Iranian military engine development news and updates

[Sineva]

Going with what you said, Iran has acheived J-85 level, so that is a good start, but not much is known about how they want to use the J-85 (Owj) engine.

This is the IRGC, not the regular army airforce. The IRGC have taken upon themselves to develop some airpower, and have already modified their aircraft to drop long range SDBs. So if we in future ever see a new fighter-bomber based on a new engine, It'll probably come from them as they are really the ones with the financial resources to make it possible.

Its not just the financial and technological resources,they`re also really the only ones with the actual experience,ie the human resources,required to successfully run a large scale weapons development program at that level.
By comparison the regular military either does this sort of thing poorly,ie the navy,or not at all,ie the airforce.

 

[GrandBotBoi]

Going with what you said, Iran has acheived J-85 level, so that is a good start, but not much is known about how they want to use the J-85 (Owj) engine.

This is the IRGC, not the regular army airforce. The IRGC have taken upon themselves to develop some airpower, and have already modified their aircraft to drop long range SDBs. So if we in future ever see a new fighter-bomber based on a new engine, It'll probably come from them as they are really the ones with the financial resources to make it possible.

We know Owj is being used for Kowsar and Yasin

 

[TheImmortal]

We know Owj is being used for Kowsar and Yasin

We don’t even know Owj production rate, we know Kowsar production is ~1 a month.

Again another test bed project and experience learning project.

We must wait to hear about new developments in this field.

 

[yugocrosrb95]

1. Are you actually try to correct me and make an arrangement in favor of the J85 by stating that it's fuel consumption is even worse than the figures I gave?
You do understand that 1.24lb of fuel per lbf per hour is more than 0.96lb per lbf/hr.
Are you trying to make my argument for me or do you not understand fuel consumption?
Less fuel better! Not more!

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2.My argument was about moving on to the J79 as appose the J85 & not about any other engine! Or Iran's technological capabilities and in fact I clearly state that the J85 is below Iran capabilities and that's why we should move on! So what exactly does the Jahesh 700 have to do with anything. It's an Iranian version of a completely different engine and if anything it proves my point! It's time to move on!

3. Thrust per weight! really?
1st off the vast amount of thrust and air flow you achieve is far more useful on a military aircraft and that negates any negative impact of a heavier engine with higher thrust to weight ratio. And if you want prof just compare the military capabilities of the F-5 vs F-4! It's not even a contest! In terms of thrust to weight a micro jet engine could have a better thrust to weight ratio that doesn't make it a suitable engine for a fighter jet!
These are fighter jet engines not cruise missiles or jet powered gliders!

Also in terms of thrust to weight I clearly mentioned that the J79 are big bulky engines that leave a lot of room for upgrade and weight reduction and that makes it far more suited for upgrades then J85

So for R&D and working on improvements the J79 or better yet the Al-21 are far more suited for the task.

As for the Jahesh-700 yes the Jahesh 700 is a leap in engine designs for Iran and it would make a great engine for UAV's and light trainers or maybe even composite tech demonstrators like the Q313 but it's no fighter engine.

The fact that Iran's developed single crystal turbines is clear prof that Iran needs to move on past the J85 & tiny fighter jet engines in general

And by move on I mean you either design your own turbofan, you copy someone else's (Preferably AL-31) or you grab a viable turbojet and improve on it using modern tech you already have

Iran is NOT a country that going to be producing fighter jet engines at a rate greater than 1 per week be they Al-31's or J85's nor is Iran a country that will ever be producing fighter jets at a rate any faster than 1 per month be they Kowsas or Su-35's at least not in the next 2 decades so I'd much rather go with bigger engines and bigger fighter

Plus with UCAV's blooming force multiplication is key when acquiring new fighters so purchasing or building tiny little fighters with limited capabilities and range is nothing but a waist of money!

