Plaaf fighter cocpits

Mao23 said:

don't u think the su-27 looks a bit out of date. the stuff looks preety dam old. it looks bad compared to the others.

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well, its not actually as bad as it looks. the copits just a little dirtier and rustier than the other cocpits, making ity appear more obsolete. but ONE MFD!!!??? and this was a 80s design. i heard at least some j-11 have been uped to A standard, with better avionics such as an additional mfd.

ive pretty much lost faith in the russian aerospace industry to produce quality planes for china. if china wants to move ahead, it must make its own developments on its existing platforms. i cant wait to see the j-11b cockpit.

Here's a good site with lots of Cockpit instrument panel photos:


The Russians made so many variants of Su-27 (and MiG-29), it's very difficult to keep track. The photos that we see posted to the web are often old export models or prototypes and does not necessarily reflect service units.

If you compare the cockpit of a Su-27S to the Su-27SM, it's a pretty big upgrade:


Russian aircraft cockpits are not known to be pretty, automated, or ergonomic. Traditionally a Russian pilot has to flip or press far more number of switches to lock and fire a missile, than US pilot. However recently Russians have started incorporating French technology and adopting some Western designs, so things are changing.

Though the Su-27s have outdated cockpits, I'm very sure that the J-11s have more advanced cockpits

This is the only pic I could find.

i guess thats a j-11A cockpit. it looks pretty decent too, althgough it still has only one mfd. but it looks pretty nice. i think chinese avionic companies like louyang are looking into japanese tech obtained from the civilian market to incorperate into more advanced mfds.

MIGleader said:

i guess thats a j-11A cockpit. it looks pretty decent too, althgough it still has only one mfd. but it looks pretty nice. i think chinese avionic companies like louyang are looking into japanese tech obtained from the civilian market to incorperate into more advanced mfds.

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Are you referring to the J-11 cockpit I posted? Doesn't it have two MFDs?

The standard Su-27 cockpit only has one MFD. Not really an MFD but a CRT for radar display. The J-11A cockpit replaces the CRT with an LCD display [note: it's not really an MFD because it doesn't have buttons around the sides], then adds an MFD on top of that.

If you look through pictures of the windshield canopies of J-11s and even some Su-27UBKs, you will notice the protruding MFD often appears in many pictures, but is absent in generic Su-27s and even in Su-30s.

I believe this MFD is used to display additional functions in the radar that was also added through a module and not present in the original N001 radar system. I believe it has something to do with Track While Scan and two target engagement mode using R-77s.

crobato said:

The standard Su-27 cockpit only has one MFD. Not really an MFD but a CRT for radar display. The J-11A cockpit replaces the CRT with an LCD display [note: it's not really an MFD because it doesn't have buttons around the sides], then adds an MFD on top of that.

If you look through pictures of the windshield canopies of J-11s and even some Su-27UBKs, you will notice the protruding MFD often appears in many pictures, but is absent in generic Su-27s and even in Su-30s.

I believe this MFD is used to display additional functions in the radar that was also added through a module and not present in the original N001 radar system. I believe it has something to do with Track While Scan and two target engagement mode using R-77s.

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Do you know what kind of radar they put on J-11A or the ubk? I know plaaf wasn't pleased at all with the performance of flanker avionics in general, but what kind of upgrade did they do before J-11B?

tphuang said:

Do you know what kind of radar they put on J-11A or the ubk? I know plaaf wasn't pleased at all with the performance of flanker avionics in general, but what kind of upgrade did they do before J-11B?

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i dont know much about the radar, but thay modified some j-11s to fire the r-77 and kh-31. thats why they modified the radar and avionics. the quality of the plaens were also an improvement over early j-11s.

I have no doubt in my mind that PLA is trying to upgrade all the early flankers to be able to fire PL-12 and all the domestic AAMs eventually. However, the question that I have is how far plaaf has actually upgraded the flankers. The early non-BVR flankers really don't have that much value anymore. Any insights, Crobato?

The upgrades are basically additional modules and computers that are tacked on to the existing radar and its computer bus. Essentially they are the same components used on the MKK to fire the R-77 and probably the Kh-31P/A. This upgrade is not the complete SKM upgrade however, which also includes the TV and laser targeting ground attack system for the MKK. Thus the J-11As could fire the R-77, but not do precision ground attacks like the MKK does.

Janes reported (twice) that at least 100 of these upgrade kits were ordered and delivered since 2001, so it's very likely every J-11 out there has been upgraded and that some of the Russian made Su-27s may have been done so.

Furthermore, KANWA in the year 2000 reported that the Su-27UBKs being received at that time, which was the third and last batch that originally went to the 33rd Division, had upgrades to fire the R-77 missile. This means these planes had the upgrades built in the factory.