Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36)
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
J-20 isn’t that thick. It just looks that way because of the high mounted wings. Move the wings into the center and it’ll look about the same as other 5th gens.
1. Lack of air data sensor/pitot tube previously found on #1 and #2.
2. A J-10S flying alongside, which wouldn't be needed for non-first flights.
3. Information/hints from credible grapewine source.
Power generation is related to engines, but it isn't necessarily bottlenecked by engine output.
Power generation for an aircraft is better described as dependent upon its genset, and the engine the genset is connected to. It is actually not uncommon for aircraft to have increased power available by improving/replacing their genset without necessarily upgrading the engine itself (the constraint being the genset rather than engine itself).
It is very eminently possible (even probable) that improvements for J-36's power generation would be obtained by upgrading their gensets rather than the engines they are inherently connected to.
Cooling is a reflection of the aircraft's built in cooling and thermal management system (which again, can be upgraded), but can be affected by the engine if divert air is needed to further cool things beyond the inbuilt cooling/thermal system, which can adversely affect engine output/longevity.
One of the issues faced by F-35, is that it is actually such a small airframe that they aren't able to cool things adequately in the volume they have to play with, which in turn requires bleed air from the engine which affects the engine's life itself.
So for J-36, if they designed the thing right knowing it would use WS-15s to begin with, and with the amount of volume the aircraft has, it probably should have ample space and flexibility to put in quite potent gensets and thermal management capabilities (it was probably a design driver tbh) -- and if they wanted to increase the power generation in future, upgrading and changing out the genset would probably be a bigger priority than replacing the WS-15s with VCEs.
VCEs themselves would likely be more beneficial from a fuel economy (range/endurance) perspective in terms of a more "diverse" mission profile where the aircraft is operating at different flight profiles.
3 protypes in the first year is way faster than the rate J-20s were built at a similar level of development. 6 J-20 protypes were built before serial production began, if the same goes for J-36 then serial production might happen as early as 2027!
I genuinely don't believe China is still that far behind that by 2030 they will not have VCE engines ready for j50, j36 and has to use ws15 it doesn't make sense and it would be embarrassing while f47 will have XA102 or xa103
That's irrelevant to my point, which is that regardless of which specific year they have VCEs ready, power generation limits will be more determined by aircraft gensets than engine output itself.
with how the ws-15 is progressing i'd be surprised if J-36 starts with ws-15 instead of ws-10
The fact that I can't even deny this is sad
Those are both limited by the engine cycle, yes you could just add more gensets, but you'll either lower the performance of the engine to unacceptable levels or increase fuel consumption without a core upgrade. Same with cooling, while there are other methods of cooling such as dedicated heat exchangers, the engine remains to be the largest heat dump and is also limited by the engine cycle.
I still don't think designing for WS-15 is a good idea, it's difficult to optimise systems for both future VCE and WS-15 at the same time considering the likely large difference in performance (US VCEs are expected to offer much more capacity for both compared to existing engines like F-135). If they'll ending up having to wait for VCEs like J-20 with WS-15 we might see another J-20/J-20A situation.