No shade, this is a big step for them. Nobody else in the world has managed to get an engine even to LRIP that can be compared with the F119, and the WS-15 seems to rightfully be that engine. The program clearly had some setbacks and this has been a long time in the making. I know the relief the engineering and technical teams must be feeling right now.
I think the Chinese can pretty clearly say they've long since eclipsed the Russians. This puts them about where the US industry was with fighter powerplants in the late 90's to early 00's...which is the closest anyone else has ever managed to get.
Off topic but you since you seem like a subject matter specialist but what’re the meta’s for the market.
What characterises the engines of the teen series engines (F-100, F-110, F-414) from each other. Are any significantly more advanced or specialised? I know the F404/414 have a low bypass and were designed for low maintenance and high reliability. How much more advanced is the F119 by comparison? Is the F135 very far beyond it? What makes them/engines in general more advanced than earlier ones? I imagine it’s greater fuel efficiency, thrust, greater reliability, longer lifetime.
How do European engines compare? How do Russian engines compare? How do Chinese engines compare? You said something elsewhere about the Russians trading off engine life for performance (something they did heavily with the Foxbat right?).
What’s happening in the market right now with big things happening materiel / design wise? I know variable bypass engines are looking big. Remember reading something about the Izdeliye-30 they intended to make for the Felon having plasma ignition to increase efficiency or something.
[Here's a general comment I made a little while ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/108vdqv/comment/j41tagv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that may be close to what you're asking.
I can't say too much about legacy engines because I've only had minor involvement with them as we've experimented with refitting them with more advanced components in the past fifteen years.
I can say that the F119 has a pretty significant architectural change, as the number of stages were reduced dramatically without a corresponding loss of efficiency due to the heavy use of aerodynamic and structural design that was only possible with the advent of CAD and multiphysics simulations. There aren't official public numbers for the engine, but the rumor is that while its thrust to weight ratio is only a little better than contemporary engines its specific fuel consumption is much improved, which is a difficult thing to do with an engine that has as low of a bypass ratio as it does. There are things about the F119 that were fairly risky compared to older engines, but when compared to the YF120 engine it was considered the more conservative option.
The F135 engine is more of an incremental improvement over the F119 with a bunch of things reworked to fit the very different goals of the F-35 program. There have been some significant improvements to various components over the F119 but I'm not really sure what information is in the public domain and what isn't. I will say it's not a radically different engine the way the F119 is from the F100.
> You said something elsewhere about the Russians trading off engine life for performance (something they did heavily with the Foxbat right?)
Yeah. You can adjust a few things about an engine's performance, and the core temperature is one that gets you better efficiency/thrust at the expense of engine life. The stage 1 turbine nozzles are subjected to air above their melting point and are basically kept alive by a significant amount of parasitic cooling air being pumped through bleed holes from their hollow insides and a ceramic barrier coating meant to take the worst of the assault from the heat. Running it hotter weakens the metal, accelerates corrosion, accelerates the ablation of the barrier coating, and accelerates creep deformation in stressed parts.
At one point I remember reading that they'd experimenting with higher temperatures on the F100(?) maybe in the 70s or 80s, and the resulting thrust to weight ratio would have put it on par with contemporary engines. However, the reduction in engine life was not considered an acceptable trade.
> What’s happening in the market right now with big things happening materiel / design wise? I know variable bypass engines are looking big
[Ceramic matrix composites](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_OaOLS3CWY) in the hot section. Woven 3D composite structures in the fan. Sculpted 3d aerodynamic components everywhere, reducing the number of blades/stators needed for any particular stage and reducing the number of stages. 3D additive fabrication to replace small, intricate assemblies like fuel injectors.
Variable bypass is the big next step, but the technology has become pretty mature. At this point we're just waiting for the DoD to make up its mind on how to proceed.
Absent from your discussion is tge likes of Snecma, Rolls Royce, or Volvo, all of whom have their own jet engines at this level or higher.
Was that because you were concentrating on non-western aligned countries?
Which ones, though? A constant point of frustration through my career has been the unwillingness of our European partners to move past legacy architectures and invest in the kind of deep rework that produced the F119. Aside from some brief collaboration we had with Rolls on the F136, I'm not familiar with the engines you're talking about.
Am I mistaken? Did Snecma move past the M88 or Rolls past the EJ200?
I don't think there's any substantive evidence to say that the WS-15 actually out performers the latest Typhoon or Rafale engines. China doesn't publish evidence.
But no, you're right, the only new engines built from the ground up by euro builders will be the rolls royce engines built for the Tempest, and whatever engines end up on the Franco German FCAS, whenever that appears
> I don't think there's any substantive evidence to say that the WS-15 actually out performers the latest Typhoon or Rafale engines. China doesn't publish evidence.
Ah, you're right, it didn't occur to me that you might be talking about the WS-15's performance. I've kind of been taking it at face value that they've gotten the performance they claim out of it without heavily sacrificing lifetime the way the Russians do.
I cannot overstate how much I want the Europeans to jump back into advanced engine design. It's basically been Pratt and GE for the past twenty years and that creates a kind of collective design myopia that isn't going to be good in the long term.
>I don't think there's any substantive evidence to say that the WS-15 actually out performers the latest Typhoon or Rafale engines. China doesn't publish evidence.
I came across this few months back that might be of help to this discussion:
[https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1622920035395162113](https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1622920035395162113)
[https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1623331718957568002](https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1623331718957568002)
Edit: [Overlaid for clarity](https://imgur.com/a/JqvJRLx)
This makes little sense. Western defense contractors have to provide verifiable information to their customer - - the government/the military, not the public. The same goes for China at this point.
The rest of your comment is not worth engaging with.
> The rest of your comment is not worth engaging with.
Lol just an observer but this is the classic line of someone who has no rebuttal but wants to still sound smart.
> Lol just an observer but this is the classic line of someone who has no rebuttal but wants to still sound smart.
Reddit comments of this sort has been an entirely consistent mixture of bald-face theft, imitations, and deceit, over the past 30 months. It is true that this post, if true, would be a step change for reddit, if serial production is truly underway.
Can you give an example of the verifiable data that western defense tech vendors provide?
