+Active+Electronically+Scanned+Array+(AESA)+RADAR+fc-20++People's+Liberation+Army+Air+Force+(PLAAF)++Pakistan+Air+Force+(PAF)+AL-31FSD-10+PL-12+BVRAAM+PL-8+PL-10+PL-13+PL-15+ASR+HMS+IFRConformal+Fuel+Tan.jpg)
via Chinese Military Review.
China is developing an advanced J-10C fighter aircraft fitted with Conformal Fuel Tanks (CFT) which are attached on the upper surface of the J-10’s fuselage. These Conformal Fuel Tanks will increase the aircraft's range, loiter time, and combat persistence. Image posted above is a fan art to give an idea of this new development.Just plain wow.
These guys either have the world's best hackers, or they have a couple of people inside Lockheed Martin. This "fan art" is remarkably similar to a LM effort on a diverterless intake for the F-16 and the conformal fuel tanks are also a straight rip off of the LM program.
Those people have absolutely NO shame. Check out the pics below.
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Note: Don't discount fan art. In the 90's the art was mostly fanciful. Hopes and dreams. Lately though (meaning in the last 5 years) they've been hitting closer and closer to the mark. Quite honestly they have been spot on for the last couple of years. I consider this as part of the Chinese practice of announcing new programs at the start of the year.
Speaking of the F16 I think a new build one with the diverterless intakes and F119 engines, plus 3D vectoring would be unreal. Better fit than the F35 for sure.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, did anyone ever hear about how good the dogfighting performance of the F16XL was going to be compared to the standard F16?
I never get tired of looking at a new F16 shit if I had a hundred million dollars I'd own one just because they are awesome lol.
ReplyDeleteIf you change too much about the aircraft the pricing will kill one of the greatest things about the aircraft. Its cheap enough to buy in numbers and pure smash bad guys with.
I really wouldn't mind seeing it get a new VLO exterior with a little more power though, I think we could really get them for 40 million a piece.
I do think that china has people on the inside these days. The government has instructed the media to portray the PRC as an awesome country we have tens of thousands of chinese college students come here every year. Its kind of inevitable and sad.
Yeah I absolutely agree Wallzy, a new, more powerful/efficient vector thrusting power-plant for a Next Generation (NG) F16, but with a focus on maintainability, readiness and ease/launch time as well as cost like the Gripen. Chuck in RAM coatings on the radome/intake, replace the avionics/radar, add IRST, add counter measures and possibly chuck in some internal weapons bays on both sides of the engine for upto 8+ AMRAAMs, then stick mountpoints under the intake/engine for Brimstone/SDB IIs.
ReplyDeleteI really think the F16XL looks pretty good, a bit concerned about manouverability on it though, but reworking the wings to extend range/payload and maintaing good manouverability definitely sounds like something that is worth doing. Keith I think as long as you don't make the plane alot larger/more complex/a completely different plane the costs shouldn't go through the roof. And I would aim for 30M full rate production cost (as pakfa is allegedly going to cost about 40M and that is what some of the current russian 2 engine planes go for).
I think this is the way to go for the low-end, and reduced RCS/DRAG external stores/covers could be developed to bring the RCS down and allow for supercruising?
Divertless intakes already in production version of J-10b. Two seater models are also available. The only new addition is the conformal fuel tanks - I'm no aeronautical expert, but it doesn't appear to be a significant engineering challenge to implement in a future model.
ReplyDeletehttp://china-defense.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/j-10b-production-variants-101-and-103.html
Such a blatent rip-off of the F16 and the work of Dessault and BAE. These guys have some capacity for hacking and that's a fact!
ReplyDeleteI am not so sure. Surely all cars look alike, yet no one accuse GM of ripping off Toyota or vise versa, right? Because those cars are all independently engineered and their similarity is simply a product of functionality.
DeleteThe J-10, in spite of being a Lavi clone, is an original Chinese engineering, even if it had lots of Israeli engineering consulting input in it. All the DSi and CFT additions are Chinese engineering too, even if they benefit from stolen US data.
Consider J-10 a case of reverse engineering, and reverse engineering is legal in civilian world, right? Heck, the first buyer of a new car is almost always the competitors, who could do tear-down analysis on it, and auto companies do admit they tear down rival's cars, and like how Ford engineers benchmarked 1993 Toyota Camry in their engineering of Taurus, etc.
In case of J-11 it is another matter, it really is an unauthorized production of Su-30MK flanker and Shenyang Aircraft Corp cannot fix problems associated with it, because they didn't engineer it.
Rip off / copy paste that is a knee jerk reaction from pople that know little about engineering
ReplyDeleteYou can use basic idea without hacking and/or stealing blueprints as intake for a specific engine is its own design ,you can't transplant an F35 or F16 divert less intake and hope it will work. At one stage or another form follows function in both intake and CFT design , intake seems to be a much simpler design than ither F 35 or F16 and as for CFT i think they will turn out quite a bit different due J10B canard configuration .CFTs need to be tailor designed to aircraft's specific aerodynamic configuration so that gains in fuel are not wasted trough added drag.
you have a problem with my post, you have the right to not read it. and no i know little about engineering but i'd love to know where your degree is from.
