Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator

Atomicfrog

Captain
Registered Member
Any idea how to rate this rumour?

According to this rumour there might be a possible PLAAF version of FC-31 called J-21 without arresting hook and folded wings and its first flight is speculated to be by the end of this year, which could be eventually even before the J-35's maiden flight!?? .

(Via @柳絮纷飞竟不是雪 from Weibo and Huitong's CMA-Blog)

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They are not talking about the Comac ARJ21 ? maybe a stretched variant ? ''arj21-700'' is clearly written...
 

longmarch

Junior Member
Registered Member
Well, J-3x makes sense to me. It's like other phone makers trying to match iphone number even though they started late...
 

Akame

Junior Member
Registered Member
What is the J-21 for? What force will it take. Why a new plane is needed when there is J-35
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
What is the J-21 for? What force will it take. Why a new plane is needed when there is J-35

It’s just a debate about designation. We don’t know if the aircraft designation is J-21 or J-31 or J-35 — they refer to the same aircraft.
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
I think SAC are just obsessed with rule of cool in their fighter numbering.

It was all sequential and sensible up to J11, but then they jumped to J15 and J16 (which I could kinda accept if they assigned unofficial J-numbers to the imported flankers, with J12-MKK, J13-MK2 and J14-Su35).

J20 makes sense as a clear generational leap (similar to J10 and J11 move up from the J7 and J8, although those were also sequential due to the experimental J9), and then SAC went completely nuts with J31/35.

It would good if the PLAAF imposed some sanity and make the SAC 5th gen J21 in keeping with traditional and bloody common sense!

It's not like SAC have the right to choose the actual J-designation for the PLA. It is the PLA which makes that decision.

SAC/AVIC designated it as FC-31, which is inconsequential because that is not a J-designation for PLA use.
The reason this discussion is being had at all imo, is the J-35 designation was used for so long by the PLA watching community, but imo this whole time there's been little serious discussion about whether it was the true designation of the aircraft from the PLA or just something the watchers came up with.
 

Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
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Interview with 赵霞 of SAC. She was the deputy chief designer of J-15. She is talking about her experience working as chief designer of a new fighter. She specifically says this aircraft will have four variants.

Assuming this is FC-31, the common guesses for the four variants are:
  • PLAAF
  • PLAN carrier based
  • PLAN land based
  • export
 

voyager1

Captain
Registered Member
View attachment 70714
Interview with 赵霞 of SAC. She was the deputy chief designer of J-15. She is talking about her experience working as chief designer of a new fighter. She specifically says this aircraft will have four variants.

Assuming this is FC-31, the common guesses for the four variants are:
  • PLAAF
  • PLAN carrier based
  • PLAN land based
  • export
Isnt that a lot of variants though? Hopefully they can manage to have commonality of parts between the variants so that they can reduce logistic and manufacturing complexity.
 

Kejora

Junior Member
Registered Member
View attachment 70714
Interview with 赵霞 of SAC. She was the deputy chief designer of J-15. She is talking about her experience working as chief designer of a new fighter. She specifically says this aircraft will have four variants.

Assuming this is FC-31, the common guesses for the four variants are:
  • PLAAF
  • PLAN carrier based
  • PLAN land based
  • export

Isnt that a lot of variants though? Hopefully they can manage to have commonality of parts between the variants so that they can reduce logistic and manufacturing complexity.
I think two seated variant or electronic warfare variant are more likely than PLAN land based variant.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
View attachment 70714
Interview with 赵霞 of SAC. She was the deputy chief designer of J-15. She is talking about her experience working as chief designer of a new fighter. She specifically says this aircraft will have four variants.

Assuming this is FC-31, the common guesses for the four variants are:
  • PLAAF
  • PLAN carrier based
  • PLAN land based
  • export

Why the heck are they bothering with a PLAN land based variant? Just make that, the PLAAF variant, and the export variant the same.
 
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