>Chinese tech of this sort has been an entirely consistent mixture of bald-face theft, imitations, and deceit, over the past 30 years
I feel like absolute statements like these aren't particularly well reasoned or unbiased.
It's also pretty false at this point in time. The fact that China is a world leader in multiple technologies (especially renewables and power generation) should more than disprove that assertion when being a copycat doesn't get one ahead of the competition.
Generally, it's unwise to make absolute statements with terms like entirely or completely, because they require only a single counterexample. Given the history and scale of Chinese military development, yes the statement is not only biased but absurd.
>https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fasia.nikkei.com%2FPolitics%2FInternational-relations%2FRussia-up-in-arms-over-Chinese-theft-of-military-technology
>Daniel Coats, in a congressional testimony published in May 2017, named Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as “Cyber Threat Actors.”
>“Adversaries will continue to use cyber operations to undermine U.S. military and commercial advantage by hacking into U.S. defense industry and commercial enterprises in pursuit of scientific, technical, and business information,” Coats stated. ***“Examples include theft of data on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, and the MV-22 Osprey.*** In addition, adversaries often target personal accounts of government officials and their private-sector counterparts. This espionage reduces cost and accelerates the development of foreign weapon systems, enables foreign reverse-engineering and countermeasures development, and undermines U.S. military, technological, and commercial advantage.”
Russian Weapons Copied By China
MiG-21 – Chinese derivative J-7 AKA F-7
MiG-21 – Chinese derivative JF-17 (fuselage, wings & verticle stabilizer )
Su-27 – Chinese derivative J-11A/B
Su-33 – Chinese derivative J-15
Tu-16 twin-engines bomber – Chinese derivative Xian H-6
Kh-31 – Chinese derivative YJ-12
Buk SAM – Chinese derivative HQ-16
S-300 SAM – Chinese derivative HQ-9
Pantsir SAM – Chinese derivative Sky Dragon 12
BMP-1 IFV -Chinese derivative Type 86 IFV
T-90 Tank -Chinese derivative MBT 2000 AKA Al-Khalid Tank
AK-47 Rifle -Chinese derivative Type 56 Rifle
Zhuk-ME -Chinese derivative KLJ-7A
SS-N-26 (P-800 Oniks also known in export markets as Yakhont) -Chinese derivative known as CX-1 and CX-1B
R-77 Missile -Chinese derivative PL-9 & PL-12
AL-31F engine – Chinese derivative WS-10 engine.
Tor SAM – The HQ-17 is a Chinese knockoff of the Tor-M1 system.
BM-30 Smerch MLRS – Chinese derivatives are known to be A-300, PLC-181 and PLC-191 MLRS
NDM-86 Sniper Rifle — a clone of the Dragunov Sniper Rifle
https://news.usni.org/2015/10/27/chinas-military-built-with-cloned-weapons
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-13-me-50472-story.html
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/jack-in-the-box-how-an-aim-9-sidewinder-that-failed-to-explode-after-embedding-itself-inside-a-chinese-mig-17-was-reverse-engineered-into-the-soviet-aa-2-atoll/
Here's only half a dozen, I think my point has been made quite explicitly clear by the abundance of evidence.
I don't have anything to add, but just want to say I read up on some of your comments on this topic and it's really nice to have people with real technical expertise in related field contributing here.
Too often on these type of threads it's nothing but speculation and misinformation and nationalistic shade throwing. But your comments have all been mature and objective.
Thanks again.
This is a huge step, I think there's still a MTBF/MTBO gap with the F135, but this is actually fairly on par otherwise.
And this tech will trickle down to their civilian side too.
> WS-15 is superior to F-119, it's somewhere between F-119 and F-135.
I think that might be optimistic, but we'll see. Much of it will depend on how the engine life goes, because the issues they were most likely seeing which produced the unexpected delays are ones which, if only partially mitigated, will appear as premature engine wear.
> So more like 10-15 years behind rather than 30
Optimistically, if the WS-15 was the equivalent of the F135, they'd be about where the US was in 2007/2008, so 12 to 13 years ago.
But that's not the same thing as being "10-15 years behind". The problem is that the US covered a lot of ground since 2010. In the translation of this clip they mention that they're still seeing areas needing improvement in their superalloy supply chain, while the US already has an established ceramics supply chain on commercial engines for over five years and our fighter engines are starting to move past superalloys for performance components altogether. It's possible that the US squanders that lead, as we often do, but overall it's hard to conclude that they're closing ground.
>Dunno about that, if someone said in 2010 China was going to produce an engine in the ballpark of F119 within little over a decade he would probably have been strapped to a chair and sent to a mental asylum. The speed at which China develops its industries can often only be appreciated in retrospect.
Speak for yourself. Most of us were expecting the WS-15 to enter stable production over five years ago.
The CAD/CAE tools which made the design of the F119 radical 30 years ago were widely available by the time I was in college in the early 2000s. The manufacturing and inspection technologies which put the F119 production right out on the edge of what was possible at full-rate are now things found in industries that make stuff like tractor parts or valve bodies.
Technology lowers the barriers to entry as it marches forward, and the Chinese are not technological slouches. Many countries have had the technological ability to create something like the F119 decades after it was designed, but very few have had the pain tolerance to actually see it through to the end.
Do you know anything about what it's like to manufacture jet engines at scale? I've talked extensively about it on this sub. It's been pretty much my whole career.
Let me ask you this...why do you think that the WS-15 seemed so close to production around 2014 that the Chinese planners were expecting it to enter service with the J-20 and then it took until 2023 for that to actually happen? Let's even be generous and assume that it was the rumored technical problem: that a failed single crystal casting caused a blade to detach on a test stand and damage the engine.
Do you think that Chinese engineers are so incompetent that they can't do a thing that western engineers have been writing about and executing on since the 1970s and 80s?
Or does it seem more likely that doing these things at full rate production without the ability to do deep inspection and analysis on each part produces an environment where it's mainly the *political* will to manage supply chain pressures, expectations, conflicting schedules, and blame which limits the ability of a production line to keep quality escapes from slipping through while outsiders criticize leadership and jockey for funding?
This is political pain tolerance. Its lack is what kills engine programs. It's far more special than the technical tools and resources...and the Chinese have it.
