Is it too late now to refit J-10 and FC-1 with license produced Euro Engines?

Lion

Senior Member
IMO the PAF should take it what it is ... a vast improvement over the venerable types it should replace esp. the A-5C, but nothing more.

Deino

Correct. Paying peanuts and expect so much. Sounds too ridiculous. :mad:
 

taimikhan

New Member
Sorry if You misunderstood my post; I meant how long would it take to certify the JF-17 with a new engine, esp. when a new European one (which is out of question like tphuang described) would require a mayor redesign for the aft fuselage ?

It wasn't meant to start a new flame war ... esp. since I know the JF-17 is just reaching operational service.

IMO the PAF should take it what it is ... a vast improvement over the venerable types it should replace esp. the A-5C, but nothing more.

Deino

Sir, i myself am not in favor of an engine change, as we can keep getting spare parts easily through China or from Russia, compared to Western ones. But PAF may not like its whole fleet with only one engine, that also Russian one due to the obvious reasons, but yeah if a Chinese alternate comes up, then may be mixture of both. PAF is for now more then happy with this engine as thrust is fine for its class, but the Russian factor makes PAF nervous, but western ones have the same problem. So we need a good Chinese option to supplement it.

PAF has no complains about this engine and it is a vast improvement compared to the turbo jet engines we had for all the types except F-16s.

As I said, JF-17 has been made a modular structure, thus the other engines of its class have been thought about when this airframe was being designed, so i don;t think much testing would be required or a change in the airframe would be required to make western engine compatible with JF-17. Yeah, do update me plzzz if am wrong.

If next batch of RD-93s come with 90KN+ thrust, and smoke emitting problem solved the way its been done in the RD-33MK series, this would be the perfect choice as, only F-414 series engine would be better.

I am not a big fan of western ones, but we have seen many problems arisen in the russian engines being used by some other air forces of the world.

Plus, i did not started the thread that western engines be used in JF-17. I just gave my opinion, that western ones can be used and in some factors would be superior then russian ones.
 

Londo Molari

Junior Member
Correct. Paying peanuts and expect so much. Sounds too ridiculous. :mad:
Its not ridiculous, it is the proven 62 year successful history of PAF. They always get the most for the least, its the responsible thing to do for a poor country's armed forces.
 

vesicles

Colonel
Pak already cancelling the purchase of J-10. After seeing the Pak-AF maiden flight, it feels J-10 cannot counter that.

After all J-10 still a 3 gen fighter even thought its better than FC-1. So, PAK might as well save the money for the J-XX.

Your statement suggests that Pak plans to skip J-10 and go directly J-XX as their main fighter. I don't think any nation in the world can afford to have J-XX/PAK-AF/F-22 as their backbone fighter. Afterall, the U.S. only has about ~120 F-22 (not sure about the exact #). I think Pak needs way more than 100 fighters to defend its air. So why not getting J-10 as well?

Although PAK R&D infrastrcuture not as advance as China but PAK engineers understand better english and able to undrstand the Western spec and communicate better.. Somtimes, Chinese Engineering team in a funk and in a too much close door environment.
So, if PAk can get a hand on some tier 2 engine development that would be helpful.

This is such an irresponsible statement. Where did you get the idea that Chinese engineers are less able to "understand better english and able to undrstand the Western spec and communicate better.."? Annually, hundreds of thousands of Chinese science and engineering students go to the US and Europe to study. ALL Chinese college graduates have to pass advanced level English tests to graduate. Just because China's defense industry collaborates with Russia a lot, it doesn't mean they don' know anything about the West. Do you know how many Chinese companies are collaborating with Western companies? In fact, the entire Chinese society is more Western-influenced than anything else.

It's funny that China is accused of stealing technology from the West and at the same time, China is also accused of not being able to understand the Western tech... So which one is it? If they can steal, that means they can understand and utilize the tech. If they can't understand, how can they steal and use the tech in their own design?
 
