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Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation introduce J-10

By Pavel | January 20, 2007 on 2:10 pm | In # Avia news |

China’s Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation had officially introduced their new production recently, the J-10.
The J-10 is known to be a milestone or even a Great Leap Forward in China’s aviation industry.
The J-10 is an all whether operational fighter which has been catergorized to 3rd generation, with 11 hardpoints for 4500kg of weapon loading weight, fuel tanks and ECM equipment, it is capable of carrying both the Chinese and Russian weaponry, including the Chinese PL-8,PL-11,PL-12,Russian R-73,R-77 and other anti-ship and anti-radiation missiles.
The standard facilities on board include a digital, quadruplex fly by wire system, LCD MFD displays and for the first time the Hands on throttle and stick controls are being included in a Chinese fighter.
The are currently two versions for the J-10, single seater and the double seaters. The early versions of the J-10 will be powered by Russian AL-31FN engines but in the future the J-10s will switch to equip the Chinese WS-10A engines as soon as they are being proved reliable and being certified by the Chinese, authority.
The J-10 has a maximum speed of approximately Mach 2.0 at altitude, and it has got a huge potential to be developed to an even more advanced fighter with capabilities more similar and closer to the modern western top 3rd generation fighter or may even go beyond to the level of 4th generation. The known primary users who will operate the J-10s are the PLAAF and the Pakistan Air Force.

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I’m not flaming anyone but after looking at this fighter, it has characteristics that were ripped from other fighters; in particular, the Typhoon, F-16, Grippen, and the Su-27-family.

Anyone else see the close resemblance?

Comment by Steve — January 20, 2007 #
The J-10 is a 3rd generation fighter? Isn’t it supposed to be a 4th one? 3rd generation (MiG-23, F-4) is completely obsolete by now.

Comment by Carlo — January 21, 2007 #
The design especially is heavily influenced by the Typhoon. But if it works it works. Still a bit under powered from what I understand. The Chinese have trying very hard to get a hold of the newest F-16 engines. I saw that on the news!

Comment by Rich — January 21, 2007 #
Yea,but not too much the Grippen,from far,visually it looks like the Typhoon,but mainly I think it had referred to the F-16,the rudder,the front and the back landing gears.Well might have done that in because they had no choice,Pakistan failed to get new F-16s,and since they are one of the investors of the project,they might have requested the Chengdu factory to include F-16 characteristics in the J-10,and this point is futher strengthen as Pakistan had really passed one of their F-16s to China for research.But Su-27,I think it is only the engine which it shares the same one with the Su-27..but it won’t be for long,because in the future,the production of the J-10s is going to equip them with WS-10A engines instead,which are produced by themselves.

Comment by TovarishSamsonShekovich — January 21, 2007 #
I have to explain one thing,the reason why it is mentioned as the 3rd generation is because the article is being edited with the reference to the Chinese infos,and in China,there are only 4 generations,which they consider F-22 as 4th generation.So Carlo,you are right,the J-10 is a 4th generation,but not in China.

Comment by TovarishSamsonShekovich — January 21, 2007 #
The J-10 is a 4th+ gen fighter. Believed to be inspired by the IAI Lavi which was basically a more advanced F-16 designed with alot of input from IAF pilots, with 75-85% of parts from US.
The J-10, being the most advanced aircraft ever designed in China was based on all their experience building the J-9 and J-11(Su-27). No doubt that Pakistan provided F-16s to help with the design.

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/aircraft/lavi/Lavi.html
http://www.sinodefence.com/airforce/fighter/j10.asp

Comment by Nikolay — January 21, 2007 #
Very interesting the new Chinese fighter J-10, there attracts attention of me the advance that has had the air industry China.

Two consultations only:
Was the fighter J-10 designed by a team of Chinese or Russian engineers or a miscellany of both?
Is the reactor WS-10A a copy under license of the AL-31F?
Thank you

Comment by Ricardo Cornejo — January 22, 2007 #
Tovarish,
How is it that the F-22 is 4th-gen? I thought it is 5th.

Comment by Braxton — January 22, 2007 #
The chinese simply brough the IAI Lavi design, wich is an advanced figther made by israel based on the F-16 airstream, that`s why the tail, the air intake onfiguration and the nose strongly resembles the F-16. The delta-canard configuration used by the israelis was very popular by the 80`s, being used by the grippen, rafale and typhoon.

Comment by franz von partidas — January 22, 2007 #
This plane kills in BF2!!!

Comment by DeSoLaTe — January 23, 2007 #
To answer Ricardo’s questions.The J-10 was designed by Chinese engineers,Mr.Song Wencong as the Chief designer and Mr.Yang Wei the designer of the Fly-by-wire system.but of course,they may be some reference to some western aircrafts such as the Lavi and the F-16,but not exact copy,just for reference and apply the similar concepts.
And the production of the WS-10A is a fully independent production,it does not need a licence from Russia as it was not designed in Russia.However at the moment,the production of J-10 uses Russian AF-31F engines,but later on it will switch to the indigenous WS-10A as soon as it obtains the approval from the Chinese Authorities.

