J-15 carrier-borne fighter thread

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
According to some folks who work in the Chinese defense industry, there won't be a combat variant of the twin-seater, just an electronic warfare version.
Well, the EW version is a combat aircraft.

Most EW aircraft or capable of carrying Anti-radiation missiles along with their EW packages/devices.

I expect this tye of aircraft would be capable of carrying aloft at least four pylons full of jamming, EW sensors/equipment...and be able to carry, in addition to that, on pylons on the fuselage, a coupld of anti-radiation (anti-radar) type missiles as well. This provides both a soft kill and a hard kill capability.

Although it will be entirely up to the PLAN, I would be surprosed if there were not a two-seat heaier attack capable version of the J-15 as well.

But. as with all things...time will tell.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
From Henri K blog

These new variants of the Chinese embedded fighter J-15

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Who would have thought that these old prototypes of Sukhoi, especially the T-10K-7, abandoned in Ukraine and bought by China in August 2004, would engender, outside of Russia, a new lineage in the already very large family tree of T -10, designed 40 years ago by Mikhail Simonov?

And yet, this pile of scrap T-10K-7 which is one of the prototypes of the Soviet Su-33 onboard hunter,
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, not only allowed the engineers of the 601 Shenyang design office to design the J-15 on board aircraft, but also many variants that far and near have virtually nothing to do with their distant Russian ancestors.

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The catapultable version of J-15, in flight since 2016.

Originally designed to operate on a stobar-type aircraft carrier, the most logical modification on the J-15 is the one that is capable of being catapulted from the future Chinese Navy CATOBAR aircraft carriers. . We had already mentioned it in September 2016 in the file "
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", before returning to him twice in "
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" and "
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".

Interpretation of the latest institutional publications suggests that the first catapultable J-15s have already joined the Xincheng-based Chinese naval air force regiment.

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The official model of the J-15S two-seater

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One of the prototype J-15 two-seater, registered 561

But the first major variant of J-15 came out much sooner, around 2012, and is derived from much more urgent operational requirements for the Chinese navy, namely a two-seater platform that should allow Chinese on-board forces to lead not only missions of air superiority or anti-ship single, but assume roles of training and projection lfément more varied.

Thus, the J-15S, a two-seater version of J-15, was designed and conducted its first test flight in late 2012. And unlike the two-seater version of Su-33 where pilots sit side-to-side -cost, the J-15S cockpit stays in tandem like most two-seater hunters nowadays.

The progress of this program remains very little known however, it seems that the Chinese navy has received no plane of this version to date, apart from the appearance of a plane in livery of the navy, and it appears It is very likely that a deck has not been done so far.

Recent spotting photos show that a new (?) Prototype, registered 561 and equipped with several camera markings, continues its test flights to Shenyang. This might suggest that testing is finally moving up a gear.

It should be noted that this latest J-15S prototype is equipped with two Chinese WS-10 engines, and the color of its radome indicates that it could host a new AESA antenna radar above, but this remains to be confirmed.

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Photo: 罪恶 大 天使
 
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Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
(cont)
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The new prototype of the electronic warfare version of J-15 made its first flight last week (Photo: 雪狼 啸 月)

And this two-seater version of J-15 would also have been used for Shenyang to develop a variant dedicated to electronic warfare, especially for escort scrambling missions during an airborne offensive, or to paralyze the anti-aircraft forces. opponents, just like the EA-18G Growler for the US Navy.

Thanks to the photos made public by several Chinese spotteurs, we will notice first that this new version of J-15 is easily distinguishable by a pod of a look very close to that of AN-ALQ-218 of EA-18G installed at the wingtip, but it differs slightly to that of the EW version of J-16.

According
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, the AN-ALQ-218 system consists of multiple sensors and transmitters distributed over the EA-18G cell, and is used to provide RWR, ESM and ELINT capabilities to mission and control systems. weapons on board. Examples of pods at the wing tip are antennas for short-base TDOA, a technique for geolocating targets and providing coordinates of the targets within the network, as well as those of the interferometer.

We can also cite other visual differences of this J-15 electronic war compared to the others - the use of Russian engines AL-31F as for all J-15 operational, the absence of the frontal OST to release of space and mass for other equipment, and the further use of composite materials to further lighten the empty weight of the aircraft.

It is not known for the moment whether this new variant of J-15 is compatible with Chinese steam catapults and EMALS, but the photos available to date do not show any device on the train of the aircraft that demonstrates this.

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On the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Liaoning, at the last exit of the Chinese carrier group, is a dozen J-15 fighter.

At this stage, when naval air forces of the Chinese navy are still in full construction with several aircraft carriers in anticipation, the program J-15, this direct descendant of a Russian prototype, will still have long days in front of him.

Henri K.

 

SinoSoldier

Colonel
PB19980515 critiqued Huitong's analysis of the aircraft and was generally in agreement. However he had a few points to add.
很专业,但歼15电子战型也有长基线干涉仪共形天线。。。。
a15.gif
就技术上来说 我们的系统硬件更先进 ,使用经验少一点。PL15改的双模式制导反辐射导弹性能更强 。

Summary (please correct if inaccurate):
  • J-15D has a long-baseline interferometer in its conformal antenna (one of them, at least)
  • The J-15D's systems are more advanced and less expensive than those aboard the EA-18G (although this claim is dubious and arguable at best)
  • J-15D will carry a dual-guided anti-radiation missile based on the PL-15. Earlier posts from this individual claim that the range is approximately 180 km.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Well, it is clear that the single seat, catapult verion of the J-15 will be the main aircraft and be capable of air superiority and attack.

It is clear now to me that there will be a two-seat version of the J-15 for EW, which will carry anti-radiation missiles when necessary.
I still believe we may see a two seat, more highly specialized attack version of the J-15 similar to the F/A-18F. They have already tested such an aircraft and have an official model of it...so it would come as no surprise to me.

Such an airwing is very capable all around, and also from a logistics capability and training capability very advantageous because they are all based on very much the same air frame and operation.

A new Type 002 carrier with 48 aircraft with 8 being EW, 16 being dual seat attack and 24 being single seat aircraft would be a very capable air wing indeed.
 

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
I'm pretty sure some kind of two seat J-15S for training pilots is needed. The PLAAF will get tired of having their trained pilots sucked out of them to serve on the carrier.
 
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