Chengdu J-10 "Vigorous Dragon" fighter - News only

Forest Green said:
https://www.twz.com/air/chinas-j-10c-fighter-separating-myth-from-reality
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Does Bronk have any sort of relationship with any defense contractor?

I ask because he seems to go at length to down play the J-10C and cast doubt the shoot down occurred inspite of pretty good evidence at least at this point one Rafale was lost (TWZ to their credit do post this)

He makes a point that this is good for the Chinese and European defense industries at the expense of the Russian and American ones yet the 800lb gorilla in the room is at least one, maybe more, European jets were lost to its Chinese counterpart that costs half as much. Regardless of your feelings on what occurred, I kind of expected more form an expert then him trying to push a narrative.

It just feels like everytime he’s consulted it’s a brochure for BAE. He’s not an engineer, pilot or SME he gets most of his knowledge second hand like most of us.
 
F-2 said:
Does Bronk have any sort of relationship with any defense contractor?

I ask because he seems to go at length to down play the J-10C and cast doubt the shoot down occurred inspite of pretty good evidence at least at this point one Rafale was lost (TWZ to their credit do post this)

He makes a point that this is good for the Chinese and European defense industries at the expense of the Russian and American ones yet the 800lb gorilla in the room is at least one, maybe more, European jets were lost to its Chinese counterpart that costs half as much. Regardless of your feelings on what occurred, I kind of expected more form an expert then him trying to push a narrative.

It just feels like everytime he’s consulted it’s a brochure for BAE. He’s not an engineer, pilot or SME he gets most of his knowledge second hand like most of us.
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F-2 said:
It just feels like everytime he’s consulted it’s a brochure for BAE. He’s not an engineer, pilot or SME he gets most of his knowledge second hand like most of us.
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Check Justin Bronk’s works with RUSI to understand from where he gets his information. Definitely, he has different sources than majority of us.
 
Expert is still a human, talking objectively unexpected and rather unpleasant matter; he shouldn't say wrong stuff by default, but this isn't the same as no right to opinion.
Twice so, because areas where rafale could've failed are it's strong parts. Typhoon is worse in them.

Bronk is often quite ... arrogant, but that's more or less basic expectation from Europe for the last couple of centuries. He's nonetheless far more informed than most public speakers.

Finally, he didn't deny. Just pointed out that situation isn't exactly transparent, courtesy of indian side keeping things under wraps(and thus ceding all info initiative, and, potentially, freedom of exhaberation to jubilant Pakistan).
 
TomcatViP said:
how reliable is this piece? I haven´t seen any official quotation in this report for somethings as radical as 40 jets from a country that hasn´t yet sold them any jets.

https://www.globalmilitary.net/air_forces/idn/#gsc.tab=0
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From what I heard 5alert was quoting Intelligenceonline which from I heard from people on SDF to be decently credible and has been around for a while. They are supposed to announce the deal a little over 2 weeks from now, so we'll see if this deal turns out to be true.
 
EmoBirb said:
Aren't they also invested in the KF-21?

Where does Indonesia get all the money from to pay for such a diverse and still decent quality air force?
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yeah it does seem like every year there's some news article linking Indonesia with some new warplane.
Su-35s, KF-21s, Rafales, F-15EX, and now J-10s.

I think a country like Indonesia is large and influential enough to successfully pursue an independent foreign policy, and should ideally be more self reliant in various areas of defense whenever possible. Sticking to the KF-21 is what I would prioritize, as despite troubles, Indonesia is still a partner in its development and receiving some degree of tech transfer. South Korea and Indonesia, despite the recent controversies, has been partners on a number of projects in the past and I think that should continue.
Alternatively, Kaan might be something to look into, given the growing Turkish-Indonesian collaboration, such as one of their recent armored vehicles.

And perhaps one more source that can help provide numbers now, while the KF-21 and Kaan are still being developed, whether that's the J-10s, Rafales, etc.

but they certainly need to improve logistics as they are potentially needing to keep stocks of missiles and spares from US, France, Russia, and China
 
helmutkohl said:
yeah it does seem like every year there's some news article linking Indonesia with some new warplane.
Su-35s, KF-21s, Rafales, F-15EX, and now J-10s.