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tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Sir, i myself am not in favor of an engine change, as we can keep getting spare parts easily through China or from Russia, compared to Western ones. But PAF may not like its whole fleet with only one engine, that also Russian one due to the obvious reasons, but yeah if a Chinese alternate comes up, then may be mixture of both. PAF is for now more then happy with this engine as thrust is fine for its class, but the Russian factor makes PAF nervous, but western ones have the same problem. So we need a good Chinese option to supplement it.

PAF has no complains about this engine and it is a vast improvement compared to the turbo jet engines we had for all the types except F-16s.

As I said, JF-17 has been made a modular structure, thus the other engines of its class have been thought about when this airframe was being designed, so i don;t think much testing would be required or a change in the airframe would be required to make western engine compatible with JF-17. Yeah, do update me plzzz if am wrong.

If next batch of RD-93s come with 90KN+ thrust, and smoke emitting problem solved the way its been done in the RD-33MK series, this would be the perfect choice as, only F-414 series engine would be better.

I am not a big fan of western ones, but we have seen many problems arisen in the russian engines being used by some other air forces of the world.

Plus, i did not started the thread that western engines be used in JF-17. I just gave my opinion, that western ones can be used and in some factors would be superior then russian ones.
I think you are mistaking RD-93 for earlier variants of RD-33. If you can show some proof that smoke is a big problem with RD-93, then that's a different story.

As for engine change, they have to do a lot of additional flight testing just to get FWS-10 certified with J-11B and they will have a similar process to put Taihang on J-10A. And the dimension of Taihang to AL-31 is very close. Now you put a completely different engine in there that changes the entire aerodynamics of the plane, how can you not expect a lot of additional testing? You can't just expect plug and play when it comes to something as important as an engine.

Its not ridiculous, it is the proven 62 year successful history of PAF. They always get the most for the least, its the responsible thing to do for a poor country's armed forces.
you can say that about many air forces out there. It doesn't change the fact that the law of economics applies to everyone.
 

mean_bird

New Member
I don't think an engine change at this stage is even being considered barring an increased thrust RD-93 and/or a chinese equivalent of it.

Though I haven't heard a word in ages regarding the WS-13...whatever happened to it?

The only thing being considered on the JF-17 is avionics and weapons, with PAF considering going for western technology for the second batch, particularly french radar + missiles and possibly Mission computer too.

PAF, given its available options, seems to be highly impressed by the MICA and being a possible future customer of Meteor.

RD-93 indeed had some smoke related problems as can be seen on some of its earlier videos of JF-17. Haven't seen them in later videos so hopefully it got resolved.
 

yehe

Junior Member
Guys, you all CLEARLY and MAJORLY underestimate how difficult it is to build a engine, there is a reason why only a handful nations can produce an advanced engine today.

You can be given the entire knowhow and the full spec and design of a engine to any country in the world, but I am willing to bet that still none of these country will be able to build it.
Only those countries that are already producing advanced engines themself can make them.

Reason:
Engines are all about material science, which represent the basics of a nations scientific and technical level, so no giant jump forward in a single field(engine technology) will be possible here, if you don't have the base, you simply can't produce it, you can design a engine into super advanced level, but noone in the country can ever make them, as simple as that.

You need ALOT of things to build a modern engine, precision production abilities, digital controlled robotics plant to produce the 10000s of different parts into all exact, abilities to design and produce advanced computer chips and electronics , heavy industrial base, different special alloy for different part(some of which only 5 countries in the world can produce, US, russia, china, japan and germany and are all tightly export controlled), major aero dynamic testing facilities and alot more... only a very few countries in the world are able to posses all the technical abilities NEEDED to produce a modern engine, and these are all guarded as national and industrial core secret, nobody would really sell you it, and if they do, it would cost 1000 times more than just buying engines before you can ever build them.

The fact is even China only recently gained the industrial and scientific base to produce advanced engines, thus the breakthough in designs of several new engines we are seeing today.
 
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Roger604

Senior Member
^ Great post!

My understanding is that US, Russia, UK and France (and now China) has the full industrial chain to make modern turbofan engines. But even Germany and Japan do not.
 
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