"China's Hidden Power" - Background Article on PLAAF

J-9 was the failed attempt to modify the J-8II.

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It wasen't J-8 derivate but completely different aircraft with quite different engine arragment (not to mention about the wings) The similarity of the fuselage between the J-8II and J-9 is mainly due the fact that the both draw great influence form the MiG-23. Overall if generalizing a bit, the J-9 would have been canard-tailess-delta version of the MiG-23. It was approx. similar size and was to be powered with the WS-6 (the first indegenious chinese turbofan which never entered serialproduction) which is somewhat similar size than the R-29/R-35 engines of MiG-23.

Also for JF-17, much of its description are based on pre-04 specs

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Apart the DSIs and some other modifications, the fourth prototype of FC-1 is still conceptually the same plane as the rest of the prototypes. And as the article didn't get too deep to the FC-1s design features I think it didn't give anyway errosly report on that plane.

Deino, I enjoyed reading your post. Hi, everybody! Just one quick observation. IMO, one of the major reasons that China had so much difficulty in developing its fighter industry was closely tied into the developmental model that it chose after 1954.

You see, it was in 1954 that Mao rejected the Soviet model of economic develpment that focused on Heavy Industry. Mao chose, instead, to focus Chinese economic developmen on Light Industry.

Put another way, the Chinese simply didn't have the industrial capability to do much more than they did until the mid-1990s. They had to buy the equipment, build the factories and learn a lot of related skills before they could start to build competitive fighter planes.

Peace,

"To Get Rich 'IN SERVICE TO THE PEOPLE' Is Good!"

John Fryer

FC-1 doesn't have FBW? I thought the thing was unstable in one of the axises.

john fryer said:

Deino, I enjoyed reading your post. Hi, everybody! Just one quick observation. IMO, one of the major reasons that China had so much difficulty in developing its fighter industry was closely tied into the developmental model that it chose after 1954.

You see, it was in 1954 that Mao rejected the Soviet model of economic develpment that focused on Heavy Industry. Mao chose, instead, to focus Chinese economic developmen on Light Industry.

Put another way, the Chinese simply didn't have the industrial capability to do much more than they did until the mid-1990s. They had to buy the equipment, build the factories and learn a lot of related skills before they could start to build competitive fighter planes.

Peace,

"To Get Rich 'IN SERVICE TO THE PEOPLE' Is Good!"

John Fryer

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Well, as far as I know, for all the last 2 decades, the main economic problem of Mao's era was his sole focus on heavy industrry, especially mil related industry. That's been critisize for all these years, Mr Deng XiaoPing's reform has been shifting investment from that area, that's why after Deng was in power in the late 70s, China's heavy/mil industry was put on back burner for 2 decades, untill 1995.

My view is that, starting from the early 1950s, China had spent too much on heavy/mil industry. Although within 20 years, China could assemble super sonic fighters (starting from unable to make a box of matches), the whole fundamentals were not there to sustain any furthur progress, all those fighter, submarine, tank, nuke projects were like built on a beach. That's why Mr Deng decided to stop those projects and build the ground stuff up first.

I think he's correct, but many, I say many many china's heavy/mil industry people HATE him.

We can see the progress over the last 15 years, however, china still has a huge fleet of J-6's and superceded J-7's as well as H-5's

I wonder how many of PLAA's aircraft's are 'Modern' battle worthy.

The second part on the J-10 is out .... :china:

And even as I had not enough time to study it in deep it looks very realistic esp. for the first time the dimensions, range and performance estimates, well wriiten with much historical background on the Sino-Israeli connections.

I miss a little bit more on the development background, the operational use and I don't agree with his estimate that the J-10 has a bigger Air-to-Ground potential (as it follows the Lavi) than in Air-to-Air !

But these are just my first impressions !

Cheers, Deino

Interesting article to read there but some things sound rather off. I've also done measurements based on relative size of pl8 missiles to the plane and i must say that length and wingspan speculated in this article seem a bit overblown, by about a meter in each direction.

