Is PL-16 expected to have smaller diameter/lighter warhead than 15 or not?
Chinese air to air missiles
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
How can you fit six in the main bay if it doesn’t?
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China will not be using folded fin PL-15s.
The point is the PL-16 can have a body that is the same length and diameter as the PL-15 but without the mid section wings, and will still be able to fit 6. The PL-16 body does not need to be smaller/lighter.
Just because you can get a fit doesn’t mean that it is optimal. If you can reduce the mass of the missile you can leave more space for internal fuel/other munition during a mission. Maybe you can get two PL-15 folded fin sized missiles to fit with four SDBs in the bay but four PL-16s.
J20 bay may be long enough so three staggered 4m long, 0.2 m wide bodies can fit - as long as the mid body fins aren't there. With just the rear fins, like on pl17 or aim260, you can get away with staggering the middle missile by just the chord length of the fin. Possibly by just 25 cm or so.
For IWBs, fitting the biggest weapon you can physically fit is in fact optimal. No, you cannot leave more space for fuel by cutting down on AAM size, which is a tiny amount of space anyway. And there is no way to fit 4*SDB and 2*PL-16 in a single bay (2 bays per aircraft) unless the PL-16 is a toothpick.
J-35E still requires the folding-wing PL-15E, and it's unclear whether the J-35A will be directly equipped with the PL-16. In other words, will the Navy really skip the PL-15? We still not sure
We can only be sure that no matter which model of J-20 or J-35, 6 air-to-air missiles with a range of 200+km are the standard.
Yankee said they are stopping production for non-export PL-15.