History Of Sino Canard Fighter Jet "VIGOROUS DRAGON" J-10

Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group to Produce 1,200 J-10 Fighters

J-10A

J-10B Fighter Jet In Production

Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group will produce a total of 1,200 J-10 fighters for the PLA Force to counter F-16 fighters over the Taiwan Strait and Western Pacific, according to our sister paper Want Daily.

The Moscow-based Voice of Russia says the J-10A uses the Lyulka-Saturn AL-31FN turbofan engine imported from Russia due to difficulties in the development of China's WS-10 Taihang engine. The newer J-10B variant will be fitted with the Taihang engine.

Geng Ruguang, senior vice president of China Aviation Industry Corporation, said the development of the J-10, Taihang engine and PL-12 air-to-air missile shows China has become the fourth nation in the world to design and produce its own advanced fighter.

Geng said the J-10B's active phased array airborne radar enables the fighter to track six targets and engage four of them simultaneously. Geng also said the J-10's radar system can also lock on to US F-16 and Japanese F-2 fighters without difficulty. Furthermore, the PL-12 air-to-air missile designed for the J-10 boasts similar specs to the US-built AIM-120 air-to-air missile used by the F-16A/B fighters of Taiwan's air force.

Taiwan currently has 388 fighters, of which 145 are F-16A/Bs purchased from the United States. The imbalance in the size of the size of the fighter fleets on opposing sides of the Taiwan Strait is a matter of serious concern for Taiwan's security.

Between 2014 and 2015, 36 J-10B fighters will also be supplied to the Pakistan Air Force under the name FC-20.

 

Pakistan May Speed AF Procurements Despite Economy

ISLAMABAD — Despite its crippling economic situation, Pakistan may be forced to fund its Air Force’s most important procurement programs on an emergency basis, or at least ensure sufficient finances for their regular progress.

Salma Malik, assistant professor in the Department of Defence & Strategic Studies, at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, said the “linkage between economic progress, energy sufficiency and security as well as physical security” has never before been so deeply felt in Pakistan.

This is highlighted by the predicament facing the Air Force, which has not received any finances for its modernization efforts since 2007 under the Armed Forces Development Plan 2025 (AFDP2025).

Also, it has received only a portion of its allocated share of the general defense budget under the recently ousted Pakistan People’s Party government.

In addition to the financial woes, Malik highlights the “qualitative” and “quantitative edge” of the India Air Force developed through “upgrades or procurements.”

Though not dismissing the myriad problems facing the Indians, she particularly highlighted the potential purchase of the French Rafale as the “most concerning for Pakistan.”

However, though she acknowledged that Air Force equipment is very expensive, the length of time between ordering a weapon such as a fighter aircraft and having it enter front-line service, dictates a “sense of urgency.”

 

A PAC JF-17 Thunder

Malik says this was most likely impressed upon Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, by the head of the Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt, during a June 13 meeting, and therefore “some allocation might happen straightaway.”

This emergency funding, Malik believes, could be injected into programs formulated in response to Indian developments, like the AFDP2025, to get them back on track and funded regularly.

If this does come about then the main focus, according to analyst Usman Shabbir of the Pakistan Military Consortium think tank, will be the building of more JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, “and inducting them into service fast to replace old Mirages and F-7 Fishbeds.”

He notes that pre-2007 programs have given the Air Force some breathing space.

“The air defense system has been upgraded with new radars and [command and control nodes, refuelers are in service, AEW&C are inducted, [beyond visual range] capability is acquired, Crotale SAM replacement is inducted.”

However, in the medium to long term, there are still concerns as the planned number of JF-17s has been slashed from 275 or 250 down to 150, which will not replace the current obsolete Mirages and F-7s on a one-for-one basis.

 

JF-17 Thunder Performing With LS-6

The J-10B/FC-20 program will also need to start progressing, and there is still a need for long-range SAMs, plus more Il-76 transport aircraft.

The FC-20 was supposed to enter service in the middle of the decade to form a high tech “spear tip” for Pakistani air power, but there appears to have been no progress with procurement.

 

Pakistani FC-20

Economic revival will dictate most action.

Among other economic woes, Pakistan is gripped by a crippling circular debt problem where the government and independent power producers owe each other huge amounts of money, hampering electricity generation to kick-start the economy.

The new government pledged to end this situation within 60 days of coming to power.

Analyst and former Army officer Ikram Sehgal is optimistic this will happen now that the previous government has been ousted from power.

“I have confidence that the economy will be turned around,” he said.

“The Pakistan economy is the most resilient in the world. If the [government of the PPP] could not bring it to its knees, then nothing can. It’s a question of management.”

China’s Military Capabilities Closer to France, not the U.S.

2013-07-12 — Despite talk of a “rising China” and allegations that it is stealing massive amounts of defense trade secrets, the East Asian nation is still far from equal militarily to the United States, an expert on the country said July 10.