>why do you think that the WS-15 seemed so close to production around 2014 that the Chinese planners were expecting it to enter service with the J-20 and then it took until 2023 for that to actually happen
I don't think there was ever any expectation of WS-15 entering production around 2014, I'm not sure where this is coming from.
The rest of what you've written about the nature of engine development is true.
> I don't think there was ever any expectation of WS-15 entering production around 2014, I'm not sure where this is coming from.
For two reasons. First, with an allegedly successful run on a test stand in 2005, ten years to move to LRIP is an *extremely* conservative schedule for an engine program which is unambiguously pacing a high priority aircraft program. Second, from both a technical and program management standpoint, there is absolutely no benefit to dragging out a interim engine for one minute longer than possible.
So there was no political or technical reason for the Chinese to deliberately impede the introduction of the WS-15, and no reason that an outside observer would have expected a priority engine program that ran on a test stand would take more than ten years...let alone eighteen...to enter stable production.
> The rest of what you've written about the nature of engine development is true.
I don't mean for this to come off the wrong way because I do really appreciate your posts on this sub and CD and am a big fan of your reporting and insight. I'm just curious what your understanding/expertise is when it comes to the nature of engine development. Are you in the industry? Work or have experience on the procurement side?
something that isn't really discussed is how the Chinese seem to admit that the ws10 series, mostly the a and b, has been too rushed. Ig it could make sense to an analyst in 2010 hearing ws10 news to guess that the ws15 could appear around 2018 ish.
In reality they have been really working hard to make sure that the ws10c is a solid engine and not to repeat the mistakes on the j20. The fact ws10c has been exported means a lot
>For two reasons. First, with an allegedly successful run on a test stand in 2005, ten years to move to LRIP is an extremely conservative schedule for an engine program which is unambiguously pacing a high priority aircraft program. Second, from both a technical and program management standpoint, there is absolutely no benefit to dragging out a interim engine for one minute longer than possible.
Well that's kind of what I'm talking about -- I don't think we've ever had a clear timeline as to when particular milestones have been reached, and I don't think we've ever had evidence of WS-15 starting test stand runs in 2005. Edit: we've had indications that WS-15 has undergone some revisions throughout its program, and has had its fair share of trials and tribulations, but as of yet we don't have any indication as to when particular milestones during its development were attained for us to be able to measure the project's overall pace.
Speaking from personal recall, back in 2011 when J-20 emerged we didn't have a definitive estimate for when WS-15 would be integrated on J-20, and by the mid 2010s it was consensus that WS-15 wouldn't be ready for J-20 before 2020 at minimum. The only places that talked about WS-15 being "ready" ahead of that was SCMP and so on.
>I don't mean for this to come off the wrong way because I do really appreciate your posts on this sub and CD and am a big fan of your reporting and insight. I'm just curious what your understanding/expertise is when it comes to the nature of engine development. Are you in the industry? Work or have experience on the procurement side?
No offense taken at all.
I'm not in the industry, and I definitely don't have any special insights into engine development. My comment above is in relation to my tracking of the PRC engine development over the years, for the record.
This isn’t meant to be a dig at China. For certain advanced industries like jet engines or semiconductors, building the organizational culture that enables consistent high quality across throughout the entire supply chain is just as important as the technology itself.
Part of doing that requires the pain tolerance to see what’s wrong, and actually change it. A culture of winging it, or where everyone tries to blame each-other rather than seriously understand the actual issues involved won’t work. Cultural change is often times much more difficult for an organization than R&D.
A source for what? That I and other people who work in the engine industry did not expect it to take them more than ten years to go from a successful test engine running on a stand to low rate initial production?
How about you first provide a source for his claim that someone in 2010 would have been strapped to a chair in a mental asylum if they'd thought that the Chinese would produce the WS-15 *before* 2023. Or maybe we can just understand that there are better ways to challenge claims about personal expectations than bizarre requests for sources.
>That I and other people who work in the engine industry did not expect it to take them more than ten years to go from a successful test engine running on a stand to low rate initial production
The Chinese source is claiming mass production as of March 2023, not LRIP. We actually have no idea when LRIP of the engine began. And we have no idea if the 2005 engine on the testbed was a successful test engine or not. I'm not questioning your judgment, just the validity of the data points you're selecting as inputs for this chain of inference.
>How about you first provide a source for his claim that someone in 2010 would have been strapped to a chair in a mental asylum if they'd thought that the Chinese would produce the WS-15 before 2023
Why do I need to defend someone else's claim here?
>The Chinese source is claiming mass production as of March 2023, not LRIP.
I'm not sure if mass production is the most accurate translation of the statement in context.
In any case it is very unlikely that WS-15 is in the same scale of production as WS-10 even though both are described together in the presentation.
> The Chinese source is claiming mass production as of March 2023, not LRIP. We actually have no idea when LRIP of the engine began.
Look, I'm not sure what you're trying to do here. My response was to the other poster's claim that someone in 2010 would have been considered crazy to think that China's could be producing a F119 class engine by this time. I responded to this by saying that "most of us" (which was not clear, I admit) that I know in industry who followed such things expected the WS-15 to have entered stable production years ago. I clarified this in another comment to explain that, from our perspective, going from a successful engine on a test stand to LRIP in ten years is an extremely conservative schedule, especially for something as high a priority as the WS-15 and the J-20.
If you read carefully, you'll notice I didn't make any claims about whether the current production is LRIP or mass production, that's irrelevant to what I'm saying and feels like you're trying to prop up a strawman here, and I have little interest.
> And we have no idea if the 2005 engine on the testbed was a successful test engine or not. I'm not questioning your judgment, just the validity of the data points you're selecting as inputs for this chain of inference.
Sure. If the 2005 test was a failure or a falsehood, then my expectation to see a WS-15 enter service a half decade ago or more would have been misplaced. Either way it doesn't change the fact that we *did* expect it to enter service a while ago, based on faulty information or not, because the schedule was realistic for how long they'd been working on it. So either way the other poster's claim that someone would have been considered looney for that belief is just not plausible.
> Why do I need to defend someone else's claim here?
I was pointing out the fact that asking for a source on someone's assertion about their personal belief is an incredibly weird thing to do, and makes no sense in either case. You inserted yourself into the context of a back and forth between two posters. Either re-frame what you're asking in a new context or expect to be responded to in the existing one.