I think a country like Indonesia is large and influential enough to successfully pursue an independent foreign policy, and should ideally be more self reliant in various areas of defense whenever possible. Sticking to the KF-21 is what I would prioritize, as despite troubles, Indonesia is still a partner in its development and receiving some degree of tech transfer. South Korea and Indonesia, despite the recent controversies, has been partners on a number of projects in the past and I think that should continue.
Alternatively, Kaan might be something to look into, given the growing Turkish-Indonesian collaboration, such as one of their recent armored vehicles.

And perhaps one more source that can help provide numbers now, while the KF-21 and Kaan are still being developed, whether that's the J-10s, Rafales, etc.

but they certainly need to improve logistics as they are potentially needing to keep stocks of missiles and spares from US, France, Russia, and China
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Indonesia and Qatar have a lot in common...

EmoBirb said:
Aren't they also invested in the KF-21?

Where does Indonesia get all the money from to pay for such a diverse and still decent quality air force?
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A lot of Indonesian arms sales are paid for with commodities including palm oil...
 
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Can you give us a timescale Hesham, and any hints as to what the surprise is? Another combat type, or maybe AEW?
 
Ozair said:
A lot of Indonesian arms sales are paid for with commodities including palm oil...
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Not really. Commodities or barter are only part of the deal, rest have to be settled with green dollars. It's gonna be worse if the country have no actual needs for the commodities, making negotiation so much harder e.g our old Su-35 deal, Russians were asking rubbers, we offer instead other commodities they dont need.

Our current arms procurement of recent are all funded through foreign loans. 2 schemes are availables namely ECA (Export Credit Agency) and FPC (Foreign Private Credit). These are banks or financial institutions owned by the OEM Country which will act as lender. Things like US FMS (Foreign Military Sales) are ECA where US acting as the lender. FPC Is similar as ECA except the Agency handling the loan is not necessarily the same country as OEM.

Comparison between the two are bit difficult but ECA might offers flexibility in payment scheme where grace period is available and annual interest rate is low (e.g BNP Paribas that funds our Rafale deals have annual interest rate of max 2%). FPC in other hand may not have grace period and could have higher interest rate, but can be quickly available. If our own banks (e.g Bank Mandiri, Cayman Island Branch) act as FPC, we can tap straight into our Forex reserve as funding source. However this might end up giving us hard time to conduct monetary policies as well our forex got tapped for funding the equipment.
 
As far as I know the Chinese claim that their J-10 fighter is unstable in pitch like for example the JAS 39 Gripen. However, that does not seem to be the case: Because if you look at the way it’s being flown in this video:


You can see that even though the canard is not unloaded, it’s still perfectly possible to return to level flight from post stall high aoa maneuvering even with what looks to be quite moderate control surface deflections.

But if the J-10 truly was unstable in pitch, then it would at the very least need to unload the canard and have large elevon down deflection on the trailing edges to recover, which does not seem to be needed.

For comparison, you can see how a truly unstable canard like the JAS 39 Gripen would have to deflect control surfaces to recover from a high aoa situation: Full elevens down and unload the canard as seen in this footage from the second Gripen crash:


But as can be seen, even this was not enough to achieve the necessary pitch down moment to recover in time. The Gripen’s FBW system was not mature when this crash took place and it should never have gotten into this high aoa situation in the first place because it’s very difficult for a truly unstable jet to get out of a situation like this.

And by comparing the J-10’s and the Gripen’s behavior in these videos, we can conclude that the J-10 is not unstable at all as the Chinese claim, but quite stable in pitch.

And what this means is that it will have very poor sustained turn performance due to the combination of it being both a low aspect ratio configuration and stable in pitch to boot, much like the J37 VIggen.

So in conclusion, while the J-10’s canard configuration and post stall maneuvering at airshows may look cool, its aerodynamics are decidedly old school and its energy retention and sustained maneuvering performance will be very poor compared to modern jets that are truly unstable in pitch.
 
1. TVC
2. Not a representative model of the line (test a/c)
3. Rearward CG can vary starting from an inch of offset. Good luck seeing that with the naked eye ;)

Then the J-10 relatively large size, small delta and weaker engine would make it inherently a less performing aircraft in sustained turns. There is no magics.

However, the figures performed at airshow with that particular test aircraft showed pretty clearly that China had aquired a top of the crop level In FCS.

