Should china go for more J-8 or concerate on new desings like FC-1??

J-13 single engined?!
Double engined fighters have 1 big advantage:
you can make a big, heavy weight fighter/bomber
or you can still make a short ASF.
But you can't build a heavy-weight fighter with only one engine.
If the engines are big, it actually helps with design for strike, since your plane is now going to be very big.

I don't really think China should go for too much on J-11.

As for the thread, how much does a J-8-2(any J-8B variants) cost? (in USD)

sumdud said:

J-13 single engined?!
<snip>
As for the thread, how much does a J-8-2(any J-8B variants) cost? (in USD)

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The old J-13:


J-13: The genesis of the J-13 plan was in 1971 when the 601 Institute began researching a new fighter aircraft for the 1980s to replace the J-6. In early 1974 the PLAAF formally proposed development of a new light fighter to replace the J-6 as the mainstay of the Air Force. As with many Chinese fighter projects, the principal sticking point was the lack of a suitable powerplant for the aircraft. In order to meet a required Mach 2.0 level speed, the original plan was to use one British Spey Mk202 turbofan (with afterburner giving 9,300kg thrust) domestically produced as the WS-9.

As for J-8-II's unit cost, it has been speculated at $15-$25 million each. There's so many variants and equipment it's hard to say, plus there has been no export sales to gauage pricing.

Sometimes I see the price estimaes that are so off the deep end it's scary. Take this article for an example:


It claims the FTC-2000 has a fly-away unit cost of only $2.4 million USD. I think, realistically, if a customer like Nigeria went to China and wanted to buy a few, we know it's going to cost them a lot more than $2.4 million each. =/

There is no way J-8II can cost that much. J-10 only costs 25 million each. A few things to consider are: 1. plaaf pays 10% on top of the fly away cost for the indigenous fighters 2. exported ones obviously cost a lot more. The deal to Nigeria probably included a lot more than just fighters. I'd say a J-8II probably would cost no more than 12 million for plaaf. The current upgrades dones on J-8B probably is quite cheap too. FC-1 was mentionned to be 10 million for plaaf on Chinese forums(I'm not kidding here). That's why I find it hilarious that people think FC-1 can't be as cheap as 15 million for export.

any ftc-2000 deal to nigeria would involve real missles, captive training missles, dummy missles, spares, technicians, chinese trainers, and more like an economic deal too. thats why its worth more than 2.4 million.

J-8B costing 25 million. -.-"""""""""""""""
I still don't trust it........
12 million is still reasonable. It's an old piece of steel....
Should not be that much. As for avonics. I doubt it's such a big cost too.

If J-8B is 25 million, China would be churning out J-10s quickly.

How much does the J-7 cost? I would guess the cost of J-8B is between that of J-7 and FC-1. China never declare the buying of FC-1s. If the J-8B costed more than 10 million dollars(original price of FC-1), China would've said they'd buy FC-1s.

FTC-2000 costing only 2.4 million dollars?! If that's true, there would be a lot of sales from both inside and outside. And I would not really be supposed at the price. J-7, which the plane is derived from, costed less than 10 million dollars. (I remember seeing it said 3.3, or was that the generation?)
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JH-7A, FC-1, JL-9, and A-5. Do you guys see some sort of resemblence between each other?

sumdud said:

JH-7A, FC-1, JL-9, and A-5. Do you guys see some sort of resemblence between each other?

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what are the resemblance??? is it the price or they look like migs (i know all of them does look a bit alike but not jh-7a)


Sumdud:
Hope you don't mind me replying here.
I mean the shape. FC-1 and JL-9 looks like twins at 1st glance.

ah yes, they do look alike in shape

Well, many people here seem to prefer the J-8 series over the FC-1. I prefer the FC-1 because it incorporates new designs like the DSI and the enlarged wing span similar to that of the Superhornet. Also, the FC-1 is going under more major design configurations as well. Best part of this: the FC-1 has yet to come out and the J-8 series has been experimented and exhausted with. If China had no interest in aquiring the FC-1, then we wouldn't see large amounts of improvements on the FC-1. The Chinese and Pakistanis are doing much work on the FC-1 plus the Pakistani JF-17 will most likely have the Thales RC-400 radar system in the future (look at . In my opinion, the FC-1 is a relatively new platform that can incorporate new technologies so that's why the FC-1 should be the next PLAAF and PLAN platform.

To understand the logic and disadvantage of the J-8II you have to look at this.

If you need to output a certain large amount of X thrust, its more economical and cheaper to do it with one large engine rather than two. Reliablity and redundancy issues aside (one engine fails, another engine brings the aircraft home) the reason why one single large engine is more efficient is because it has 50% less moving parts than two smaller engines producing the same amount of thrust total. This means better fuel economy and overall lower cost of the plane and lower cost of maintenance since you got less parts to fix. It also means you get your aircraft out from repairs faster and into the air, since you have less parts to break too.

With this, you can understand why a plane like the JSF has one engine.

But on the other hand why two?

Well, mainly because developing one large super thrust engine is lot more diffficult than one smaller, weaker thrust engine which you can pair into two. With far less technological resources, it's better to put two engines you already have a technological mastery upon to produce the same thrust, rather than that one single big engine. You have to understand the failures of Chinese turbine engine development to fully understand this, since originally, the attempt to reverse engineer the powerful R-27/29 engine of the MiG-23 ended up in failure. One engine like that produces as much thrust as two of the WP-7s based on the MiG-21's Tumanskies. Ultimately that's where the J-9 went down since it was concieved with that one single large engine in mind, and so did the original J-13 concepts. While it was much more technically feasible to put two WP-7s engines together and produce the same amount of thrust. Hence why the J-8 survived.

The FC-1 has not recieved interest from China, as much as the J-10 project.
The FC-1 project was revived upon the insistence of Pakistan and Pakistan's financial help to the project.

If one looks at the specifications, the FC-1 and J-10 are on the lower and upper limits tending to F-16:

i.e. Lim F-16->0- = FC-1 and Lim F-16->0+ = J-10.

Thus, the FC-1 may be utilized for export purposes by China, whereas the J-10 shall be kept for operation in the PLAAF.

Now, the DSI intakes of the FC-1 were a compulsion rather than a developmental improvement, since the T/W ratio without the DSI intakes was 0.93. Thus, the FC-1 would not have been able to climb vertically.
In comparison, the T/W ratio of the LCA is >1 without special intakes.

The J-10 is thus likely to be developed more with the addition of the AESA radars etc., while the development of the FC-1 shall be ceased upon the solving of the problems of stability.

Hence, it is unlikely that either the J-8 or FC-1 shall be developed any further.
The development of the J-10 and J-xx are likely to recieve priority by China.

Indianfighter said:

Hence, it is unlikely that either the J-8 or FC-1 shall be developed any further.

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;; Considering how many different variations of J-7 and J-8 we've seen, I think it's most likely that we'd see even more "improved vairants" for J-8-II and FC-1 in the future. I mean, look at JH-7 vs. JH-7A.

I'm expecting to see FC-17A/B/C/D/E/F/G over the next 2 decades.