DeleteNaval engineering
DeleteAgain look at the picts of the real aircraft not drawings,inlet is way simpler then that of F16 or F35
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Sinocanard.html
Canard and delta wing configuration will likely drive to CFTs way different than those of F16 probably closer to these on the wind tunnel pics or those of Rafales
http://www.asian-defence.net/2011/02/chinese-j-10-fighter-with-conformal.html
They might be stealing ideas but not everything is copy paste ,you know conformal tanks are in us since the 50s and diverterless intakes form the 60's
I'd like to point out that China has no lack in terms of brain power. In terms of sheer population, China has more honors students than the United States has total students. As we saw with our arms race with the Soviets, soviet engineers were brilliant at coming up with ways to achieve high tech design with relatively low tech manufacture.
ReplyDeleteIt is at the point where industry reps at trade shows are wary of Chinese nationals taking pictures of their displays and asking too many questions about performance parameters.
Whether it was "ripped off wholesale" or "reverse engineered from pictures" doesn't matter in the long run, China has the tech now and is putting it into play. Can't shove the genie back into the bottle.
Then why don't they invent stuff? Why are they known for copying everyone elses thing instead of making their own? They even reversed engineered an entire us nuclear power plant..... I am pretty sure that nearly all their military equipment is clones of foreign equipment, even india developed their own fighter planes, tanks, attack helicopters etc..etc...
DeleteEven a highup person from Huwai was on the national radio here saying how it is unfair to say Huwai makes bad products, because at first huwai just copied everything and they made many mistakes, he said that now Huwai is much better at copying so there is nothing to worry about.....
There is some serious problem with china not being able to develop its own stuff...
Instead of creating a new design from scratch, L.Martin should transform the F-16 in a slightly stealthy airplane, like the F-18 was transformed in to a Super Hornet. A cheap LO airplane with jammers and external stand off weapons, something like the Koreans have in mind...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.janes.com/images/assets/295/29295/1517176-main.jpg
Which is why I think they should cancel the F-35 and put all the F-35 technology into the Next generation F-16. I would remake the F-16 by taking the F16XL and incorporate all the F-35 and JAS-39 Gripen technology in them.
ReplyDeleteJacobite.NZ,
ReplyDeleteWhy re-invent the wheel? It is STILL faster to reverse engineer a proven product than go through the ass pain of developing a new product, especially when it is something as complex as a nuclear reactor, supersonic jet aircraft, or computer processor. Having lots of brain power to reverse engineer something is smart money when those brain power people don't work for corporations with literally decades of engineering experience to fix problems.
I was working with a defense contractor that was using a Chinese satellite launching service to put comms platforms in orbit. Their launch was delayed (a big money delay) because of rocket navigation software issues. In order to get their satellite launched on time, the defense contractor helped out the Chinese launch firm with their code. What else do you think the Chinese could do with precision rocket guidance software? They could build the rockets just fine, but all those decades of trial and error, and engineering know how, takes time to build up.
Remember where the Chinese were in 1980. Look at where they are 30 years later. It is about the same as where we were in 1930 to where we were in 1960. But we hadn't had all of our engineers killed in ideological purges by communists....
Yes a new plane in the way that the Harrier II, Super Hornet, Grippen NG and SU35Flanker are very much new planes developed from old chassis, and you can't say they aren't significant improvements.
ReplyDeleteAM, Because you want a plane that is better, not kindof, sortof but not really just as good as something built decades earlier, then what would have happened if we had our act together and actually had a viable F16 replacement in like 2007? They would have been mass producing these things and left in the dust.... Surely they can develop something better than the F16, even if that better thing is just taking the F16 and developing it into a NGF16....
A coupe of thoughts, I don't buy the copy and paste argument, OK, it looks the same but I am pretty sure the engineering, position,testing,etc are going to be unique to each model. It would be like saying Boeing copied the tanks from an F16 to put them on the SH. They look similar but they have nothing in common. By the way, both Rafale and Eurofighter have tried/tested con-formal's so what's the big deal?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the more interesting fact if these pictures come true is the Chinese are working on a J10C, they seem to understand better than our currant leadership that 4th gen fighters can still be upgraded, are viable and that numbers are important. They aren't putting all their eggs into full on LO and just buying 5th gen fighters....
Jacobite.NZ,
ReplyDeleteRIght now the limiting factor in Chinese jets is China's ability to import modern jet fighter engines from Russia, the fact that a lot of these "low end 4th gen" fighters are designed for export, and R&D costs money. The PRC is NOTHING if not cheap. They will steal any design idea they can use, and feel no shame as they have an ideological basis for their behavior.
Think the Occupy Wall Street kids would have any qualms about stealing your car, phone, and laptop if they were sure they couldn't be prosecuted? Now imagine that sense of class warfare entitlement on a national scale supporting a centralized single party government.
China is rushing headfirst into the first world, and they can get their faster, cheaper, and easier by stealing information. So that is what they will do, and they will have no qualms about it.
And lastly, oftentimes WE DO want aircraft built decades ago. I would have slit some throats to get some A-1 Skyraiders to support my Brigade if I could have.