And then, the Eagle A to E models are frwd CG... Good luck arguing their sustained turn rate is subpar...
 
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TomcatViP said:
1. TVC
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While there certainly seems to be a J-10 demonstrator aircraft with the TVC WS-10B-3 engine, The PAF J-10C has the standard WS-10B engine without TVC AFAIK.

TomcatViP said:
3. Rearward CG can vary starting from an inch of offset. Good luck seeing that with the naked eye ;)
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I think you misunderstand: You don't "see" the CG: You infer it by how the aircraft behaves when recovering from a high aoa situation which was why I compared the J-10 and Gripen videos.

TomcatViP said:
However, the figures performed at airshow with that aircraft showed pretty clearly that China had aquired a top of the crop level In FCS.
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Those figures done at airshows can be done with a very simple FCS even if the aircraft is stable (e.g. Su-27). Regarding how "state-of-the-art" Chinese FBW systems are I've seen videos of J-10's taxiing with the FBW trying to compensate the pitch angle on the ground! :D
 
AndersJ said:
Those figures done at airshows can be done with a very simple FCS even if the aircraft is stable (e.g. Su-27). Regarding how "state-of-the-art" Chinese FBW systems are I've seen videos of J-10's taxiing with the FBW trying to compensate the pitch angle on the ground! :D
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You do realise these aircraft deflect their control surfaces on the ground for FCS checks. Also first time I've seen someone claim Su-27 is a stable design. Probably do some basic research first.
 
Regarding FBW on the ground, well, that's a mistake all Canards design bureau did, including those in Europe...

Regarding the other parts of your comment, I think you misunderstood me yourself, and I am very surprised reading back my post, I am specifically talking about that demonstrator unless when stating otherwise.
 
Tomboy said:
You do realise these aircraft deflect their control surfaces on the ground for FCS checks. Also first time I've seen someone claim Su-27 is a stable design. Probably do some basic research first.
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TomcatViP said:
Regarding FBW on the ground, well, that's a mistake all Canards design bureau did, including those in Europe...

Regarding the other parts of your comment, I think you misunderstood me yourself, and I am very surprised reading back my post, I am specifically talking about that demonstrator unless when stating otherwise.
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F-2 said:
When the J-10 first entered service I remember pretty consist antidotes that it was superior horizontally to the J-11A and Su-30. I think it would have to be unstable to achieve that.
View attachment 776496
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Testing control surfaces on the ground is one thing: You can see that being done on stable aircraft as well but that is not what I'm talking about. Here you see it:


Look at the canard trying to "compensate" for the change in pitch angle while still on the ground. ;)

And no, "all Canard design bureau did" is wrong:


Note canard is fixed and does not "fly" on the ground: Especially evident when second Gripen taxies out at about 20 s into video and goes over a bump. So with good systems design it can be done.
 
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The applause gave Song Wencong great encouragement. He cleared his throat and continued, "In the last meeting, I briefly talked about the idea of a canard-type aircraft layout. Afterwards, experts raised many questions to me, and we conducted special research. Of course, it is no secret that the canard-type layout also has its shortcomings. When we adopt a statically stable layout, the lift-to-drag ratio is not more advantageous than that of a conventional layout." Song Wencong took a sip of water and continued, "According to our research on the tactical performance of the canard-type layout, in order to give full play to the advantages of this layout, we must adopt static instability, because it is the opposite of static stability and is something that a normal statically stable layout does not have... "
"We have been studying this issue for many years and have acquired a large amount of test data. When designing the new J-3, we intend to relax the static stability, reduce the wing area, and reduce the weight. In this way, the maneuverability can be improved. This is our new J-3 plan... Of course, we still need to do a lot of work."

There was warm applause again in the meeting hall.

"As far as I know, there is no theoretical and practical basis for statically unstable aircraft in my country's aircraft development, and most countries in the world dare not adopt it. How confident are you in proposing this design?" An expert raised this question at the discussion meeting.

"According to data from the United States, Britain and other countries, static instability designs carry considerable risks. Even in their third-generation aircraft designs, the stability is merely relaxed to zero. Mr. Song, if our static instability technology fails to pass the test, won't all your efforts in this design be wasted?" another expert asked.

