We have already passed that phase...
Shenyang next gen combat aircraft thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Much better actually. Now we can see the right inlet.
The identity of the powerplants on the SAC jet is a rather interesting question.
Of course it's also an interesting question for J-36 as well, but considering we ironically have clearer images of the SAC jet's engine nozzles (compared to J-36's engine nozzles) and they're very clearly stealthy in nature with at least 2D TVC, I do wonder if they have a pair of WS-10 variants onboard or if they've been bold enough to give WS-15 some snazzy TVC nozzles.
Of course it's also an interesting question for J-36 as well, but considering we ironically have clearer images of the SAC jet's engine nozzles (compared to J-36's engine nozzles) and they're very clearly stealthy in nature with at least 2D TVC, I do wonder if they have a pair of WS-10 variants onboard or if they've been bold enough to give WS-15 some snazzy TVC nozzles.
Wouldn't the WS-10 be too weak, especially for the J-50? It is a possibility imo that the J-36 might have 3x WS-10 of about 15 tf, while the J-50 perhaps 2x WS-15 of about 18 tf, probably those thrust levels being sufficient for initial testing and perhaps early production.
Also, i wonder if China might have adopted an evolutionary approach to get ACE capability in a reasonable time rather than a clean sheet design (that might come later), that is, apparently the americans were mulling ACE or ACE tech injected variations of their existing engines be it F-414, F-135 or F-110 etc. So perhaps China is doing the same with WS-10 and WS-15?
I might have missed it, but are there any rumours/hints that China have been testing ACE demonstrators to date?
As interim engines for initial prototypes, 2x WS-10 variants would be fine for J-XD/S, in the same way that 3x WS-10 variants would be fine for J-36's initial prototypes.
Needless to say, 2x WS-15 variants and 3x WS-15 variants would be more optimal for later prototypes and initial production batches, before eventually in turn getting replaced by ACE/VCEs.
(There's of course a possibility that J-XDS and J-36 are using WS-15s right now as well, but it's also possible they are using WS-10s)
XA101 was essentially an ACE'd F135.
It's unclear what XA102 and XA103 (for NGAD) will be, but it might be clean sheet.
At this stage we have no clue what the PLA's ACE/VCE efforts will look like in terms of final products, whether they could be an ACE/VCE'd variant of an existing engine, or whether it would be a clean sheet design. Chances are there will be multiple eventual ACE/VCE engines as well for different thrust classes.
None of that is very important for J-XDS or J-36 -- for those two aircraft, we can just accept that they are intended to be powered by ACE/VCEs in the future at some point. Whatever lineage they may have (clean sheet or variant) is beyond the scope of what we can currently speculate.
Those projects are well underway, and there probably won't be news on them until they are relatively mature and late in the game. They probably have various static demonstrators of varying levels of testing somewhere, which would be no surprise.
I just wanted to fix some past mistakes in my observations with the clearer photo. Red is the groove, yellow is what is clearly visible outlines, and on the weapons bay the yellow also is where there is a visible black seal like material similar to the the edges of the control surfaces, which points to a general weapons bay length. The orange bits are what I just made up to complete the yellow lines to form a better visual representation.
