Probably for the same reason you would stick bright new red star roundel, of a type that's never been used before, on the tail.
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J-20... The New Generation Fighter III
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Probably for the same reason you would stick bright new red star roundel, of a type that's never been used before, on the tail.
Again, it is not paint. It is some kind of coating. Besides, they didn't paint/repaint the nozzle. We only saw the unpainted nozzle for a week or so, then the entire aircraft seemed to disappear.
The silver nozzle doesn't match the geometry of the WS-10, and if it is not just a coated AL-31F, then it is at the very least a brand new nozzle or perhaps an entirely new engine. Either way, given China's history of prototypes, they would have never flown the J-20 with a new engine or nozzle; that is too risky for CAC. Even the J-15 first flew with an AL-31F engine, some 4 years after the WS-10 was certified and nearly two years after it entered mass production and had been flying on the very-similar J-11B.
How can we dare say that the J-20, the crown jewel of CAC's aircraft family, the pride and joy of the Chinese airforce, that also...by the way...made its first flight the very same day Defense Sec Gates was in China...would fly with anything but a tried and proven engine? I mean, if they were not confident enough with the WS-10, an engine that had already been in mass production for years, to fly on the first J-15...why would they fly a new untested engine/nozzle on the J-20? This doesn't make sense at all.
Nor does building another prototype, also naming it "2001" and using it solely for taxi trials.
first j-15 prototype is much earlier than the maiden flight of J-20.. Can we say that by that time of J-20, they are already confident enough to use WS-10?
The fact, they dare to put WS-10 on a single engine on a J-10B more or less shown the level of confident for this engine. I will say, its even more dangerous than putting on a twin engine J-20.
Wall climbers say that there are no differences between the engine nozzles on 2002 and 2001.
Sad but expected. But at least they are testing out the avionics. I will expect WS-15 to debut no later than next year or fastest ,late this year.
airsuperiority
Captain
Agreed. I haven't lost my hope, since now it's probably better for the optimists like us to give Huizigeng's prediction a chance than to risk being disappointed again and again into thinking the next one is it and then turning out it's not. 2005 is a much more realistic timeline we can look forward to and something that gives us some breathing air.
This is also why I suddenly think/propose this speculation...that way we can make sense with what sort of "information" we've been given, on the current situation. Also once again, we should take note that that guy never said anything about we'll be seeing the WS-15 today or anything, so maybe we should've known.
I personally believed that TVC equipped versions won't show up until flight testing starts at Yanliang. WS-15 engines will be needed to provide the thrust necessary to compensate for thrust reduction caused by TVC nozzles. Perhaps they will skip using WS-10 all together and wait for WS-15.
The prototype for the Su-27, the T-10, had to resort to using turbojet engines during early flight testing.
Let's assume the engines are the same -- what kind of motivation would CAC have to coat Al-31s with this new substance? Vanity, to make the plane look better?
Personally, I do not have an opinion as to whether the engines are Al-31 or a new type. We have eyeball evidence for both and against imo, and also the backing of maya for Al-31 while the likes of huitong is still calling the silver nozzles a WS-10 variant.
Btw, the argument you use for why it would be prudent to use Al-31 for J-20's "maiden flight" (if we believe the highly public maiden flight was indeed the first, which I think many of us doubt), can be reversed to ask whether CAC and PLAAF would allow the highly publicized (relatively) first flight of their pride and joy to be undergone using foreign engines?
Besides, by early 2011 WS-10s have been in service with J-11B regiments for a few years already so they're not exactly a brand new development.
Google T-50KNS. It is a T-50 prototype equipped fully but not meant to fly, using it instead for ground tests.
My line of thought is that is what the normal Al-31 equipped J-20 was relegated to after taxi flights.
---------- Post added at 08:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:41 AM ----------
Round nozzles doesn't really have anything to do with what kind of flight tests a plane is performing, and the majority of the community believe WS-15 will be using round nozzles too.
Well we knew all along that we would see a J-20 prototype with WS-15's eventually, no reason to think specifically it will be WS-15 imo even with huzhigeng's backing (he's been wrong a few times now).
My guess was IR suppression.
airsuperiority
Captain
I kinda hope what we see will be eventually stealthy TVC, so it will have a more consistent stealth ratio. Either way, I agree that he's been wrong couple times. It's either hes making shit up, or changes occurred since the time he received news.
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