“If I had to look 10 years out, I think you’re going to see something like what the French can do today. Nothing like what the English did with our help in the Balkans,” said Larry Wortzel, author of the new book, “The Dragon Extends Its Reach: Chinese Military Power Goes Global.”

There is a deep incongruity between the China and the United States, he said during a presentation of the book at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

“At least for China, they see us as the greatest potential threat,” said Wortzel.

As for potential conflicts with the United States, the most likely scenario would be over sovereignty in places such as Taiwan, or confrontations with allies such as Japan.

“They’re trying very hard to avoid that,” said Wortzel. “I think the likelihood of a major conflict remains relatively low.”

China is a keen observer of U.S. strategies, he noted.

“What they did was essentially watch how we handled the war in the Baltics, and watched how we handled the war in Iraq, and they read everything the United States published on the topic and used that as a model,” said Wortzel. “They focus on us and they focus on our technology.”

“I think the People’s Liberation Army and its Navy have learned a lot in the past few years,” he added. “One of the things I’ve learned from all this research is, if you go through enough articles from Chinese universities by scholars, you really see the guts of some of the ideas and doctrines.”

The Chinese have discovered the importance of overseas military bases. “They need places they can go to reliably for repairs, for refueling, for food,” said Wortzel.

He advised that close attention be paid to the nation’s ability to employ military forces, especially in proximity to U.S. naval bases. “You will see the capacity to deploy ships outside bastions close to the coast that can actually hold parts of U.S. ports — embarkation ports — at risk,” he added.

According to Wortzel, a great deal of what the Chinese are doing is “pretty transparent,” but the United States is lacking in its knowledge of the nation’s intentions or what kind of escalatory action would trigger a conflict with it. Of China’s plans: “They want to deny the U.S. the ability to operate near China, and then they want to support thei

Chengdu J-10/FC-20 Aircraft for Pakistan Airforce

The Chengdu J-10 (Jian-10, or F-10 in its export name) is a single-engine, all-weather, high-performance multirole fighter aircraft capable of both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles. The aircraft was designed by Chengdu-based 611 Aircraft Design Institute and manufactured by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation (CAIC). The aircraft is available in single-sear fighter (A variant) and tandem two-seat fighter-trainer (B variant) versions. The aircraft first flew in 1998 and entered the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) service in 2003. About 50~70 examples are expected to have been delivered by 2006. These planes are powered by a Russian-made AL-31FN turbofan engine, while on later production variants this will be replaced by Chinese indigenous WS-10A “TaiHang” turbofan. The total number of production may be as many as 300.
The J-10 development programme, also known as “Project 8610”, officially began in 1986 to counter the fourth-generation fighters such as MiG-29 and Su-27 then being introduced by the Soviet Union. The aircraft was initially designed as an air-superiority fighter aircraft but changing requirements later shift the development towards a multirole fighter. It was widely speculated that the J-10’s initial design was based on the cancelled Israeli Aerospace Industry (IAI) Lavi lightweight fighter. Despite the denial by both Chinese and Israelis, the high resemblance of the two aircraft appears to support this claim. Russia provided key assistance to the aircraft development after 1990 by helping Chengdu engineers integrate the Lyulka-Saturn AL-31F turbofan engine into the aircraft.
The J-10 is single-engine fighter with a rectangle belly air intake, low-mounted delta wings, and front canard wings. The airframe possesses a large vertical tail, as well as canards placed near the cockpit. The air intake is rectangular in shape, and is located beneath the fuselage. The aircraft is the first Chinese-made fighter to be fitted with a large two-piece bubble canopy to provide 360 degrees of visual coverage for the pilot. If necessary, the aircraft could be fitted with an in-flight refuelling probe.
The J-10 fighter represents the highest achievement of the Chinese aviation industry today. The aircraft achieves high manoeuvrability by using a large amount of composite materials in its fuselage and wing structures to reduce the its overall weight and thus increase the thrust-to-weight ratio. The aircraft design is aerodynamically unstable, to provide a high level of agility, low drag and enhanced lift. The pilot controls the aircraft through a computerised digital, quadruplex (four-channel) “fly-by-wire” (FBW) system, which provides artificial stabilisation and gust elevation to give good control characteristics throughout the flight envelope. The aircraft’s cockpit avionics and fire-control system are also believed to be superior to those of other Chinese indigenous fighter aircraft.
In the late 1990s, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence estimated that the J-10 could be as manoeuvrable as the U.S. F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. With its advanced “fly-by-wire” system, the J-10 may have a better aerodynamic performance compared to the Russian Su-27, which still uses the conventional control method. The Hong Kong-based newspaper Sing Tao Jih Pao reported on 29 May 2004 that during an aerial war game conducted by the PLAAF, the J-10 fighter has beaten the Su-27 fighter in all three rounds of “dogfight” in the mid-air.
The J-10A single-seat fighter entered service with the PLAAF in 2003, with 50~70 examples delivered so far. The production continues at a rate of 2~3 units per month. The two-seat variant J-10B joined the service In 2006. The aircraft may become available for export market by 2007~08.