Great. How many J-16 batches between the J-15 ones? That would give us the production rate if the J-15's were to get a high priority which it seems they do not yet have. And might never have if the J-16's are even more important.
J-15 carrier-borne fighter thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
What is the highest aircraft number we have seen to date now?
superdog
Junior Member
Yet another episode of military aviation interview with senior test pilot Xu Yongling. He mentioned quite a few things regarding China's carrier aviation program.
He also wrote an article about the recent crash. Here's a brief translation of what's in that article:
He talked about his theory of 5 different modes of flying (for the pilot): body sensing, status tracking, data (instrument) tracking, target tracking, and trajectory tracking. His research found that pilots exhibit very different control inputs during these different modes of tracking.
Target tracking (following a target) and trajectory tracking (e.g. carrier landing) are among the most complex modes of piloting. The control inputs are high frequency and resembles high-order function curves. These advanced flying has become a "curse" because accident rates are far higher during these modes than in other modes of flying.
He said China was quite successful in avoiding the "advanced flying curse" as there were zero accidents so far from high risk missions such as early trials in aerial refueling and carrier landing. All 5 years and 8 months of J-10 test flight remained accident-free. Near 10 years of land-simulated and actual carrier landings also remained accident free. This was unprecedented in world aviation history. He claims that this excellent safety record was not achieved by being conservative, it was achieved by carefully learning from other country's experiences and by their meticulous test-flight management.
However, they were unable to avoid the "7000 hour curse". Unlike the "advanced flying curse", "7000 hour curse" is not related to pilot error or complexity of the flying task, but simply a statistical phenomena due to the higher risk of new technologies. The risk is also higher for a period of time when the aircraft is hand over to regular pilots from test pilots, because regular pilots in general are not as well trained to handle surprise situations.
I'll add translation of the interview later.
He also wrote an article about the recent crash. Here's a brief translation of what's in that article:
He talked about his theory of 5 different modes of flying (for the pilot): body sensing, status tracking, data (instrument) tracking, target tracking, and trajectory tracking. His research found that pilots exhibit very different control inputs during these different modes of tracking.
Target tracking (following a target) and trajectory tracking (e.g. carrier landing) are among the most complex modes of piloting. The control inputs are high frequency and resembles high-order function curves. These advanced flying has become a "curse" because accident rates are far higher during these modes than in other modes of flying.
He said China was quite successful in avoiding the "advanced flying curse" as there were zero accidents so far from high risk missions such as early trials in aerial refueling and carrier landing. All 5 years and 8 months of J-10 test flight remained accident-free. Near 10 years of land-simulated and actual carrier landings also remained accident free. This was unprecedented in world aviation history. He claims that this excellent safety record was not achieved by being conservative, it was achieved by carefully learning from other country's experiences and by their meticulous test-flight management.
However, they were unable to avoid the "7000 hour curse". Unlike the "advanced flying curse", "7000 hour curse" is not related to pilot error or complexity of the flying task, but simply a statistical phenomena due to the higher risk of new technologies. The risk is also higher for a period of time when the aircraft is hand over to regular pilots from test pilots, because regular pilots in general are not as well trained to handle surprise situations.
I'll add translation of the interview later.
superdog
Junior Member
Some interesting stuff from the interview:
Pilot Dai MingMeng who first landed J-15 on TV was Xu's apprentice. Dai's team has trained on carrier landing for 5+ years, with more than 500 flights for just land simulation (each flight could have multiple touch-downs, like 5-6 times), and more than 50 flights flying around the carrier getting familiar with landing routin, before they reached the carrier landing skill level that was shown by CCTV in 2012.
He said the Liaoning landing shown on CCTV was exemplary, and attributed it to China's focus on training its pilots on data (instrument) tracking, which is easy to transition into trajectory tracking during carrier landing. If a pilot relies mainly on body sensing, they will have more difficulty in these tasks. He mentioned that historically foreign air force experienced many accidents in aerial refueling, and during WWII there were 10% fatality rate in training because back in the days they rely mainly on body sensing. Pilots relying on body sensing tend to make bigger control inputs, but tasks like carrier landing require more precise, small oscillating inputs.
However, during a WVR dogfight body sensing will become very important, pilots with good body sensing will have an advantage in getting 6'o clock.
He said carrier based aircraft is very different from land based ones and require different piloting skills. He estimate that if he is asked to become a carrier based pilot he only has 50% chance of passing the training.
He also talked about how he selected the three initial pilots for Liaoning. He said he can just talk to people and see if they're suitable to be a test-pilot. One thing he'll look is their ability in decision making, there are people that could be very smart but will never be a good test pilot, because they're not an authoritative decision maker. He said he couldn't describe in detail how exactly he make the judgement but he was usually quite accurate in his predictions. Pilot Li Gang, when he just started to fly J-10 in 2003, Xu assigned him to do a very difficult task (risk category 1) on his second flight. It baffled others but Xu said he knew Li will become a top pilot and he will need these challenges. Now Li Gang is the chief test pilot of J-20.
He said that all great projects require great strategists. China's carrier program has been successful because during the early planning we had General , and during technical development we had (now retired) Vice-Admiral Zhang (he didn't say the name, possibly referring to ). These people play an irreplaceable role in China's carrier program because they made those "big moves" that other people couldn't.
