Possibly an improved variant of the earlier J-15s,as @Gloire_bb suggested, perhaps the non-catapult prototypes.
J-15 carrier fighter thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Possibly an improved variant of the earlier J-15s,as @Gloire_bb suggested, perhaps the non-catapult prototypes.
Yes. Because the operational environment and requirements for the J-15DT are not the same as the J-16D.
No. The H-6 has a smaller internal volume than the Y-9 (let alone the fact that much of the H-6's fuselage is likely unpressurized other than the cockpit and weapons station sections), meaning that it isn't going to be a better EW platform.
Besides, there are already the Y-9-based GX-11/13/17, so why bother?
cross post from J-35 thread
I think the issue was more around risk reduction.
At the time when the requirement for J-16D would have emerged, from the airframe perspective, the J-16 would have been a more mature platform (heavy multirole land based aircraft) than J-15S (PRC aerospace still new to carrierborne aviation at the time, and J-15/S being a relatively new platform).
I doubt the PLA would've been comfortable waiting for J-15/S to mature as an airframe prior to initiating development of a heavy EW/SEAD tactical aircraft (because who knows how long that would've taken), whereas J-16 itself was right there, available and lower risk.
Not to mention some of the inherent airframe differences in performance like you mentioned (J-16 being lighter and likely having more internal fuel than J-15/S airframe family by virtue of being a carrierborne aircraft), meaning that J-16 may have been preferred by the PLAAF to a J-15/S airframe as basis for their EW/SEAD tactical aircraft, and the PLANAF may not have been ready to initiate development of their own J-15/S based EW/SEAD tactical aircraft at the time.
So IMO the question is less of "was it really worth it" but more "was there any other practical choice in context of time sensitive requirements and risk reduction".
Additionally, the J-16D itself could be seen as a form of risk reduction for the eventual J-15DH, which in turn is a form of risk reduction for J-15DT.
We all know how much the PLA focuses on risk reduction after all... and it strikes me that they prefer to be more cautious with risk and to be able to deliver important capabilities on time, rather than be too over ambitious with merging requirements of different services together in a way that may undermine time sensitive deliverables.
Such an aircraft would be a contender with Y-9 family GX EW/ECM variants rather than a J-16D alternative, imo.
A notional EW/SEAD H-6 variant would not be a self escorting, supersonic capable, maneuvering SEAD/EW aircraft like J-16D is.
And one could make the case for the standoff EW/ECM role that the Y-9 family is better for that mission than the H-6K airframe family by virtue of... well everything.
We don't use the term J-15B anymore.
J-15B was the term we used to describe the production version of J-15T (because we thought that J-15T would be the name for the first structural CATOBAR J-15 tech demo, and that a production version of the CATOBAR J-15 variant would be called "J-15B").
Instead, J-15T now just encompasses the production CATOBAR J-15, as well as the original CATOBAR J-15 tech demo.
I also wouldn't be too confident with saying there are 70 J-15Ts based on production serials. It's probably useful to wait for some cross reference of numbers to fill up the intervening production serials up to 70 in reasonable increments first.
Engines are AL-31 right? Hopefully they are at least the more powerful FM2 variants.
base variant. AL-31
but as per the reports from trusted source, switching to WS-10 is inevitable.
Likely standard AL-31F as maxi said, maybe with high thrust mode for carrier ops.
Here Yankee & Ayi also confirm the J-15T requirement for all 3 carriers (3x24) has already been fulfilled. Also they note the conspicuously non-censored background appearances of J-35 in an ostensibly J-15T focused segment.
70+ aircraft that no one knew was even in production until it suddenly appeared in a dual carrier exercise at the end of last year.
It would be no surprise any more to expect surprises from Chinese aircraft manufacturing.
We are seeing signs of J-35/J-35A mass production already. I don't think we should act surprised if a squadron of J-36 or J-XDS suddenly materializes in the next five years.
It’s rather that our PLA-watching methodology is bad at synthesizing all the various signs and data points we ourselves have collected for the most part. And also bad at logical deduction/conclusion due to sometimes unwarranted over-conservatism.
These should all really be informing uplifts to the methodology. In my mind, examples include 076 starting construction; J-XDS’ planform; J-15T production (when China had the capability, capacity, stated intent and clear obvious need - so it should’ve been taken as de facto); 004 construction; and possibly the revised H-20 (I’m still thinking under 50% likelihood, but getting closer).
So I’d still be very surprised if such squadrons materialised without many signs along the way, even if not picked up upon by prevailing PLA-watching methodology of the day.