I'm talking about the aircraft used for reference during development process. It is not Su-30 as many assumed.
China Flanker Thread III (land based, exclude J-15)
- Thread starter Blitzo
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I'm talking about the aircraft used for reference during development process. It is not Su-30 as many assumed.
imo su27sk and J-11A will likely go before su-30mkk, those are less capable air-to-air wise (some are upgraded to fire R-77 but others are not, hense a relative disadvantage when comparing to su-30mkk) and also less capable in air-to-surface roles.
well, in my understanding, su-30mkk and su-27 doesn’t have significant differences in structure.
Su-30mkk is more like a slightly mature version of su-27ub with a little bit more improvement on flight control and the complete ability to conduct ground attack beyond just rocket pods…
it was until su-30mki, Russian started to trail new technologies, and finally matured at su-35
so reference to su-27ub shouldn’t be much different to su-30mkk
I’m not so sure, su27ub, su30mki and su30sm are products of the Irkutsk factory whereas the su30mkk, mk2, su35 and su37 are from KNAAPO (I may be very wrong but I think Yankeesama mentioned in one of their livestreams that su30mkk and su37 have some common roots, take a pinch of salt with this tho since its from memory), I would consider flankers from the two factories at least somewhat distinct in their design iterations and modification to the base structure.
Well ... based on the Chinese Flanker-linage yes, but structurally it is more a Su-30MKK-alike than a Su-27UBK, on what the J-11BS is based since it has the same taller tails, the stronger landing gears, the IFR-probe and the different wing with additional hardpoints. So IMO more a MKK than a J-11BS
I think the relationship of flanker program between two factories are much more complicated then simply separate, they program are continuous shared and moved between these two factories. For example, the twin seat was first developed by one factory, but when other factory started the twin seater design, they were able to get the whole su-27ub drawing from another factory… so I honestly don’t there there was much a different until su-30mki in terms of structure
The whole relationship between both aviation plants, KnAAPO and Irkutsk is kinda messed up. As is the relationship between the original Al-31 engine designer Saturn and the factory at Salyut who ended up designing the variants of it for the J-10 and J-20. The engine factory for example kept making changes to the engine without communicating them back to the original Al-31 engine designer at Saturn and that kinda rubbed them off the wrong way. Especially when the factory made so many changes they were creeping on the specs of the Al-41 engine Saturn was supposed to be developing.
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This is correct at least until 1991, after that from my understanding the factories had significantly less cooperation especially in the export variety developments