This is why I think the focus on max thrust (especially at sea level) is so dumb. There are many more important metrics that impact combat effectiveness.
It is very dumb. Thrust curves (and what affects them; BPR, PR, theta break), TSFC, lifespan and reliability, these are all infinitely more indicative of how "good" an engine is than just thrust at SL M0.
(If you are genuinely hellbent on the concept of thrust, even specific thrust per unit area is a more useful thing to focus on)
As Ayi and Orca said in 2023:
View attachment 166516
The translation is kinda wrong. It's actually "electrical generation specs
on top of technical specs" instead of "
especially electrical generation specs." The takeaway here should be Ayi is saying the WS-15 actually has some pretty impressive technical specs
and demanding electrical generation specs.
As for Orca's Zhihu post... I mean, he's not exactly wrong, but it's not longer the 1990s or even 2000s. Technology in general has improved quite a bit since then.
Yes, absolute thrust at SL M0 (i.e. very high pressure ratios and lower theta break) is a somewhat contradictory performance metric to supersonic performance (in a conventional cycle engine at least), but they've gotten less mutually exclusive now. You can't still "max out" both areas simultaneously per se, but now you can push both sides further together. Whether that be using better materials to push the theta break higher, better computationally optimised compressor designs, limited variable geometries (VGVs inbetween rotors), the list goes on.
Yes, the WS-15 is very much supersonically optimised. But that doesn't mean its thrust at SL M0 would still stagnate at 1990s level.
Is it safe to say that China has completely surpassed Russia, France, and the UK in the realm of military aircraft engines?
Yes to Russia and France. It's a maybe/mostly for UK. After all, the EJ200 is an incredible piece of work. It's best-in-class for a damn good reason...
People often focus on the fact that UK/RR doesn't have high-thrust class military afterburning turbofans like the F119/WS-15/10/etc. but that's more because they have *nothing* that would need an engine like that.