Chinese Engine Development

rhino123 said:

My take on this issue. Currently, lets face it, China's engines are one of the shortfall of the Chinese aerospace industry, they can build top of the line radar, avionic suits and airframe... but engine still lagged behind as compared to some of the more well known manufacturers and country. However, to say that the Chinese is inferior or will be behind is not really the case. The Chinese had the resources nowadays, unlike 20 years ago and currently they really are not that hot or deep in trouble that they needed to rush time to come up with something incredible. Do note that the Chinese only started this game pretty late as compared to other more established industry players, but they are getting there.

Now, if they could partner with someone (really sincere on the joint development) of course it will be for the best, as it will definitely speed up the R&D processes... but by partnering, we don't mean going into a partnership whereby the Chinese dump money to let the other party (for example, Russia) do their research and present them with a final product... by partnering, I mean, joint development whereby key and important technical aspect is shared between both parties so that the Chinese can manufactured those products themselves.

If without this partnership... well... it is not the end of the world, the Chinese's currently fleet of aircraft can still fly without that much of incident. They still have the time to develope engines and they have the resources (in term of talents, monies, materials, etc) so it is no biggie.

And... by the way... do you really need the best engines around? I always have the impression that as long as the engines is suitable, would not cause a lost of power, lasting and reliable, and thats enough. Do you really need one with the longest lifespan, greatest thrust, etc to compete in the world market?

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The Americans knows engine is one key weakness of Chinese aviation industry, so they will not be helping Chinese in any way shape or form, so forget about partnering with Americans (Pratt & Whitney or General Electric). The Russians know this too, and this is the only reason why Chinese have to keep buying the AL-31F from them so there is no reason for them to help Chinese since they are still milking this cash cow for as long as they can..so no reason that Saturn/Lyulka, Klimov, or Ivchenko will want to partner with Chinese. That leaves with only the Europeans who are "more neutral" these days towards China, which means maybe SNECMA is a possibility for partnership.

Ultra said:

The Americans knows engine is one key weakness of Chinese aviation industry, so they will not be helping Chinese in any way shape or form, so forget about partnering with Americans (Pratt & Whitney or General Electric). The Russians know this too, and this is the only reason why Chinese have to keep buying the AL-31F from them so there is no reason for them to help Chinese since they are still milking this cash cow for as long as they can..so no reason that Saturn/Lyulka, Klimov, or Ivchenko will want to partner with Chinese. That leaves with only the Europeans who are "more neutral" these days towards China, which means maybe SNECMA is a possibility for partnership.

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If I'm not mistaken Ivchenko and Motor Sich (which produces the engines designed by Ivchenko) are in the "western" part of ukraine but a lot of their customers are russian.
A deal to transfer a lot of knowledge to a chinese company might be one of their options to survive these difficult times, but I don't know if their know-how matches the chinese needs.

Ultra said:

The Americans knows engine is one key weakness of Chinese aviation industry, so they will not be helping Chinese in any way shape or form, so forget about partnering with Americans (Pratt & Whitney or General Electric). The Russians know this too, and this is the only reason why Chinese have to keep buying the AL-31F from them so there is no reason for them to help Chinese since they are still milking this cash cow for as long as they can..so no reason that Saturn/Lyulka, Klimov, or Ivchenko will want to partner with Chinese. That leaves with only the Europeans who are "more neutral" these days towards China, which means maybe SNECMA is a possibility for partnership.

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€U cant help either, embargo after Tianamen...

schenkus said:

If I'm not mistaken Ivchenko and Motor Sich (which produces the engines designed by Ivchenko) are in the "western" part of ukraine but a lot of their customers are russian.
A deal to transfer a lot of knowledge to a chinese company might be one of their options to survive these difficult times, but I don't know if their know-how matches the chinese needs.

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Ukraine, its an option i forgot about, already Antonnov has some JV with China..
ant this Civil war thing, will make them more willing to work with anyone with cash...

