broadsword
Brigadier
How many are of the D variant?
China Flanker Thread II
- Thread starter sumdud
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lcloo
Captain
Last year in Zhuhai Airshow, we saw a pre-commissioned J16D with production serial number of 0109. This indicates at least 9 aircraft had been built under batch one.
However, 9 aircraft is unlikely the total number of a production batch. The real number could be from 12 to 24 for batch 1. We have not see any second production batch J16D yet, but IMO they should have batch 2 in production this year.
So by the end of December this year, my speculation is either 2 batches X 12 aircraft, or 2 batches X 24 aircarft, would have been handed over to PLAAF.
broadsword
Brigadier
24! How to mount an invasion!
lcloo
Captain
You only need 1 J16D to support a few dozens of fighters and bombers.
If we look to a USN airwing, it's 5 Growlers for the entire airwing of typically 42 fighter jets.
Based on this, it's a single J-16D supporting 8 fighter jets.
lcloo
Captain
Yes, that is the ratio of asset allocation for US navy airwing.
In a real operation in the most possible large conflict or war, we should expect joint operation of large number of air assets (like the recent Taiwan crisis) from 3 branches of PLA in a relatively small area like the West coast of Taiwan.
Allocation of air assets in an airwing does not mean that J16D will support only those from its own airwing. I would say, it comes down to the density of air assets within the range of J16D's electronic capability, thus there may be a dozen or 2 dozens of PLA air asset that can fly across the strait under the protection of J16D.
If I look at the PLAAF and USAF air operations, 40-50 aircraft does seem to be the maximum practical number of aircraft.
So 4-5 EW aircraft (like the J-16D or Growler) looks about right, because you want some redundancy and to cover enough area.
This photo right?
Shilao and Yankee talked about it several times between now and Fujian's launch. According to Yankee the common reasoning "J-15T's front landing gear is a lot more beefier to allow CATOBAR launch, hence it needs more room hence the double door" is not really correct. The actual reason is single door being a lot longer prevents some maintenance work from being doable on the right side of the aircraft. That's fine for land based aircraft where there's plenty of space in hangers to do work, but for cramped carrier decks it's an annoyance. By using double door each half is short enough that work can be done from either side.
Yankee reckon had Su-33 be still in production in Russia they would have also taken note this change and add it to their aircraft. He said these kind of "nice to have" changes only come out of extensive experience in using those gear which Russian Navy may lack. PLAN can look at F/A-18 and realize that there are probably good reasons why it has so and so design features, but you have to really use your own equivalent heavily and encounter those annoyances to then realize "oh so that's why".
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