1. Except I have not stated fuel consumption of J79 as I clearly stated it being about J85 not J79 as you assert.

2. J85 is smaller turbojet engine in F-5 series than J79 in F-4 series hence it is counter intuitive to claim former with much larger titanium blades is somehow easier to do.

3. Thrust to weight ratio matters as weight of engine itself is one of many factors that impact performance of jet powered aircraft.

Jahesh-700 is design that can be built upon by upscaling it hence radically increase flight time and range of advanced trainer aircraft.

Purpose of developing a small low bypass turbofan engine for F-5 Tiger II derivatives that Iran manufactures would be to improve flight time and range.

Later on such engine can be used on UAV and UCAV.

 

[VEVAK]

1. Except I have not stated fuel consumption of J79 as I clearly stated it being about J85 not J79 as you assert.

2. J85 is smaller turbojet engine in F-5 series than J79 in F-4 series hence it is counter intuitive to claim former with much larger titanium blades is somehow easier to do.

3. Thrust to weight ratio matters as weight of engine itself is one of many factors that impact performance of jet powered aircraft.

Jahesh-700 is design that can be built upon by upscaling it hence radically increase flight time and range of advanced trainer aircraft.

Purpose of developing a small low bypass turbofan engine for F-5 Tiger II derivatives that Iran manufactures would be to improve flight time and range.

Later on such engine can be used on UAV and UCAV.

1. Your making an argument for the J85 and against the J79 by stating the it's fuel consumption is even worse than the figures I gave. Plus, I'm pretty sure your own figures are incorrect. Your figures are for full thrust an not max military thrust.

2. To physically work on and build components for any engine that's smaller is both cheaper and easier. However, larger engines like the J79 have more room for upgrades which means it is easer to get an increase in performance by working to upgrade a J79 than it is for smaller diameter engines like the J85.
Which means changing the design of your compressor, changing the design and materials of your composition chambers, upgrading your fuel injectors, upgrading your ball brings, changing the design and materials of your turbines and engine casing,..... these improvement make the increase in performance worth the expense and that's what makes upgrading the J79 easier. And that has nothing to do with the fact that it's physically easier and cheaper to upgrade a smaller engine!!!!!!

3.Again with Thrust to Weight! Trust to weight only matters if the engines have similar thrust and similar fuel consumption and performance that's when you can compare the thrust to weight ratio of two engines and say one is better than the other.
The thrust to weight ratio of an engine doesn't much matter when that engine requires more than 20% more fuel per pound of thrust then a heavier more sophisticated engine. (Or an engine that has tbo of 5hrs vs 1000hrs,......)
Like I said a micro jet engine could have a better thrust to weight ratio than a AL-31 that doesn't make it better!

As for the Jahesh 700 Iran could potentially build a light subsonic/transonic version of the Kowsar/F-5 around a composite airframe for an advanced trainer but not a supersonic fighter jet!
Maybe in the future a larger more advanced turbofan engine could be built around the Jahesh700 tech & design but I honestly don't see how such an engine would be preferable to reverse engineering & upgrading the RD-33 and making it more suitable for Iran.

When it comes to manned fighter jets for Iran the countries leadership needs to learn and accept that "Force Multiplication" is key! And when it comes to "Manned Fighters" it is far more economical to acquire and maintain a smaller fleet of larger more expensive fighter jets than it is to maintain a vast fleet of cheaper manned fighters. And it's far more useful especially when you have TBM and UCAVs that can make up the difference.
Tiny little manned fighter jets don't have much of a future in modern warfare and waiting resources to acquire such a fleet is flat out absurd

 

[yugocrosrb95]

1. Your making an argument for the J85 and against the J79 by stating the it's fuel consumption is even worse than the figures I gave. Plus, I'm pretty sure your own figures are incorrect. Your figures are for full thrust an not max military thrust.

What is incorrect is your lying about what I have stated and at that you have doubled down by lying about what I have stated.

