J-10 Thread IV

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
From the caption of the image: 近日,空军某飞行训练基地某团组织数架战机携带火箭弹、航炮等多种弹药,对两个靶场目标进行攻击。
BTW, the landscape definitely does not look like southern China.

That’s a very astute observation. I wonder what happened to the AL-31 equipped J-10Cs at Cangzhou. Did they swap out J-7s in a combat unit?
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
From the caption of the image: 近日,空军某飞行训练基地某团组织数架战机携带火箭弹、航炮等多种弹药,对两个靶场目标进行攻击。
BTW, the landscape definitely does not look like southern China.
Agreed, but maybe it was an exercise somewhere at a different location?
 

crash8pilot

Junior Member
Registered Member
Afterburner flame is not necessarily indication of engine type. The recently released image of J-10C with Taihang engine shows bluish flames as well.
Here are J-11A's AL-31F engines for comparison:


View attachment 71951
Color of afterburners can appear different to the naked eye due to various reasons ranging from the lighting (blue doesn't really stand out in daylight compared to orange/yellow) that the eye-brain can process, the colors the camera lens is capable of capturing given the conditions of when the photo was taken, effects of outside air temperature (chemistry 101 - burning gas molecules appear yellow-ish in colder temperatures and blue-ish at the higher spectrum, just like how a bunsen burner works), the stage of afterburner (no point going full hairblower on the takeoff roll with a jet that's light and end up VTOLing on rotation so to speak), the quality/grade of fuel used which ultimately affects combustion, a freshly operated engine tends to produce hotter exhaust vs when its the first flight of the day and the engine/fuel is still cold.... A myriad of reasons really, so quite frankly its damn near impossible to tell what engine is featured on the J-10 based on what color flames the afterburner produces.

Case and point here are photos of the Hornet in full hairblower, and afaik they only come in the GE F404 engine.
main-qimg-e35972b73aa60f5d970c08c1b6da03c5
main-qimg-1d4593f1e7c5adf87d1e0d63f2e46f84
main-qimg-8ba93b7802a81064ec24ab96ac967e4d
1620833900640.jpeg
 
Last edited:

xyqq

Junior Member
Registered Member
Color of afterburners can appear different to the naked eye due to various reasons ranging from the lighting (blue doesn't really stand out in daylight compared to orange/yellow) that the eye-brain can process, the colors the camera lens is capable of capturing given the conditions of when the photo was taken, effects of outside air temperature (chemistry 101 - burning gas molecules appear yellow-ish in colder temperatures and blue-ish at the higher spectrum, just like how a bunsen burner works), the stage of afterburner (no point going full hairblower on the takeoff roll with a jet that's light and end up VTOLing on rotation so to speak), the quality/grade of fuel used which ultimately affects combustion, a freshly operated engine tends to produce hotter exhaust vs when its the first flight of the day and the engine/fuel is still cold.... A myriad of reasons really, so quite frankly its damn near impossible to tell what engine is featured on the J-10 based on what color flames the afterburner produces.

Case and point here are photos of the Hornet in full hairblower, and afaik they only come in the GE F404 engine.
main-qimg-e35972b73aa60f5d970c08c1b6da03c5
main-qimg-1d4593f1e7c5adf87d1e0d63f2e46f84
main-qimg-8ba93b7802a81064ec24ab96ac967e4d
View attachment 71964
The color of the afterburner exhaust is largely determined by the fuel-to-air ratio. Comparisons should be made under similar conditions (throttle level, altitude, fuel, etc.). Some of your pictures are taken during the flight and they cannot be compared with those at the takeoff. At the takeoff, the throttles are pushed to the maximum, and different engines exhibit distinct afterburner colors. Using the same fuel as other fighters in China, for example, the WS-9 engines on JH-7A have clearly reddish afterburner exhaust at the takeoff.

JH-7A-afterburner.jpg
 
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