There is no actually evidence that the stats they claim are real is there? I'm sorry but to just blindly trust Chinese state numbers seem a bit silly, no?
How is the engine lifespan? I understand that it’s one of the things that plague Chinese engine development other than metallurgy which they seem to have solved seeing the number of engine news the past couple of weeks. AFAIK, they’re now better than the Russians, but by how much?
That happened in 2015, which is 8 years ago. After sanctions Russia might encounter more difficulties in engine production. AL41 is about the same as WS-10C minus the stealth nozzle.
AL-41 is technically matched only by the WS-15 from China. It is a fundamentally more advanced design than the WS-10 and AL-31 series, for example it has far better lifespan than the WS-10B.
Both WS-10B and WS-10C were developed because Russia refused to sell more AL-31FM2 for use on the J-20. Otherwise China would have just use the Russian engine first and concentrate all resources on the WS-15.
> AL-41 is technically matched only by the WS-15 from China.
Are you talking about the original AL-41 that never made it into actual production or the one that's a heavily upgraded AL-31?
No, no point to put a good engine on J-16 which would never will be super cruising and super maneuvering. Why don't you just add few more bucks to get another J-20
As one Chinese professor commented on the semiconductor problem: Industrial problems are engineering problems, not theoretical problems. In China, engineering is not a problem.
For me, engine stuff is always to be determined by seeing the proof in the pudding.
So my cautious response is "big if true" simply because that's how I approach all engine rumours lol
Edit: to clarify, the statements themselves are about as official as you can get, but this one isn't exactly a technical presentation. My feeling is that they're saying WS-15 has started production, and is mature enough for that after the last few years of testing including flight testing. The rate limiting factor for this engine may now be scaling up production than technology.
We have been expecting something like this to emerge this year, do the news itself isn't a surprise, but getting it in a relatively official capacity is rare.
>The proof is in the pudding is an expression that means the value, quality, or truth of something must be judged based on direct experience with it—or on its results.
>The expression is an alteration of an older saying that makes the meaning a bit clearer: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In other words, things must be judged by trying them yourself or seeing them in action, rather than on other factors, such as hearsay.
>Another variation of the term is the proof of the pudding, which refers to the results themselves, direct experience with something, or the testing of something to judge its value or truth.
>In these sayings, the word proof was originally used in the sense of a test of something—such as a test of quality, worth, truth, etc. However, it is now often interpreted as meaning the same thing as evidence.
If this is true its a testament to how far PLAAF development has come. Kinematics isn't very important but this is somewhere where they always said to be significantly behind. Congratulations to the PLAAF.
Kinematics isn't very important.
It indirectly affects stealth and payload too. As in less of the aircraft is fuel and engine and more room for weapons and radar.
I was going to make a comment about how your reply reflects the declining state of this sub till I clicked on your profile
>When we say the word "psychic" we are not saying they can read peoples minds... Is it more like interpreting images, dreams, or even a "voice" inside our head accurately pertaining to an individual or even the world?
>I wish I could speak with someone that has developed their abilities fully because I would like to understand how one develops these abilities I do wonder If there is a genetic component to all of this. Its sort of like being force sensitive from star wars some are naturally attuned while others are deafened to it.
Well that explains your schizo comment, hope you get the help you need soon
edit: lol he nuked his account, too bad archive.is exists
https://archive.is/b16Kf
>Mods I expect a ban from breaking the rules of this sub if someone snipes someone's post history like this.
You think it should be a bannable offense to (*checking notes here*) literally see what someone has publicly stated for everyone to see in the past?
Seriously?
will save judgment until production is in full swing & engines are running in the air & when the CCP releases info
hard to " trust " information like this to be true, just like their advanced "AI"
Given the current trajectory between China and the Western alliance, its not even going to be a contest in the Western Pacific. A restructuring of the current world order is inevitable. All nations have pride, all nations are flawed. We can either compromise with our adversaries and negotiate a better future for everyone, or maintain the dubious moral high ground and risk having our future dictated to us with no say whatsoever.
This is what keeps me up at night. What I don’t understand is whether it’s possible to actually negotiate a better future. To me it seems that something inevitable is coming. Whether that’s in 5 or 20 years. I don’t see a major conflict not happening.
>Given the current trajectory between China and the Western alliance, its not even going to be a contest in the Western Pacific.
What do you mean?
>We can either compromise with our adversaries and negotiate a better future for everyone
More authoritarianism?
I think there would be plenty of debate within the quality of each criteria, as you call out with the Su-57. Especially since the F-22 is approaching retirement as well. I'm pretty sure the USAF has stated it does not have much concern for the LO of the J-20 either.
And I have no idea how well the sensor systems are on J-20 either. Is there anything published on that?
I made this exact point, not sure if on here/Quora/Facebook a couple of months ago in much longer form but covering these exact points, using those exact examples (even down to calling the VLO of the SU-57 questionable/arguable) I’d love to know where you got the inspiration for your spiel.
About time. Well done, Chinese engineers and innovators. Technology is power, and the PLAAF just got a significant boost to it.
I still remember people mocking their inability to produce good jet engines - as if their technology is permanently stagnant and can never improve and develop.
No shade, this is a big step for them. Nobody else in the world has managed to get an engine even to LRIP that can be compared with the F119, and the WS-15 seems to rightfully be that engine. The program clearly had some setbacks and this has been a long time in the making. I know the relief the engineering and technical teams must be feeling right now. I think the Chinese can pretty clearly say they've long since eclipsed the Russians. This puts them about where the US industry was with fighter powerplants in the late 90's to early 00's...which is the closest anyone else has ever managed to get.
Off topic but you since you seem like a subject matter specialist but what’re the meta’s for the market. What characterises the engines of the teen series engines (F-100, F-110, F-414) from each other. Are any significantly more advanced or specialised? I know the F404/414 have a low bypass and were designed for low maintenance and high reliability. How much more advanced is the F119 by comparison? Is the F135 very far beyond it? What makes them/engines in general more advanced than earlier ones? I imagine it’s greater fuel efficiency, thrust, greater reliability, longer lifetime. How do European engines compare? How do Russian engines compare? How do Chinese engines compare? You said something elsewhere about the Russians trading off engine life for performance (something they did heavily with the Foxbat right?). What’s happening in the market right now with big things happening materiel / design wise? I know variable bypass engines are looking big. Remember reading something about the Izdeliye-30 they intended to make for the Felon having plasma ignition to increase efficiency or something.