"We are also very cautious about this issue. If others don't do it, we can't say we can't try it. Of course, in addition to having to overcome this difficulty, we have also arranged a plan with a way out." Song Wenting picked up the small aircraft model again and gestured, "If the static instability technology cannot pass the test at that time, we can only reduce the canard area on the basis of this plan, and keep the rest unchanged. Then we can change this plan to static stability transition. This is our new J-V plan. When the conditions for relaxing the static stability of the flight control system are mature, we will restore the static instability plan."
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From J-10A designer biography
 
AndersJ said:
And no, "all Canard design bureau did" is wrong:

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you are probably too young to remember how this was corrected afterward but it stayed like that for a considerable time until most manufacturers became aware of FBW flaws flapping canards and tailplanes on the ground.
When Dynamic lift surged in the piper of Fluid Flow engineers, particularly those working on Canard airplanes, people became aware of many design flaws and variables that they had wrongly discarded (any engineers with a rotorcraft experience would have pointed at the problem but the industry at that time (and today) was/being so sectarian, nobody heard the call), and that was part of it.
 
F-2 said:
From J-10A designer biography
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That was a very heartwarming story but I fail to see any support for the J-10 being unstable in pitch in it. It talks about the advantages of doing this and plans, but nothing else.

TomcatViP said:
you are probably too young to remember how this was corrected afterward but it stayed like that for a considerable time until most manufacturers became aware of FBW flaws flapping canards and tailplanes on the ground.
When Dynamic lift surged in the piper of Fluid Flow engineers, particularly those working on Canard airplanes, people became aware of many design flaws and variables that they had wrongly discarded (any engineers with a rotorcraft experience would have pointed at the problem but the industry at that time (and today) was/being so sectarian, nobody heard the call), and that was part of it.
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Well I see that @Arjen beat me to it, but as my homepage says, I'm a retired aeronautical engineer having worked on the JAS 39 Gripen so it's not likely that I'm too young to remember is it? In addition, I'm old and experienced enough to recognize aerodynamic gobbledygook when I see it and nothing in what you wrote makes any sense at all. So this is going nowhere and we just have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.
 
https://m.fx361.com/news/2020/0708/11954917.html
J-10B TVC paper

During the "13th Five-Year Plan", a series of key technologies were conquered through the implementation of the thrust vector demonstration and verification project of the J-10B fighter jet in China, and fully realized the verification of over-air stall flight, completing the research content completed by many projects over the country for many years. On November 6, 2018, the J-10B axial symmetric thrust vector verification aircraft (single-shot, duck layout, relaxed static stability) completed five internationally recognized typical stall mover flight displays such as "Cobra" in one go at the 12th Zhuhai Air Show, marking the core key of the thrust vector of Chinese fighter jets. Major breakthroughs have been made in technical and engineering capabilities, and have reached the international leading level in key technologies such as comprehensive flight/engine control.
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China adopts static instability, duck layout, single-engine aircraft J-10B as the platform, and is equipped with advanced axial symmetrical thrust vector engine. For the first time and comprehensively, it has completed the flight verification of many fields such as large-angle over-stall maneuver flight, forward matching, integrated flight/engine control, etc., which fully reflects China's field. Technical advancedness and technical maturity; On November 6, 2018, the J-10B thrust vector verification machine successfully demonstrated five internationally recognized typical stalled maneuver flights such as "Cobra", "Large Angle 360° Rolling", "Hummmer", "Herbst" and "Falling Leaves" at the 12th Zhuhai Air Show. (Figure 3 ~ Figure 7, picture from the Internet), which marks that China's thrust vector fighter design technology has broken through the long-standing technical bottleneck and reached the level of engineering application, laying a solid technical foundation for the subsequent development of a series of tactical uses and even advanced platform concepts.
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AndersJ said:
Regarding how "state-of-the-art" Chinese FBW systems are I've seen videos of J-10's taxiing with the FBW trying to compensate the pitch angle on the ground!
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You cannot outright equate that to being Chinese FBW systems being bad though. They probably didn't see much value in their use case for implementing a system that prevents the canards from moving on the ground. Without a good FBW system airframes like the J-36 or J-XDS wouldn't even be able to take to the skies, and they already have gone through multiple test flights (some with the gear retracted and flying at higher speeds) and the J-XDS especially with the variable wingtips would require an especially good FBW.