About the J-15 accident, he again mentioned the "7000 hour curse", he said this is unavoidable. Even if it doesn't happen at 7000 hours, it could happen twice at 14000 hours. New technology does not bear the same risk level as mature technology, so while the overall accident rate of PLAAF could be 1/100000, on new platforms it could be 1/10000 or higher. He didn't think the pilot made any wrong decision, but sometimes you just can't save it even if you did nothing wrong. He said people's emotions are understandable but they should not be too quick to blame the team because an accident happened. To expect zero accident is simply unrealistic.
He believe that these accidents should be reported to the public because it is a recognition to the pilot who sacrificed his life for the country, it is a recognition that the pilot and his family deserves. Besides, PLA is the People's Army so people should have the right to know. Of course technical details could be withheld because carrier system develop is still under information protection, but the fact that an accident happened should be disclosed.
A question was asked about having a good neck for carrier pilots. Xu mentioned that US standard for forward deceleration G is less than -4.2, which is from around 240kmph to 0 over a distance of <100m. He said the deceleration G on Liaoning is even greater because the ship is smaller (he can't say the exact number though). So Liaoning's pilots need an even stronger neck than US pilots, and they need specific training for that. There are bruising on the shoulders and slight sprain on the neck every time a landing happens, they will have to be fit enough to recover on the second day. PLAN limit a pilot to land no more than 3 times a day on the carrier, because of psychological limits and also because of that strain on their body.
Pilot Dai MingMeng who first landed J-15 on TV was Xu's apprentice. Dai's team has trained on carrier landing for 5+ years, with more than 500 flights for just land simulation (each flight could have multiple touch-downs, like 5-6 times), and more than 50 flights flying around the carrier getting familiar with landing routin, before they reached the carrier landing skill level that was shown by CCTV in 2012.
He said the Liaoning landing shown on CCTV was exemplary, and attributed it to China's focus on training its pilots on data (instrument) tracking, which is easy to transition into trajectory tracking during carrier landing. If a pilot relies mainly on body sensing, they will have more difficulty in these tasks. He mentioned that historically foreign air force experienced many accidents in aerial refueling, and during WWII there were 10% fatality rate in training because back in the days they rely mainly on body sensing. Pilots relying on body sensing tend to make bigger control inputs, but tasks like carrier landing require more precise, small oscillating inputs.
However, during a WVR dogfight body sensing will become very important, pilots with good body sensing will have an advantage in getting 6'o clock.
He said carrier based aircraft is very different from land based ones and require different piloting skills. He estimate that if he is asked to become a carrier based pilot he only has 50% chance of passing the training.
He also talked about how he selected the three initial pilots for Liaoning. He said he can just talk to people and see if they're suitable to be a test-pilot. One thing he'll look is their ability in decision making, there are people that could be very smart but will never be a good test pilot, because they're not an authoritative decision maker. He said he couldn't describe in detail how exactly he make the judgement but he was usually quite accurate in his predictions. Pilot Li Gang, when he just started to fly J-10 in 2003, Xu assigned him to do a very difficult task (risk category 1) on his second flight. It baffled others but Xu said he knew Li will become a top pilot and he will need these challenges. Now Li Gang is the chief test pilot of J-20.
He said that all great projects require great strategists. China's carrier program has been successful because during the early planning we had General , and during technical development we had (now retired) Vice-Admiral Zhang (he didn't say the name, possibly referring to ). These people play an irreplaceable role in China's carrier program because they made those "big moves" that other people couldn't.
About the J-15 accident, he again mentioned the "7000 hour curse", he said this is unavoidable. Even if it doesn't happen at 7000 hours, it could happen twice at 14000 hours. New technology does not bear the same risk level as mature technology, so while the overall accident rate of PLAAF could be 1/100000, on new platforms it could be 1/10000 or higher. He didn't think the pilot made any wrong decision, but sometimes you just can't save it even if you did nothing wrong. He said people's emotions are understandable but they should not be too quick to blame the team because an accident happened. To expect zero accident is simply unrealistic.
He believe that these accidents should be reported to the public because it is a recognition to the pilot who sacrificed his life for the country, it is a recognition that the pilot and his family deserves. Besides, PLA is the People's Army so people should have the right to know. Of course technical details could be withheld because carrier system develop is still under information protection, but the fact that an accident happened should be disclosed.
A question was asked about having a good neck for carrier pilots. Xu mentioned that US standard for forward deceleration G is less than -4.2, which is from around 240kmph to 0 over a distance of <100m. He said the deceleration G on Liaoning is even greater because the ship is smaller (he can't say the exact number though). So Liaoning's pilots need an even stronger neck than US pilots, and they need specific training for that. There are bruising on the shoulders and slight sprain on the neck every time a landing happens, they will have to be fit enough to recover on the second day. PLAN limit a pilot to land no more than 3 times a day on the carrier, because of psychological limits and also because of that strain on their body.
Intrepid
Major
Exact as I had expected it, they used the carrier on its shake down cruise as target for approaches.
at this point, I don't think we should get too concerned about production rate of J-15s. They look to produce J-15s as they are needed. So as the air wing expands, they produce more. I would assume by the end of the second batch, they will have around 28 J-15s (since the first one had 14) and that would be it for CV-16. Of course, they will not necessarily all be serving on the AC at the same time.
superdog
Junior Member
Hmm......I already did?
Mr. Xu will appear in at least one more episode though, they're going to talk about aerial refueling.