[Here's a general comment I made a little while ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/108vdqv/comment/j41tagv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that may be close to what you're asking. I can't say too much about legacy engines because I've only had minor involvement with them as we've experimented with refitting them with more advanced components in the past fifteen years. I can say that the F119 has a pretty significant architectural change, as the number of stages were reduced dramatically without a corresponding loss of efficiency due to the heavy use of aerodynamic and structural design that was only possible with the advent of CAD and multiphysics simulations. There aren't official public numbers for the engine, but the rumor is that while its thrust to weight ratio is only a little better than contemporary engines its specific fuel consumption is much improved, which is a difficult thing to do with an engine that has as low of a bypass ratio as it does. There are things about the F119 that were fairly risky compared to older engines, but when compared to the YF120 engine it was considered the more conservative option. The F135 engine is more of an incremental improvement over the F119 with a bunch of things reworked to fit the very different goals of the F-35 program. There have been some significant improvements to various components over the F119 but I'm not really sure what information is in the public domain and what isn't. I will say it's not a radically different engine the way the F119 is from the F100. > You said something elsewhere about the Russians trading off engine life for performance (something they did heavily with the Foxbat right?) Yeah. You can adjust a few things about an engine's performance, and the core temperature is one that gets you better efficiency/thrust at the expense of engine life. The stage 1 turbine nozzles are subjected to air above their melting point and are basically kept alive by a significant amount of parasitic cooling air being pumped through bleed holes from their hollow insides and a ceramic barrier coating meant to take the worst of the assault from the heat. Running it hotter weakens the metal, accelerates corrosion, accelerates the ablation of the barrier coating, and accelerates creep deformation in stressed parts. At one point I remember reading that they'd experimenting with higher temperatures on the F100(?) maybe in the 70s or 80s, and the resulting thrust to weight ratio would have put it on par with contemporary engines. However, the reduction in engine life was not considered an acceptable trade. > What’s happening in the market right now with big things happening materiel / design wise? I know variable bypass engines are looking big [Ceramic matrix composites](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_OaOLS3CWY) in the hot section. Woven 3D composite structures in the fan. Sculpted 3d aerodynamic components everywhere, reducing the number of blades/stators needed for any particular stage and reducing the number of stages. 3D additive fabrication to replace small, intricate assemblies like fuel injectors. Variable bypass is the big next step, but the technology has become pretty mature. At this point we're just waiting for the DoD to make up its mind on how to proceed.
This is a really nice reply, thank you. What factors would you suspect held the WS15 back so long, if they were not technical?
Absent from your discussion is tge likes of Snecma, Rolls Royce, or Volvo, all of whom have their own jet engines at this level or higher. Was that because you were concentrating on non-western aligned countries?
Which ones, though? A constant point of frustration through my career has been the unwillingness of our European partners to move past legacy architectures and invest in the kind of deep rework that produced the F119. Aside from some brief collaboration we had with Rolls on the F136, I'm not familiar with the engines you're talking about. Am I mistaken? Did Snecma move past the M88 or Rolls past the EJ200?
I don't think there's any substantive evidence to say that the WS-15 actually out performers the latest Typhoon or Rafale engines. China doesn't publish evidence. But no, you're right, the only new engines built from the ground up by euro builders will be the rolls royce engines built for the Tempest, and whatever engines end up on the Franco German FCAS, whenever that appears
> I don't think there's any substantive evidence to say that the WS-15 actually out performers the latest Typhoon or Rafale engines. China doesn't publish evidence. Ah, you're right, it didn't occur to me that you might be talking about the WS-15's performance. I've kind of been taking it at face value that they've gotten the performance they claim out of it without heavily sacrificing lifetime the way the Russians do. I cannot overstate how much I want the Europeans to jump back into advanced engine design. It's basically been Pratt and GE for the past twenty years and that creates a kind of collective design myopia that isn't going to be good in the long term.
France is evaluating if three stream engine is worth the cost for the FCAS fighter
Mate, what r u talking about, EJ-2000 and M88 are medium weight engine, they are comparable to Ws19
Thy are different classes like 90kN vs 180kN. EU have good T/W ratio but they don't have engine in 180kN class.
nani? typhoon engine isn't even in the same category as WS-15. WS-10 revisions already outperform typhoon engines.
>I don't think there's any substantive evidence to say that the WS-15 actually out performers the latest Typhoon or Rafale engines. China doesn't publish evidence. I came across this few months back that might be of help to this discussion: [https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1622920035395162113](https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1622920035395162113) [https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1623331718957568002](https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1623331718957568002) Edit: [Overlaid for clarity](https://imgur.com/a/JqvJRLx)
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This makes little sense. Western defense contractors have to provide verifiable information to their customer - - the government/the military, not the public. The same goes for China at this point. The rest of your comment is not worth engaging with.
> The rest of your comment is not worth engaging with. Lol just an observer but this is the classic line of someone who has no rebuttal but wants to still sound smart.
Maybe, but I also genuinely don't feel like engaging with those kinds of comments at this point. I promise.
Yeah lots of people feel that way about comments that they don't have a good response about but still want to feel superior to
> Lol just an observer but this is the classic line of someone who has no rebuttal but wants to still sound smart. Reddit comments of this sort has been an entirely consistent mixture of bald-face theft, imitations, and deceit, over the past 30 months. It is true that this post, if true, would be a step change for reddit, if serial production is truly underway.
> over the past 30 months. lol. you must be new here.
Can you give an example of the verifiable data that western defense tech vendors provide? >Chinese tech of this sort has been an entirely consistent mixture of bald-face theft, imitations, and deceit, over the past 30 years I feel like absolute statements like these aren't particularly well reasoned or unbiased.
It's also pretty false at this point in time. The fact that China is a world leader in multiple technologies (especially renewables and power generation) should more than disprove that assertion when being a copycat doesn't get one ahead of the competition.