Anyone can read what I wrote and see that you are lying about what I wrote by simply looking at what I have written in this forum.

2. To physically work on and build components for any engine that's smaller is both cheaper and easier. However, larger engines like the J79 have more room for upgrades which means it is easer to get an increase in performance by working to upgrade a J79 than it is for smaller diameter engines like the J85.
Which means changing the design of your compressor, changing the design and materials of your composition chambers, upgrading your fuel injectors, upgrading your ball brings, changing the design and materials of your turbines and engine casing,..... these improvement make the increase in performance worth the expense and that's what makes upgrading the J79 easier. And that has nothing to do with the fact that it's physically easier and cheaper to upgrade a smaller engine!!!!!!

Your "counter-arguments" are one nonsense after another as evident by your narrow mindness that leads to you resorting to lying about what I have wrote along what my argument is hence you put your own words into my mouth because you can not concede to practicality and short time frame there would be compared to yours.

This is not about upgrading J85 nor J79 as it is about utilizing technology and manufacturing tools to design a new jet engine that can fit inside F-5 while involving F-4 there is no point of reverse engineering nor upgrading J79 when there is AL-21 which Iran can cannibalize from Su-24 to reverse engineer it.

F-4 airframes that Iran has are nearing their end of lifecycle compared to F-5 Tiger II for which Iran has built capability to produce entirely new examples!

It makes sense to design a new jet engine for F-5 than for F-4 that would be far more likely due to age of airframe for a brand new engine to be lost.

3.Again with Thrust to Weight! Trust to weight only matters if the engines have similar thrust and similar fuel consumption and performance that's when you can compare the thrust to weight ratio of two engines and say one is better than the other.
The thrust to weight ratio of an engine doesn't much matter when that engine requires more than 20% more fuel per pound of thrust then a heavier more sophisticated engine. (Or an engine that has tbo of 5hrs vs 1000hrs,......)
Like I said a micro jet engine could have a better thrust to weight ratio than a AL-31 that doesn't make it better!

Nonsense. irrelevant considering that is not point I was making.

It would be cheaper, faster and more sensible to develop a brand new turbojet engine to fit inside engine bay of F-5 and at that not have afterburner as instead for only dry thrust that matches thurst of afterburner of J85-GE-21. Perhaps with "leaky turbojet" design of bypass 0.1 to cool it and allow greater operating temperature.

Then even when it goes supersonic the fuel consumption would be much lower than J85 or J79 when using afterburner in order for F-5 and F-4 to go supersonic.

As for the Jahesh 700 Iran could potentially build a light subsonic/transonic version of the Kowsar/F-5 around a composite airframe for an advanced trainer but not a supersonic fighter jet!
Maybe in the future a larger more advanced turbofan engine could be built around the Jahesh700 tech & design but I honestly don't see how such an engine would be preferable to reverse engineering & upgrading the RD-33 and making it more suitable for Iran.

Purpose of upscaling Jahesh 700 that is derived from FJ33 is to provide top end model performance of FJ44 to drastically extend range of trainer jets such as Yasin along Kowsar fighter jets to allow it to patrol airspace for roughly 3 hours. Though greater limitation of Kowsar is lack of long range air to air missile.

People in here always mention RD-33 are not being realistic as Iran first has to gain experience and knowledge by building small turbofan engines and then gradually bigger and bigger, Jaheesh is small turbofan and medium bypass at that, Iran needs to design a small low bypass turbofan engine then go up to RD-33 scale.

Kowsar would benefit most from a small low bypass turbofan and since Iran produces Kowsar, it is ideal test bed for it.

Then such small turbofan can later be used for large unmanned aerial vehicles.

