J-15 Carrier Multirole Fighter thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
J-15 produced like cakes on the line. By the time 003 is launched they'll have all the planes for it.
plawolf
Brigadier
Anyone know if J15s have plumbing in the wings to take drop tanks?
Afaik, no standard flanker has wing plumbing for drop tanks due to its huge internal fuel capacity, but for a carrier based bird for buddy refuelling, that would be a really useful capacity to have.
AFAIK and contrary to a lot that has been written, NO regular fighter variant is plumped to carry tanks. I know only the Su-34 can do.
Some Flankers have a centerline drop tank.
J-15s have been spotted with a UPAZ-1A centerline refueling pod which can be used to extend range with buddy to buddy refueling.
Because of aircraft takeoff weight limitations on STOBAR carriers I think drop tanks made no sense for the J-15 thus far. But the situation might change with the catapult carriers.
J-15s have been spotted with a UPAZ-1A centerline refueling pod which can be used to extend range with buddy to buddy refueling.
Because of aircraft takeoff weight limitations on STOBAR carriers I think drop tanks made no sense for the J-15 thus far. But the situation might change with the catapult carriers.
plawolf
Brigadier
But I guess is that if the plumbing is in place for the buddy refueling pod, it would also be able to take a drop tank.
The only question mark remaining would be the weight that pylon is rated to carry. However, given that the central pylon is often used with large PGMs on other flanker variants, I don’t think weight should be an issue given the limited size fuel tank they would be able to fit there to start with. That may be the main limiting factor, since the clearance between nacelles would probably limited that pylon to a 500-1000l tank at most, so is that juice really worth the squeeze?
Agreed, but this is so far not confirmed ans AFAIR I haven't seen any image even of a Russian Flanker with tanks.