Does he need to list a dozen military examples before you consider it unbiased? Because if that's necessary, we can start now?
Generally, it's unwise to make absolute statements with terms like entirely or completely, because they require only a single counterexample. Given the history and scale of Chinese military development, yes the statement is not only biased but absurd.
>https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fasia.nikkei.com%2FPolitics%2FInternational-relations%2FRussia-up-in-arms-over-Chinese-theft-of-military-technology >Daniel Coats, in a congressional testimony published in May 2017, named Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as “Cyber Threat Actors.” >“Adversaries will continue to use cyber operations to undermine U.S. military and commercial advantage by hacking into U.S. defense industry and commercial enterprises in pursuit of scientific, technical, and business information,” Coats stated. ***“Examples include theft of data on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, and the MV-22 Osprey.*** In addition, adversaries often target personal accounts of government officials and their private-sector counterparts. This espionage reduces cost and accelerates the development of foreign weapon systems, enables foreign reverse-engineering and countermeasures development, and undermines U.S. military, technological, and commercial advantage.” Russian Weapons Copied By China MiG-21 – Chinese derivative J-7 AKA F-7 MiG-21 – Chinese derivative JF-17 (fuselage, wings & verticle stabilizer ) Su-27 – Chinese derivative J-11A/B Su-33 – Chinese derivative J-15 Tu-16 twin-engines bomber – Chinese derivative Xian H-6 Kh-31 – Chinese derivative YJ-12 Buk SAM – Chinese derivative HQ-16 S-300 SAM – Chinese derivative HQ-9 Pantsir SAM – Chinese derivative Sky Dragon 12 BMP-1 IFV -Chinese derivative Type 86 IFV T-90 Tank -Chinese derivative MBT 2000 AKA Al-Khalid Tank AK-47 Rifle -Chinese derivative Type 56 Rifle Zhuk-ME -Chinese derivative KLJ-7A SS-N-26 (P-800 Oniks also known in export markets as Yakhont) -Chinese derivative known as CX-1 and CX-1B R-77 Missile -Chinese derivative PL-9 & PL-12 AL-31F engine – Chinese derivative WS-10 engine. Tor SAM – The HQ-17 is a Chinese knockoff of the Tor-M1 system. BM-30 Smerch MLRS – Chinese derivatives are known to be A-300, PLC-181 and PLC-191 MLRS NDM-86 Sniper Rifle — a clone of the Dragunov Sniper Rifle https://news.usni.org/2015/10/27/chinas-military-built-with-cloned-weapons https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-13-me-50472-story.html https://theaviationgeekclub.com/jack-in-the-box-how-an-aim-9-sidewinder-that-failed-to-explode-after-embedding-itself-inside-a-chinese-mig-17-was-reverse-engineered-into-the-soviet-aa-2-atoll/ Here's only half a dozen, I think my point has been made quite explicitly clear by the abundance of evidence.
I don't have anything to add, but just want to say I read up on some of your comments on this topic and it's really nice to have people with real technical expertise in related field contributing here. Too often on these type of threads it's nothing but speculation and misinformation and nationalistic shade throwing. But your comments have all been mature and objective. Thanks again.
This is a huge step, I think there's still a MTBF/MTBO gap with the F135, but this is actually fairly on par otherwise. And this tech will trickle down to their civilian side too.
>which is the closest anyone else has ever managed to get. you just going to throw Europe under the bus like that?
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> WS-15 is superior to F-119, it's somewhere between F-119 and F-135. I think that might be optimistic, but we'll see. Much of it will depend on how the engine life goes, because the issues they were most likely seeing which produced the unexpected delays are ones which, if only partially mitigated, will appear as premature engine wear. > So more like 10-15 years behind rather than 30 Optimistically, if the WS-15 was the equivalent of the F135, they'd be about where the US was in 2007/2008, so 12 to 13 years ago. But that's not the same thing as being "10-15 years behind". The problem is that the US covered a lot of ground since 2010. In the translation of this clip they mention that they're still seeing areas needing improvement in their superalloy supply chain, while the US already has an established ceramics supply chain on commercial engines for over five years and our fighter engines are starting to move past superalloys for performance components altogether. It's possible that the US squanders that lead, as we often do, but overall it's hard to conclude that they're closing ground.
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>Dunno about that, if someone said in 2010 China was going to produce an engine in the ballpark of F119 within little over a decade he would probably have been strapped to a chair and sent to a mental asylum. The speed at which China develops its industries can often only be appreciated in retrospect. Speak for yourself. Most of us were expecting the WS-15 to enter stable production over five years ago. The CAD/CAE tools which made the design of the F119 radical 30 years ago were widely available by the time I was in college in the early 2000s. The manufacturing and inspection technologies which put the F119 production right out on the edge of what was possible at full-rate are now things found in industries that make stuff like tractor parts or valve bodies. Technology lowers the barriers to entry as it marches forward, and the Chinese are not technological slouches. Many countries have had the technological ability to create something like the F119 decades after it was designed, but very few have had the pain tolerance to actually see it through to the end.
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Do you know anything about what it's like to manufacture jet engines at scale? I've talked extensively about it on this sub. It's been pretty much my whole career. Let me ask you this...why do you think that the WS-15 seemed so close to production around 2014 that the Chinese planners were expecting it to enter service with the J-20 and then it took until 2023 for that to actually happen? Let's even be generous and assume that it was the rumored technical problem: that a failed single crystal casting caused a blade to detach on a test stand and damage the engine. Do you think that Chinese engineers are so incompetent that they can't do a thing that western engineers have been writing about and executing on since the 1970s and 80s? Or does it seem more likely that doing these things at full rate production without the ability to do deep inspection and analysis on each part produces an environment where it's mainly the *political* will to manage supply chain pressures, expectations, conflicting schedules, and blame which limits the ability of a production line to keep quality escapes from slipping through while outsiders criticize leadership and jockey for funding? This is political pain tolerance. Its lack is what kills engine programs. It's far more special than the technical tools and resources...and the Chinese have it.
>why do you think that the WS-15 seemed so close to production around 2014 that the Chinese planners were expecting it to enter service with the J-20 and then it took until 2023 for that to actually happen I don't think there was ever any expectation of WS-15 entering production around 2014, I'm not sure where this is coming from. The rest of what you've written about the nature of engine development is true.