When it comes to manned fighter jets for Iran the countries leadership needs to learn and accept that "Force Multiplication" is key! And when it comes to "Manned Fighters" it is far more economical to acquire and maintain a smaller fleet of larger more expensive fighter jets than it is to maintain a vast fleet of cheaper manned fighters. And it's far more useful especially when you have TBM and UCAVs that can make up the difference.
Tiny little manned fighter jets don't have much of a future in modern warfare and waiting resources to acquire such a fleet is flat out absurd

It is not absurd as placing all eggs on a single basket is foolish and aiming straight to produce something like Mig-29 or Su-27~35 series or even aim for J-10 is foolish without having something in between to fulfill the gap for enough time until something like that is ready to be mass produced.

Largest limitation of Kowsar is lack of long range air to air missiles and there are none for it, then it is jet engine propulsion as it is only single shaft turbojet.

In case Iran reverse engineers or develops indigenous low bypass turbofan on par with RD-33 then they could develop Kowsar derivative to be F-20 Tigershark equivalent.

That kind of aircraft with long range active radar homing air to air missile would be at least F-16 and Mig-29 tier of older models at minimum.

 

[OldTwilight]

Well ,
we should aim for something like this ...

AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

which is developed to this ...

AIDC T-5 Brave Eagle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

for something like this , we need at least a reliable turbofan engine ( at least 500 hour ) with dry thrust of 25 - 30 KN ...

so 25KN dry thrust is our minimum requirement for developing Jet engine for low weight dual engine fighter jet ...

JF-17 dry thrust is about 49KN with life span of 2200 hour ...

 

[drmeson]

What does Yasin fly on ? It looks very different from OWJ J-90

@Hack-Hook

 

[Hack-Hook]

What does Yasin fly on ? It looks very different from OWJ J-90

@Hack-Hook

View attachment 856605

that engine certainly look a little different . but consider it that it has no afterburner while the owj shown come with its afterburner .
what i heard is that yasin uses not afterburning version of owj
the engine shown here maybe is some modification of owj, they certainly look a lot to each other , but different to some details sadly the engine is not turbofan

 

[Arash1991]

Mechanical engeneers see Aerospace Enineering as the Kings dicipline in Engineering. And Inside Aerospace Engineering - Aircraft Engines are the hardest dicipline to master. Production process, Research and development, everything is so expensive , take alot of time and experience. Its nearly impossible to produce modern jet engines without going the experience path from the beginning.
Iran is going the only correct way. It is possible to produce cars in joint venture and learn from that of how producing modern cars without dealing with 30 years old technology. But in Jet engines it is necessary.

Modern blades production process is produces in vacuum and very big special and secret machines are needed for those production processes. Most of the production processes or details are secret.

 

[BlessedKingOfLonging]

Mechanical engeneers see Aerospace Enineering as the Kings dicipline in Engineering. And Inside Aerospace Engineering - Aircraft Engines are the hardest dicipline to master. Production process, Research and development, everything is so expensive , take alot of time and experience. Its nearly impossible to produce modern jet engines without going the experience path from the beginning.
Iran is going the only correct way. It is possible to produce cars in joint venture and learn from that of how producing modern cars without dealing with 30 years old technology. But in Jet engines it is necessary.

Modern blades production process is produces in vacuum and very big special and secret machines are needed for those production processes. Most of the production processes or details are secret.

How far along do you reckon the heavy turbofan is right now?

 

[Mr Iran Eye]

How far along do you reckon the heavy turbofan is right now?

In the F-4 SM

 

[Hack-Hook]

In the F-4 SM

the heavy turbofan probably wil be used to design a single engine kowsar

 

[BlessedKingOfLonging]

the heavy turbofan probably wil be used to design a single engine kowsar

Something like an Iranian-F-16?

I thought why not simultaneously design an aircraft which is our answer to the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet (some adapted to function for naval aviation)?

 

[Hack-Hook]

Something like an Iranian-F-16?

I thought why not simultaneously design an aircraft which is our answer to the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet (some adapted to function for naval aviation)?

wll more like what F-20 was supposed to be but with more modern equipment. by the way aerodynamic of Kowsae is more like F-18 than f-16