This is an interview of Senior Colonel Lei Qiang, chief test pilot of J-10. The pilots that flew J-10 in Zhu hai air show are his student and student of student.
Interesting points in the article.
1. J-10 project started in the mid 80's with no specific name, only called "3rd gen fighter" or "New fighter".
2. When they first started selecting perspective test pilots, only fighter in China that had HUD was J-7M. So they used a Yes/No test to screen them. That is, each person was given 0.3 second to view a HUD image, and determine if it's correct, and they had to identify 100 pictures in a row with no mistake to pass. Lei Qiang was the first to pass, second was Lu Jun, third was a staff officer from an airbase.
3. The three were later sent to Israel to fly LAVI simulator in 1986,
4. They formed a 19 member test pilot team, of the 19, 9 were selected as "first batch test pilot" group, participating fully in the design process. Then 5 of the 9 formed the chief test pilot group for the actual test flight.
5. Lei Qiang and Lu Jun were sent to Russian in 1993 for test pilot training, practicing tail spin and Su27/30. But Lu Jun later died in an accident, so Lei Qiang was the only one flying the entire test flight phase.
6. The change of J-10's landing gear door from two piece to three piece were Lei Qiang's suggestion.
7. Lei Qiang flew tail spin recovery in Russia to familiarize with triangle wing tail spin recovery, then on Su27 to familiarize with 3rd gen fighter operation
8. The shape of control sticks, placement and function of buttons on the stick and around the displays are the work of test pilots.
9. Lei Qiang first saw the full scale wooden mock up of J-10 around 1990
10. He helped to determine placement of instruments, canopy opening, feedback on the stick, controls on electric switch, engines, etc.
11. Lei Qiang first met Israeli scientists in 1984, as part of test program for firing PL-8 on J-7. Firing PL-8 will cause J-7 to roll sideway 40 degrees, and if pilot compensate right away, the smoke from missile to stop the engine.
12. Lei Qiang had NO EXPERIENCE FIRING MISSILES in 1984?! (Shocking, isn't it.) He didn't know to compensate for the roll right away, but that's how his engine didn't stop from the smoke. And that's the solution they decided on, so when PLAAF J-7 fires a PL-8, the force from the launch will cause the plane to roll, and the pilots are instructed to not compensate for 2 seconds. (Another typical PLA non-technical solution to a very technical problem)
13. From this experience, Israelis told Chinese that their plane sucks, and Israel has something far better. (Guess that's how they wind up going to Israel to fly the Lavi simulator)
14. When they first started designing the J-10, neither the designer nor the pilots can conceptually grasps the operation of FBW system.
15. 60% of the technology used on J-10 are new.
16. Lei Qiang's first real experience on a FBW aircraft is on a British converted LearJet in 1995. There he experienced what PIO could be like.
17. When conducting high speed taxi test, they almost could not test lifting up the front wheel because CAC's runway is too short.
18. Lei Qiang did flight demonstration of J-10 to foreign guests, and probably did a tail slide then going directly into a vertical climb. Exact wording are: After vertical climb and turn, I did not turn on afterburner right away and accelerate vertically, instead allowed aircraft to drop slightly before turning on afterburner.
19. The first flight of J-10 were done in unstable configuration.
20. First flight were in 1998, march 23rd
21. During first flight, the responsiveness of J-10 so surprised lei Qiang that he shouted, "WTF!"
22. J-10's instantaneous roll rate is more than 200 degrees/sec.
23. During the first two years of J-10's test flight, Lei Qiang was the only test pilot! (another shocker and WTF, what if he crashed and died or injured? The whole project could have died)
24. 04 prototype tested a new engine. 05 prototype was testing domestication. (What does this mean? J-10 wasn't domestic up to that point?)
25. To train to be a test pilot, Lei Qiang had went to Israel, Russia, UK, Sweden and Egypt for training, Russia for 5 times.
26. J-10 is not a copy of Lavi. Israelis taught them how to design aircraft, such as using computer for design, simulation and analysis.
27. Israelis saw J-10 taking off with full external load. (Wonder when did that happen)
28. Maximum sustained turning G load for J-10 is 8.9. Lei Qiang flew it starting at Mach 1.2, 1000 meter, full afterburn. Speed dropped to Mach 0.6 after a while. (I guess they aren't kidding when they say triangle wing bleed energy during tight turn) Lei Qiang was 48 at the time, seemed to have broken a record for highest age and longest time flying at 8.9G.
29. J-10 was transfered to flight test academy after 05 prototype flew.
30. 01 prototype flew to academy on a lot of internal fuel (I'm guessing full internal) and drop tanks. After arriving at Xian, he still had more than 1 hour of fuel left before reaching landing weight.
31. J-10's turning radius is much, much smaller than J-7. J-7 seems to take 30 seconds to complete a full turn.
32. According to Lei Qiang, F-16's horizontal turning capability doesn't measure up to J-10. J-10's vertical turning capability is even with F-16. Su-27's vertical maneuver capability is stronger than J-10 because it has higher T/W ratio. Horizontal turning is even. But rolling rate J-10 is much better. At Mach 1.2, Su-27 has roll rate of 20-30 degrees/sec,(this has to be a mistake) while J-10 has more than 200 degrees/sec.
33. According to Lei Qiang, J-10's instrument is better than F-16 (although this is probably only true compared with Pakistan's F-16A) and much superior to Su-27.
34. J-10 can perform the Cobra maneuver, up to 160 degrees.