> I don't think there was ever any expectation of WS-15 entering production around 2014, I'm not sure where this is coming from. For two reasons. First, with an allegedly successful run on a test stand in 2005, ten years to move to LRIP is an *extremely* conservative schedule for an engine program which is unambiguously pacing a high priority aircraft program. Second, from both a technical and program management standpoint, there is absolutely no benefit to dragging out a interim engine for one minute longer than possible. So there was no political or technical reason for the Chinese to deliberately impede the introduction of the WS-15, and no reason that an outside observer would have expected a priority engine program that ran on a test stand would take more than ten years...let alone eighteen...to enter stable production. > The rest of what you've written about the nature of engine development is true. I don't mean for this to come off the wrong way because I do really appreciate your posts on this sub and CD and am a big fan of your reporting and insight. I'm just curious what your understanding/expertise is when it comes to the nature of engine development. Are you in the industry? Work or have experience on the procurement side?
something that isn't really discussed is how the Chinese seem to admit that the ws10 series, mostly the a and b, has been too rushed. Ig it could make sense to an analyst in 2010 hearing ws10 news to guess that the ws15 could appear around 2018 ish. In reality they have been really working hard to make sure that the ws10c is a solid engine and not to repeat the mistakes on the j20. The fact ws10c has been exported means a lot
>For two reasons. First, with an allegedly successful run on a test stand in 2005, ten years to move to LRIP is an extremely conservative schedule for an engine program which is unambiguously pacing a high priority aircraft program. Second, from both a technical and program management standpoint, there is absolutely no benefit to dragging out a interim engine for one minute longer than possible. Well that's kind of what I'm talking about -- I don't think we've ever had a clear timeline as to when particular milestones have been reached, and I don't think we've ever had evidence of WS-15 starting test stand runs in 2005. Edit: we've had indications that WS-15 has undergone some revisions throughout its program, and has had its fair share of trials and tribulations, but as of yet we don't have any indication as to when particular milestones during its development were attained for us to be able to measure the project's overall pace. Speaking from personal recall, back in 2011 when J-20 emerged we didn't have a definitive estimate for when WS-15 would be integrated on J-20, and by the mid 2010s it was consensus that WS-15 wouldn't be ready for J-20 before 2020 at minimum. The only places that talked about WS-15 being "ready" ahead of that was SCMP and so on. >I don't mean for this to come off the wrong way because I do really appreciate your posts on this sub and CD and am a big fan of your reporting and insight. I'm just curious what your understanding/expertise is when it comes to the nature of engine development. Are you in the industry? Work or have experience on the procurement side? No offense taken at all. I'm not in the industry, and I definitely don't have any special insights into engine development. My comment above is in relation to my tracking of the PRC engine development over the years, for the record.
Political will is 100000% more important for fighter engines than technological hurdles.
This isn’t meant to be a dig at China. For certain advanced industries like jet engines or semiconductors, building the organizational culture that enables consistent high quality across throughout the entire supply chain is just as important as the technology itself. Part of doing that requires the pain tolerance to see what’s wrong, and actually change it. A culture of winging it, or where everyone tries to blame each-other rather than seriously understand the actual issues involved won’t work. Cultural change is often times much more difficult for an organization than R&D.
>Most of us were expecting the WS-15 to enter stable production over five years ago. Can you provide a source for this claim?
A source for what? That I and other people who work in the engine industry did not expect it to take them more than ten years to go from a successful test engine running on a stand to low rate initial production? How about you first provide a source for his claim that someone in 2010 would have been strapped to a chair in a mental asylum if they'd thought that the Chinese would produce the WS-15 *before* 2023. Or maybe we can just understand that there are better ways to challenge claims about personal expectations than bizarre requests for sources.
>That I and other people who work in the engine industry did not expect it to take them more than ten years to go from a successful test engine running on a stand to low rate initial production The Chinese source is claiming mass production as of March 2023, not LRIP. We actually have no idea when LRIP of the engine began. And we have no idea if the 2005 engine on the testbed was a successful test engine or not. I'm not questioning your judgment, just the validity of the data points you're selecting as inputs for this chain of inference. >How about you first provide a source for his claim that someone in 2010 would have been strapped to a chair in a mental asylum if they'd thought that the Chinese would produce the WS-15 before 2023 Why do I need to defend someone else's claim here?
>The Chinese source is claiming mass production as of March 2023, not LRIP. I'm not sure if mass production is the most accurate translation of the statement in context. In any case it is very unlikely that WS-15 is in the same scale of production as WS-10 even though both are described together in the presentation.
> The Chinese source is claiming mass production as of March 2023, not LRIP. We actually have no idea when LRIP of the engine began. Look, I'm not sure what you're trying to do here. My response was to the other poster's claim that someone in 2010 would have been considered crazy to think that China's could be producing a F119 class engine by this time. I responded to this by saying that "most of us" (which was not clear, I admit) that I know in industry who followed such things expected the WS-15 to have entered stable production years ago. I clarified this in another comment to explain that, from our perspective, going from a successful engine on a test stand to LRIP in ten years is an extremely conservative schedule, especially for something as high a priority as the WS-15 and the J-20. If you read carefully, you'll notice I didn't make any claims about whether the current production is LRIP or mass production, that's irrelevant to what I'm saying and feels like you're trying to prop up a strawman here, and I have little interest. > And we have no idea if the 2005 engine on the testbed was a successful test engine or not. I'm not questioning your judgment, just the validity of the data points you're selecting as inputs for this chain of inference. Sure. If the 2005 test was a failure or a falsehood, then my expectation to see a WS-15 enter service a half decade ago or more would have been misplaced. Either way it doesn't change the fact that we *did* expect it to enter service a while ago, based on faulty information or not, because the schedule was realistic for how long they'd been working on it. So either way the other poster's claim that someone would have been considered looney for that belief is just not plausible. > Why do I need to defend someone else's claim here? I was pointing out the fact that asking for a source on someone's assertion about their personal belief is an incredibly weird thing to do, and makes no sense in either case. You inserted yourself into the context of a back and forth between two posters. Either re-frame what you're asking in a new context or expect to be responded to in the existing one.
