Low production rate of China heavy weight carrier fighters will greatly affect China. It may sensible to convert lower cost and higher production rated single engined fighters into carrier fighters like folded wing j10c or jf17 block 3 in large volume to filled up China soon greatly expanded carriers and 076. It's kind of sad to see shandong and Liaoning running around with less than 20 fighters onboard.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Actually there are more than 20 There are 24 with 3 accident one fatal and total wreck the other 2 can be salvaged. Then there are 8 prototype that are still in good condition and has been repainted in PLAN marking . They are now gearing for batch 3 production that meant to be the real air wing fighter. The first 2 batches are meant for training and to train carrier capable pilot.
But hardware is the the easy part . Getting enough carrier pilot is more difficult and time consuming. As is now China only has 40-50 carrier capable pilot not enough to man 2 squadron of carrier wing. So why the hurry? Assuming 24 + 6 spare pilot each squadron need 30 pilot.
Beside the CV 17 is not even IOC she is now in shake down cruise period perfecting the skill of her crew and debugging the carrier system.
China has to built the carrier skill and training from the ground up with no one assisting it It is very difficult task. I haven't seen her operating in stormy weather and at night Or rush operation.
Don't forget that China carrier operation is still young only 8 years old
Other than the pilot issue the other thing with j15 is that it probably not a good superiority fighter. Read the story about China brought j11 to Thailand for exercise and suffered repeatedly defeat against Thailand's Gripen. The situation was rectified when China brought in j10 to match against Gripen. So I think a navalized j10c is a better superiority fighter than j15 and at a lower cost.
J15 role is specialized EW or surface attack plane.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Well I don't think so China use the older version of J11 and not J11B So I won't put too much weight in the exercise between China and Thailand
It is not repeated defeat J11 lost against Gripen in Beyond visual range engagement due to better gripen radar But J11 win in dog fight or close engagement
The J-11 used supposedly had outdated avionics. It lost at BVR but won at dog fighting. The new batch of J-15 is supposedly to have a newer set of avionics including AESA radar.
The structure of a plane has to be redesign if you want to launch or land it on a carrier. No point spending more money trying to navalized another 3rd gen aircraft. Money should be spent on the J-31/35 and enhancing the J-15.
The structure of a plane has to be redesign if you want to launch or land it on a carrier. No point spending more money trying to navalized another 3rd gen aircraft. Money should be spent on the J-31/35 and enhancing the J-15.
If production capability of j10C versus j15 is 2:1 or 3:1 I would still take j10C. There is no replacement for hard numbers.
Still worthwhile to invest in navalized third gen fighters because you can't use stealth fighters all the time. Even for future carriers third gen fighters still needed.
I don't understand why you think China needs that many j-15s. There are about 20 for the 1st carrier and they are building another 20 of a newer revision for the 2nd carrier for 2020. There is no point of pumping out a ton of aircraft without validating the aircraft for defects and learning of other needed requirements. The US airforce is stuck with hundreds of gimped f-35, because they produce 100s of them before final aircraft validation. Some can never be upgraded and some will need 30 million dollar in enhancements. Unless they are able to launch j-15 off some land-based catapult system to test aircraft stress, they shouldn't be building too many of those versions either.
There are lots of F18 out here. Potentially there could be over 300 of F18 gathered at one time at SCS. Probably no way to match that 300, but how about match half of that which is 150. Right now China has about 24 j15s. World wide US has close to 1000 F18s. Think about it for a second...
I don't think China can produce nearly enough j15 therefore cheaper and faster produced navalized planes needed.
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Intrepid
Major
I think, this 40 to 50 pilots are intended as experienced squadron leaders or instructors. China has yet no "normal" pilots because China has no CATOBAR carrier in service.