Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
From a recently released video.

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manqiangrexue

Brigadier
Here's an interesting thought: How will China test WS-19? There are no twin-engine fighters in the PLAAF that are suitably sized. JF-17 is single engine so it would be even riskier. The most suitable fighter would be MiG-29 but China doesn't have any. So are they going to strap it onto a Y-20 as 1 of 4 engines for altitude testing and then drop it right into the J-31 naval evolution? Will they go full in with 2 WS-19 or WS-19 + RD-93? Will RD-93 still fit on the enlarged naval version? I know nobody has the answer but any thoughts?
 

SinoSoldier

Colonel
Here's an interesting thought: How will China test WS-19? There are no twin-engine fighters in the PLAAF that are suitably sized. JF-17 is single engine so it would be even riskier. The most suitable fighter would be MiG-29 but China doesn't have any. So are they going to strap it onto a Y-20 as 1 of 4 engines for altitude testing and then drop it right into the J-31 naval evolution? Will they go full in with 2 WS-19 or WS-19 + RD-93? Will RD-93 still fit on the enlarged naval version? I know nobody has the answer but any thoughts?

What about swapping out an engine on the FC-31 1.0 or 2.0?
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
What about swapping out an engine on the FC-31 1.0 or 2.0?
Well, it's not like either of those 2 are mature and I don't know if the WS-19, designed for an aircraft that is supposedly 30% larger/heavier, can fit into an RD-93 bay. I would think that they would make use of the greater space allowance to design the engine a bit bigger to get more even more thrust on top of what's afforded by a design improvement.

I've considered that they might make shims to fit them into a test Flanker that is stripped down for extreme light weight (but you can't shim a larger engine into a smaller bay for the V1 or V2). Su-27SK flew extremely well weighing 16.4 tonnes with 122.5kN AL-31F's so depending on the WS-19 thrust of course, they might not have to lose too much weight to make it work decently.
 
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taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
Well, it's not like either of those 2 are mature and I don't know if the WS-19, designed for an aircraft that is supposedly 30% larger/heavier, can fit into an RD-93 bay. I would think that they would make use of the greater space allowance to design the engine a bit bigger to get more even more thrust on top of what's afforded by a design improvement.

I've considered that they might make shims to fit them into a test Flanker that is stripped down for extreme light weight (but you can't shim a larger engine into a smaller bay for the V1 or V2). Su-27SK flew extremely well weighing 16.4 tonnes with 122.5kN AL-31F's so depending on the WS-19 thrust of course, they might not have to lose too much weight to make it work decently.
I think FC-31 would be a good choice, like WS-10 on J-11.

If the engine houses on FC-31 were prepared for target engine bigger than RD-93 and WS-19 is the target engine, both are pretty certain, then there is no problem of putting one WS-19 on FC-31 and keeping the other RD-93 as a precaution. The target engine was never RD-93, so the dimension and fitting of the housing must have taken that into consideration. This is the same thing as J-20 and WS-15 in the future.
 
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