Regarding the J-10's potential aerodynamic deficiencies this is an airframe developed in late 80s-early 90s China. Western nations during this era had access to much more advanced wind tunnels, software, etc. While in China's case it was literally engineers with ragged tank-tops with holes in them trying to do the best that they could. It's also possible that there is differing design requirements compared to a typical Eurocanard, which makes sense as their operating theater is vastly different. There are benefits and drawbacks to any aerodynamic design.

With the J-10B and J-10C they've already compensated with much more powerful engines as well as varying degrees of controlling the weight and building new airframes out of composites, but they cannot change the fundamental airframe design itself or CG because it wouldn't be the J-10 anymore and the costs aren't worth it, especially as there are new jets already slaved to eventually phase them out (See J-35).

Still, the J-10 was definitely good enough for what China wanted at the time. The J-10A was reported to destroy Sino-Flankers in DACT back when they were first introduced in BFM, and also the later J-11B which was lighter and with more powerful engines also lost against the J-10B. In addition to winning BVR, the J-10C also won decisively against the export Su-35S in WVR scenario in the Golden Helmet DACT exercises. Actually, a J-10C won the Golden Helmet for three consecutive years flying against fighters like the Su-35S and J-16, and these are Flankers that have upgraded engines and newer, lighter airframes (in the J-16's case.)

A PAF pilot commented that in the first 30 seconds of an BFM engagement between the J-10CE and their F-16s, the J-10CE firmly held an massive advantage while the F-16 was completely left defensive, and only after 30 seconds could the F-16 slowly crawl back (provided that the J-10CE does not have a HOBS PL-10 slaved to HMD to use.) The only thing is we don't know if it's a F-16A/B or a F-16C/D.

And after being embarrassed by the Gripen in Falcon-Strike 2015 flying with the J-11A, the PLAAF later sent J-10s which apparently had much more desirable results, especially with the J-10C in 2019.

https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/fla...-happened-at-the-falcon-strike-2015-exercise/
Regarding the FBW quirk, the J-20 does the same thing when taxiing, so does the J-20 have a bad FBW system?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqx_FtdEHfM&t=94s&ab_channel=SuperflankerStudio
 
cft4201 said:
A PAF pilot commented that in the first 30 seconds of an BFM engagement between the J-10CE and their F-16s, the J-10CE firmly held an massive advantage while the F-16 was completely left defensive, and only after 30 seconds could the F-16 slowly crawl back (provided that the J-10CE does not have a HOBS PL-10 slaved to HMD to use.) The only thing is we don't know if it's a F-16A/B or a F-16C/D.
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It is typical of delta designed fighter : they have a big instantaneous turn rate, but they loose energy in doing so.
A french Mirage 2000 pilot explain the same, saying it had to take the lead over F16 in the first turns, if not the F16 with a best sustain turn rate, won.
Coupled canard reduced the gap in instantaneous turn rate, but I think it remains globally the same.
 
cft4201 said:
You cannot outright equate that to being Chinese FBW systems being bad though. They probably didn't see much value in their use case for implementing a system that prevents the canards from moving on the ground. Without a good FBW system airframes like the J-36 or J-XDS wouldn't even be able to take to the skies, and they already have gone through multiple test flights (some with the gear retracted and flying at higher speeds) and the J-XDS especially with the variable wingtips would require an especially good FBW.
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Moving the canard unnecessarily on the ground wears bearings and lowers canard servo life. But for sure, it’s not a deal breaker but still an indication of system maturity I think. Then regarding making a FBW system for the J-36 and J-XDS: Making a FBW that allows a configuration like that to fly in level flight and in mild maneuvering would not be that difficult. Making one that can handle large degrees of negative instability in pitch with margins for large combinations of alfa and beta and derivates thereof in gusty conditions would be. So from what I've seen of the J-10 and until we see the J-36 and J-XDS pulling off some hefty maneuvers, I remain unimpressed.

cft4201 said:
Regarding the J-10's potential aerodynamic deficiencies this is an airframe developed in late 80s-early 90s China. Western nations during this era had access to much more advanced wind tunnels, software, etc. While in China's case it was literally engineers with ragged tank-tops with holes in them trying to do the best that they could. It's also possible that there is differing design requirements compared to a typical Eurocanard, which makes sense as their operating theater is vastly different. There are benefits and drawbacks to any aerodynamic design.
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Absolutely: China seems to be spending a lot of money trying to catch up. But IMHO that’s exactly what they are doing: Trying to catch up with the standard set by Western state-of-the-art aeronautical systems engineering. Russia never got there. Maybe China will. Time will tell.