As i said the other BRICS are also a intresting option (India aside)...

b787 said:

By the time China catches with current western technology, the west will simply have moved on to a higher level and more sophisticated technology,

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Well, according to this logic, nobody ever catches up with anybody much less surpassing them.

b787 said:

Militarily speaking the west has engines like the EJ-200 and M88 that have no Chinese equivalent or engines like F-119 and F-135 which are at least two decades ahead of China

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As far as I know, you can't power a Flanker with EJ-200 or M88 like you can with WS-10A. From what I know, aside from the newer engines from Russia and the US, WS-10A has no rival in power. 2 decades? How is that measured? By the time the original manufacturers took to develop the engine with the technology of the time? Cus those 2 decades don't translate to 2 decades when developing a similar product under more modern times with the possibility of aid from espionage.

b787 said:

Just to mentions the WS-10 is not competitive with the latest Al-31s variants and 117 engines, much less competitive with the F119 not even competitive with the F-100-PW-129

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From what I understand, WS-10A's thrust is more than competitive with any F-100 series and at least comparable to newer AL-31 variants. As for reliability, what can we say? They power all of China's J-11Bs and how many of them have crashed? How many flankers using AL-31 have crashed?

China's engines are not where we want them to be, but they are in a relatively good place since WS-10A came about powering the Flanker fleet so successfully. From that breakthrough, we are seeing very fast-paced progress and development on several other engine projects including those for large jets. It would be very nice to have cooperation from Russia, yes, but the prospect of going it alone doesn't seem nearly as dim now as it did 15 years ago.

In my opinion, all the arguments are moot.
Firstly, engine technology is something nobody is going to really share with anyone else. Therefor, Saying need partnership is meaningless.
Secondly, the competition in this field is a infinite Marathon, saying that someone will hold the lead forever, or others will never be able to catch up is logically absurd. Carl Lewis is the absolut champion within 100 meters track, one of the top runners in 200 meters track. But he is definitely going to loose in a full Marathon.
My conclusion is "no need to waste your time to discuss this subject" unless the discussion entertains you or fullfills some desire.

Well, making any predictions over two decades is silly at best.

Just go back to 1995 again and think how many people were correct in predicting the future of 2015.

janjak desalin said:

Don't tell that to Usain Bolt!

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Thanks for making a supporting point. Now Jamaica is the leading champion in that competetion. Giving enough time and effert, everything is possible and everyone is possible to be No.1.

manqiangrexue said:

China's engines are not where we want them to be, but they are in a relatively good place since WS-10A came about powering the Flanker fleet so successfully. From that breakthrough, we are seeing very fast-paced progress and development on several other engine projects including those for large jets. It would be very nice to have cooperation from Russia, yes, but the prospect of going it alone doesn't seem nearly as dim now as it did 15 years ago.

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Engines are like aircraft, they go by generations, the current WS-10 is one generation behind what the US or Russia have, one generation, see, this is important the Su-27/J-11 today are old aircraft, specially in the case of China are even older.

The generations go by size and thrust to weight ratio, the Me-262 had really weak engines if i am not wrong 900 kg/thrust, this went up in the MiG-21 to 7000 kg/thrust and this later came up to 13000 kg/thrust in the Al-31/F-100.

Russia has engines of 22000kg in the Tu-22M and 15000kg in the MiG-31 but these are large so they are not 5th generation but 4th generation specially due to fuel consumption, same is B-1B.


Same is in airliners, the engines powering Y-20 are 1970s updated to be used in 2015, the PD-14 is a new engine, for the same reasons military ones are 4th or 5th generation.

The Trent Series are new engines just consider a B-707 had 4 engines today a B-787 has two, the B-777 has two but DC-10 had three.
so engines demand higher reliability, higher thrust, more economy and smaller size, that is what the F-119 has over the F-100 or Al-31.

WS-10 is not at the same Level the newest Al-31s or 117s series, also these engines are old, type 30 promises to power Russia to have a smaller, lighter, more economic and reliable engine that the highly revamped 117 series.

To see, consider a Su-35 will supercruise and a Eurofighter will do the same, no J-10 or J-11 can do that.

And the F-22 can supercruise much better than both the Su-35 and Eurofighter and with type 30 PAKFA is supposedly to be at levels of F-22 of higher.

The Il-476 has new engines that simply surpass what the Y-20 has, a better engine with better wings make the Il-476 competitive with Y-20 specially if you pack it with new avionics, yes Il-476 looks old and Y-20, but the reality is the Y-20 has older technology in engines and is a generation behind