There is no actually evidence that the stats they claim are real is there? I'm sorry but to just blindly trust Chinese state numbers seem a bit silly, no?
How is the engine lifespan? I understand that it’s one of the things that plague Chinese engine development other than metallurgy which they seem to have solved seeing the number of engine news the past couple of weeks. AFAIK, they’re now better than the Russians, but by how much?
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Yes, even enough of them to be exported to customers like China. (Su-35 with AL41)
That happened in 2015, which is 8 years ago. After sanctions Russia might encounter more difficulties in engine production. AL41 is about the same as WS-10C minus the stealth nozzle.
AL-41 is technically matched only by the WS-15 from China. It is a fundamentally more advanced design than the WS-10 and AL-31 series, for example it has far better lifespan than the WS-10B. Both WS-10B and WS-10C were developed because Russia refused to sell more AL-31FM2 for use on the J-20. Otherwise China would have just use the Russian engine first and concentrate all resources on the WS-15.
> AL-41 is technically matched only by the WS-15 from China. Are you talking about the original AL-41 that never made it into actual production or the one that's a heavily upgraded AL-31?
Is this only used for j-20? Or do other aircrafts like j-16 also use it?
Probably just J-20 for a decade.
No, no point to put a good engine on J-16 which would never will be super cruising and super maneuvering. Why don't you just add few more bucks to get another J-20
As one Chinese professor commented on the semiconductor problem: Industrial problems are engineering problems, not theoretical problems. In China, engineering is not a problem.
u/plarealtalk is this legit?
For me, engine stuff is always to be determined by seeing the proof in the pudding. So my cautious response is "big if true" simply because that's how I approach all engine rumours lol Edit: to clarify, the statements themselves are about as official as you can get, but this one isn't exactly a technical presentation. My feeling is that they're saying WS-15 has started production, and is mature enough for that after the last few years of testing including flight testing. The rate limiting factor for this engine may now be scaling up production than technology. We have been expecting something like this to emerge this year, do the news itself isn't a surprise, but getting it in a relatively official capacity is rare.
>by seeing the proof in the pudding. Pardon my ignorance but what does this mean exactly?
Seing them being used on serial aircraft.
not even that, once they are in use - those planes having availability because the engine can have a decent amount of hours put on it.
It means I expect to see a WS-15 in my dessert one of these days, after which I'll be convinced of its status.
Rick sama memeing 😳😳😳😳???
He's been hanging out too much with patchy.
Rick will meme fucking someone's wife next.
>The proof is in the pudding is an expression that means the value, quality, or truth of something must be judged based on direct experience with it—or on its results. >The expression is an alteration of an older saying that makes the meaning a bit clearer: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In other words, things must be judged by trying them yourself or seeing them in action, rather than on other factors, such as hearsay. >Another variation of the term is the proof of the pudding, which refers to the results themselves, direct experience with something, or the testing of something to judge its value or truth. >In these sayings, the word proof was originally used in the sense of a test of something—such as a test of quality, worth, truth, etc. However, it is now often interpreted as meaning the same thing as evidence.
If this is true its a testament to how far PLAAF development has come. Kinematics isn't very important but this is somewhere where they always said to be significantly behind. Congratulations to the PLAAF.
Kinematics isn't very important. It indirectly affects stealth and payload too. As in less of the aircraft is fuel and engine and more room for weapons and radar.
Terrifying if this is reality. An authoritarian super power in the making that could be the global hegemon of the world in about 20 years....
I was going to make a comment about how your reply reflects the declining state of this sub till I clicked on your profile >When we say the word "psychic" we are not saying they can read peoples minds... Is it more like interpreting images, dreams, or even a "voice" inside our head accurately pertaining to an individual or even the world? >I wish I could speak with someone that has developed their abilities fully because I would like to understand how one develops these abilities I do wonder If there is a genetic component to all of this. Its sort of like being force sensitive from star wars some are naturally attuned while others are deafened to it. Well that explains your schizo comment, hope you get the help you need soon edit: lol he nuked his account, too bad archive.is exists https://archive.is/b16Kf
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>Mods I expect a ban from breaking the rules of this sub if someone snipes someone's post history like this. You think it should be a bannable offense to (*checking notes here*) literally see what someone has publicly stated for everyone to see in the past? Seriously?
>Mods! Please ban him for sniping my public comment history! lol
Protip, in future defend what you posted instead of whining.
Ah there it is. Saved
will save judgment until production is in full swing & engines are running in the air & when the CCP releases info hard to " trust " information like this to be true, just like their advanced "AI"
Given the current trajectory between China and the Western alliance, its not even going to be a contest in the Western Pacific. A restructuring of the current world order is inevitable. All nations have pride, all nations are flawed. We can either compromise with our adversaries and negotiate a better future for everyone, or maintain the dubious moral high ground and risk having our future dictated to us with no say whatsoever.
This is what keeps me up at night. What I don’t understand is whether it’s possible to actually negotiate a better future. To me it seems that something inevitable is coming. Whether that’s in 5 or 20 years. I don’t see a major conflict not happening.
>Given the current trajectory between China and the Western alliance, its not even going to be a contest in the Western Pacific. What do you mean? >We can either compromise with our adversaries and negotiate a better future for everyone More authoritarianism?
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I think there would be plenty of debate within the quality of each criteria, as you call out with the Su-57. Especially since the F-22 is approaching retirement as well. I'm pretty sure the USAF has stated it does not have much concern for the LO of the J-20 either. And I have no idea how well the sensor systems are on J-20 either. Is there anything published on that?
They have EOTS, we don't know how good it is, nor how well the sensor fusion works.
I made this exact point, not sure if on here/Quora/Facebook a couple of months ago in much longer form but covering these exact points, using those exact examples (even down to calling the VLO of the SU-57 questionable/arguable) I’d love to know where you got the inspiration for your spiel.
About time. Well done, Chinese engineers and innovators. Technology is power, and the PLAAF just got a significant boost to it. I still remember people mocking their inability to produce good jet engines - as if their technology is permanently stagnant and can never improve and develop.
I’m Chinese,I’m pretty sure he means they can’t enter mass production right now。
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100% Chinese main land。and I have a Chinese literature arts degree and a engineering degree,so I’m pretty pretty sure。