China Flanker Thread II

Status
Not open for further replies.

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
The J-16 avionics fit seems to follow the template of the Growler more than anything Russian, so I'd also expect the wing tip pods to house ESM equipment. The primary job of its ECM system is not self-defence of the host platform but to provide cover for *other* aircraft, so cross-eye jamming isn't really relevant.

As for surface finish, there's not much in it between the J-16, Su-30SM and Su-35. With its relatively dark grey and most importantly rather matte paint, the J-16 can look really good while Russian Flankers with glossier finish and kept outside in terrible weather year in year out often seem worse. Images taken in the right lighting conditions reveal the Chinese airframes aren't actually any better though, take these J-16s for example:

View attachment 77395
View attachment 77394
View attachment 77396
View attachment 77397

That first one is in fact recent enough to have the new longer nozzles. Even in this batch of J-16D photos you can find indications, such as the left side of this one (a bit out of focus, but the rivet patterns are clear):
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


For comparison, a Kazakh Su-30SM with a paint job quite similar to the J-16 (though still glossier):

View attachment 77398

Same thing happens with recent MiG-29s, for example the Indian Navy airframes which look ok in their Western-style matte grey paint but are really as terrible as ever.


The dorsal antenna array on top of the pod is the ESM. It is easy to see how each strake can receive signals from all directions, and the signals from one strake is compared to how the signal is received on another strake, which will have differences from time of arrival, frequency and amplitude of arrival. ESM works by comparing the results of one horn or element to another.

Those small flat faces that are on each tip of the wingtip pod, they can be small phase arrays, for self defense jammers. Or they are RWRs for the aircraft's own self defense. Regardless of the two, those tips are for the plane's self defense. They are too small for long range detection, so how they work it would have to be within the close vicinity of the aircraft, close vicinity being a range similar to the terminal range of a missile seeker's own array, which are similar in size.
 

by78

General
More high resolution photos from Zhuhai. Some of these are higher quality versions of previously shared images, with their original full-resolution versions linked (very large files).

51502566982_a27639c769_o.jpg

51503365571_b7840d81fc_o.jpg
51504082184_e38d557ade_k.jpg
51502567082_ed5f0f4fdd_k.jpg


Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

51503365926_7f81c7b8b0_3k.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top