cft4201 said:
With the J-10B and J-10C they've already compensated with much more powerful engines as well as varying degrees of controlling the weight and building new airframes out of composites, but they cannot change the fundamental airframe design itself or CG because it wouldn't be the J-10 anymore and the costs aren't worth it, especially as there are new jets already slaved to eventually phase them out (See J-35).
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At SAAB in the 1980’s there was a joke going around that went something like this: “Do you know what characterizes American aerodynamics?” The answer was “Add more power!”. The thing is you can make a barn door fly with sufficient power, and the J-10 high alfa aerobatics I’ve seen are along those lines: Probably done with maybe 10% fuel in the tanks with max AB and then quickly down to land on fumes after the show is over. But I agree with your analysis: The pitch stability/instability is selected very early on in the design phase and is basically fixed after that since moving the CG or lifting surfaces later on is extremely difficult and costly so you are better off doing a new airplane.

cft4201 said:
Still, the J-10 was definitely good enough for what China wanted at the time. The J-10A was reported to destroy Sino-Flankers in DACT back when they were first introduced in BFM, and also the later J-11B which was lighter and with more powerful engines also lost against the J-10B. In addition to winning BVR, the J-10C also won decisively against the export Su-35S in WVR scenario in the Golden Helmet DACT exercises. Actually, a J-10C won the Golden Helmet for three consecutive years flying against fighters like the Su-35S and J-16, and these are Flankers that have upgraded engines and newer, lighter airframes (in the J-16's case.)

A PAF pilot commented that in the first 30 seconds of an BFM engagement between the J-10CE and their F-16s, the J-10CE firmly held an massive advantage while the F-16 was completely left defensive, and only after 30 seconds could the F-16 slowly crawl back (provided that the J-10CE does not have a HOBS PL-10 slaved to HMD to use.) The only thing is we don't know if it's a F-16A/B or a F-16C/D.

And after being embarrassed by the Gripen in Falcon-Strike 2015 flying with the J-11A, the PLAAF later sent J-10s which apparently had much more desirable results, especially with the J-10C in 2019.
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So Chinese sources say their indigenous J-10 is better than the Russian designed Su-35 and wins a Chinese award called the “Golden Helmet” three consecutive years? Well who would have guessed? I wonder how the indigenous Chinese aviation industry would have fared if the evaluation went the other way? ;)

Same goes for a PAF J-10C pilot’s claim regarding the F-16. If you interview a PAF F-16 pilot OTOH he would probably say the exact opposite. I’m sure Greek Air Force pilots who fly the Mirage 2000 and F-16 also differ in their opinions on which is the best. Pilots tend to defend their rides. In addition, @BonPlan2 already covered the instantaneous versus sustained issue nicely. Added to that I can say that SwAF pilots who flew the J35 Draken and AJ & JA37 Viggen (good instantaneous turns, bad sustained) used to say that you had to get the job done quickly or you were toast. But a modern aircraft configuration can be designed to do both and in fact the Russian Mig-29/Su-27 conventional layout (also mostly used by the US) is IMHO better than a canard.

And when it comes to canards, and even though I’m a Swede, I’m no fan and I’ve written before on this forum about that. In fact, Sweden’s leading aerodynamicist at the time Gripen was in the making went public with his critique and was in favour of a more F-16-like design which you can see on my homepage here.

cft4201 said:
Regarding the FBW quirk, the J-20 does the same thing when taxiing, so does the J-20 have a bad FBW system?
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The J-20 certainly looks the part. But how stealthy is it? Is the RCS really as good as it looks? And how good is Chinese FSS radome technology compared Western? Even if you see an AESA radar on a Chinese fighter, how good is it and how good is the signaling processing behind it? And how good is the weaponry and the EW suite? I think we have good indications of how Eastern made military gear stacks up against Western in the Ukraine conflict and now recently in Iran: One former superpower failed to gain air superiority even when going all in while Israel OTOH gained undisputed air superiority and basically shut down Iran’s vaunted Russian made AA systems. So far I’m still betting my money on Western made gear, but it will be interesting to see how far China can take it. Time will tell.
 

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