Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator

by78

General
The only interesting bit is the red underlined part. It mentions full static test for a certain unnamed project. Could be the J-31/New carrier fighter.

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FangYuan

Junior Member
Registered Member
The J-31 is not better than the J-20, but certainly it is much better than the J-10 and the Su-35. The biggest problem is that ShenYang does not have the financial resources to complete this project.
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
The J-31 is not better than the J-20, but certainly it is much better than the J-10 and the Su-35. The biggest problem is that ShenYang does not have the financial resources to complete this project.


I think this is/was only valid for the demonstrator phase and as it seems it is now a fully founded project
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
The FC-31 was an internal demonstrator program for new prototyping technologies to design a new fighter aircraft.
It seems it got them a contract to develop a naval fighter for the PLANAF i.e. the mythical J-35 but there are next to no official news about it.
There were rumors of attempted export sales of the original demonstrator (to either a Gulf Petrostate or Pakistan) but it seemingly went nowhere. Not a lot of external countries interested in funding a new aircraft from scratch.

The only pictures we have of the demonstrator prototypes (V1, V2) show an aircraft with a landing gear which is clearly too weak for a regular catapult. It also doesn't seem to have a tailhook assembly or folding wings or anything like that. The naval aircraft, if it does happen, should be a new and supposedly larger design based on technology developed with this program.

There were news reports of a next-generation Chinese engine in the RD-33 class with latest generation T/W ratio. There were even pictures of it in the forums here if I remember. Supposedly two of those engines would power that J-35 aircraft.
 
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