and jamming. Nor does the team intend to exploit the AESA's wide bandwidth, which would mean a new radome. (This suggests that the current radome is a bandpass design, transparent at the RBE2 frequency but stealthily reflective at any other.) Rather, the approach is to minimise cost and risk by keeping the same modes as the RBE2, while harvesting what are seen as the most valuable advantages of the AESA. These include a 50 per cent-plus increase in detection range - a better match for Meteor - much better performance at the edges of the elevation and bearing envelope, better reliability through the elimination of single-point failures and lower through-life costs. With only 120 aircraft planned by 2012, the pace of the Rafale programme has been influenced more by budget considerations than by technology.
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While the RBE2 AESA does not add any additional modes of operation compared to the Rafale's earlier passively electronic scanned array (PESA) RBE2, the performance in each mode is significantly improved, Thales stated. A key feature of AESAs, a lack of moving parts, has reduced the mean time between failure on the RBE2 AESA by a factor of 10 compared to the RBE2 PESA, according to Thales. The RBE2 AESA will also continue to "deliver full performance if a certain number of TR [Transmitter Receiver] modules have degraded", the spokesperson added, although they did not specify what this number was. While some early components, including TR modules, are understood to have been sourced from abroad, Thales has now "produced a complete supply chain [for the RBE2 AESA], with no critical component coming from abroad".
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