Comment by TovarishSamsonShekovich — January 23, 2007 #
The J-10 does look very similar to the JAS-39, and F-16, but that does not neccessarily mean that the J-10 is a “copy” of them. The reason that these aircraft look alike is because similar performance requirements usually result in similar designs.

Example: The FA-18A and Mig-29 have a resemblance to one another because thier requirements for propulsion, stability, and loadout were about the same. They are both twin-engined, have twin stabilizers, look-down shoot-down ability, and large leading-edge-root-extensions. The combat roles they were designed around are similar as well.

So basically, if the J-10 looks like a JAS-39 or F-16, it is because Chengdu had the same design objectives. After all, the same laws of aerodynamics and physics apply to EVERY design, regardless of nationality.

Comment by Blacktail — January 28, 2007 #
Yea,very often,there is only one way of solving a problem,the Russian engineers also made such feedback when they were said to be copying the B-1 design on their Tu-160….:-)

Comment by TovarishSamsonShekovich — January 30, 2007 #
Your Site IS Beautiful………………….. long life for Sukhoi.

Comment by KARIM — February 1, 2007 #
TovarishSamsonShekovich, while the Tu-160 might look like the B-1 look at the performance specs…

The Tu-160 > B-1 in every aspect.

Comment by Steve — February 3, 2007 #
I believe in the future, there may be long life for all Russian aircraft manufacturers because the state is trying to merge all Russian aircraft manufacturers together to consolidate the aviation industry in Russia,rather than each one remaining individual,some with more capital,some with lesser.The measure intends to make Russian aircraft industry more competitive and to achieve economies of scale within the industry.

Comment by TovarishSamsonShekovich — February 3, 2007 #
“Pakistan failed to get new F-16s,and since they are one of the investors of the project, they might have requested the Chengdu factory to include F-16 characteristics in the J-10.”
TovarishSamsonShekovich — January 21, 2007

Well, to make it correct, J-10/殲-10 is NOT a PLA’s joint venture with Pakistan. J-10/殲-10 is a wholly independent project by the Chinese engineer. The supposed joint project with Pakistan should be FC-1/JF-17 (for Pakistan’s role in the developmental stage, it mainly played as fund investor/partner). The major developmental process of JF-17 project has been completed. The first two JF-17 jets（nickname “Thunder” by PAF）have been delivered to Pakistan in early last month (early March, 2007). Pakistan has announced plan to purchase 250 JF-17, 100 more than she had originally planned, by 2015.

As stated above, J-10/殲-10 is a wholly independent project by the Chinese engineer. Furthermore, most people seem to over-exaggerate the role of Lavi design in the developmental process of J-10/殲-10. WS-10A is also a wholly independent production by Chinese engineer, too（not a licensed product）. WS-10A, as matter of fact, is equipped with more thrust power than AL-31F/FN（129.45 Kn vs. 122.58 kN in afterburning）. There are mainly two safety reasons set it back. Firstly, It takes 30 seconds more than AL-31F/FN to ignite the engine before the jet taking off (90 secondes vs. 60 seconds). Secondly, it has lower latitude to re-ignite the engine when as it extinguish in the air.

J-10/殲-10 is primarily designed as air superiority fighter, though it can handle multi-role as the F-16 does. J-10/殲-10 could be more advanced than most people think/believe. To my estimation judging from everything I can gather, J-10’s capability is superior to F-16 C/D Block60. During in over dozen times of PLA-A combat contest in the past years, J-10/殲-10 beat Su-27, J-11 and Su-30MKK every time. It certainly shocked the PLA-A officers. （I was shocked by J-10/殲-10－the Fierce Dragon, too） According to some undocumented source, the PLA-A officers even came across to complain to Russia general about the somewhat less advanced equipment, like radar, on the Su-30MKK. For now, new variant of J-10/殲-10 is under development. Believe me, the J/殲 series fighter is going to be as pronounced as the MiG-, F-, and even Su- series fighter, etc in the aviation combat fighter circle in the coming decades.

Comment by Chen-Long — April 15, 2007 #
I want to tell somethong to Chen-Long.You cannot tell that the J-10 had defeated the Su-27(even if that model of Su-27 wasn’t recent)only because you are chinese(I think).It is not possible that a completely new airplane can defeat an historical one.Look at the techniche characteristics of the planes and then you can talk about them.

Comment by Goran — May 10, 2007 #
i think i can see the experimental mig-1.42 in the design, especially the front end of the craft. the tail end though, does resemble that of the f-16. it would be nice to see this plane with thrust vector and compared with say a refale or grippen.

Comment by Kabugaw — July 4, 2007 #