Still, even the dimensions given in the article don't account for the internal volume offered. Comparing it to other fighters, it is just freakishhy disproportional, not to mention that IN ADDITION to that it cleams 8 tons of pure bomb load. It's very far fetched. Given the dimensions and internal volume, i would think actual internal fuel is a thousand liters less, more like 3500 liters.

Also, external fuel is stated at staggering 5600 kg. Using the same principle, sizing up images to pl8 missile, i got external volumes of 1400-1800 liters for big and 770-875 liters for small external tank. Even if we equate external to internal volume, not counting in the thickness of the tank itself, best case scenario is like 3570-4475 liters, which would, using average jp-8 fuel density of 0.8, mean over 2860-3580 kg.

Even using the high range figure in the same way they've been used in the article, j10 combat ranges drop down to more realistic 1730 for high and 890 km for low altitude flight. Those are with all the external tanks, meaning lower useful combat load. Still, i happen to think those are very, very decent ranges! Without the two big external tanks, ranges would drop to 1070 and 550 km, respectively.

Likewise, 8 ton bomb load also seems exaggerated. 6500 kg looks more like it to me. But hey, what do i know?

Aside of sizing issues, article suggets russian avionics while at the same time acknowledges chinese aams used on j10, like pl11 and pl12. Knowing russians didn't let chinese integrate their weapons on the sukhois, it seems unlikely they would do so for j10. Author seems misinformed on that topic, as chinese avionics seems more likely on j10.

Lastly, what was that about 300 al31 motors back in 2001? At the same time j11s were being built, those engines could've been for them. Though, knowing that j10 production continues and we still haven't seen TVC on them it does strongly suggest there has been a sizable initial order of al31 back in the days, possibly around 2001. Was there indeed a 300 piece order in 2001 and what plane seems more likely to be the recepient of those, j11 or j10?

There are so many errors in the article I can't begin to count.

The Chinese lack composite construction? Chinese companies have been supplying Airbus and Boeing with composite components for airliner construction for years now. Chinese SSMs uses composites too. BTW the Lavi does not make that much use of composite as the article suggests, as composites are mainly used for wing and control surfaces.

The yellow part of the 1003 do not indicate that electronic equipment are hidden inside. Rather, they are bare primer surfaces. That may indicate some structural issues where leaving these areas unpainted would make it easier to examine. It's likely these areas are composite, which require more ritual examination than metal for cracks.

Dimensions, payload, fuel estimations appear overstated.

The article is certainly not up to date with the radar. The use of Chinese only missiles are proof that no Russian radar is used but a Chinese one.

Fails to account for the TVC developments of the AL-31FN.

We have a good idea of the Chinese flight training hours. There was a pilot certificate for a J-8II pilot, and by computing his flight hours and number of years he was commissioned, the number came to 180 hours a year.

If China is so in fear of pilots defecting and decides to limit the fuel on the Su-27s, why do you have J-10s pictured with 3 big fuel tanks?

Lots of contradiction.

Planes with large tanks are usually in a ferry condition, meaning they're flying from the factory to their intended air base that is their final home, one way trip.

Here compute for yourself, how many flight hours this pilot has.

...hmm, picture cannot load due to forum limitations. Will load it in the CDF instead.

The flight hour estimation may well be different with J-8III and J-11...

Anyway I cannot comment on the dimension exagerations as I lack the proper tools to calculate it. However the first dimensions that had been lying around form J-10 stated that the aircraft was about 14.5 meters which is clearly incorrect. The 16.5 meters seems to be more close to reality.

About the other "errors" of the article, lot is explained by the timeframe, not all information where around when that article was beeing constructed. Also unlike us forumlingers, the publisher of that article cannot seddle for data that is at it's best "around-". The famous "disgussed in chinese language forums by some really knowlidgable guys" explanation is likely to be unheard and without a doupt unacceptable for authors of respectfull military journals.

But thats why there's internet forums so that we can "put these guys in line"

But regardless of the numerical errors, do you guys think that the article got it right when it stated that the J-10 is intended to serve as a groundattack plane as first priority? At least I remeber hearing just the opposite claims that the plane was a air superiority fighter for main task. Could the claim be resulted for some mistake in calculations that led to over-estimated playload and range data which then led to wrongly diagnosed primary role??