SAC - FC-31 Grey Falcon Stealth aircraft for PAF : Updates & Debate

[The SC]

Due to some wide spread information on many sites and in the specialized media about the possibility of Pakistan acquiring the 5th generation Chinese (/Pakistani?) stealth fighter jet, and the communality of their future engine the WS-13. I have decided to open this thread for serious discussions about the plane, its capabilities, the possibilities, and the probability of acquiring it by PAF, knowing that PAF has not been operating, or reluctant to operate twin engined warplanes.
My personal opinion is that the maintenance won't be a big hurdle since PAF will be maintaining only one type engine for both JF-17 and J-31.

An article in the People’s Daily at the end of last month did little to clarify matters. The article referred to the J-31 as a fourth-generation stealth fighter, while also saying that is comparable to the U.S.’ F-35 fighter jets. The report first said that it would be exported abroad as a competitor to the F-35, before discussing the possibility that it will be China’s next carrier-borne fighter.

“Experts predict that the J-31 will make rapid inroads in the international market in the future, and will undoubtedly steal the limelight from the F-35,” the People’s Daily report said, noting also that competition to sell the fighter jets to international customers was “becoming a new variable in the Sino-US strategic game.”

The report added that, “The J-31, with its main target as the export market, represents a serious threat to U.S. arms manufacturers.” Later in the same article, however, People’s Daily noted that the plane’s landing gear was built to sustain the impact of landing on a carrier better than the current J-15s, and therefore might be used as China’s future carrier-based jet.

One possibility is that China is building both a domestic and export version of the aircraft. Some foreign news outlets have indeed said that China may sell a version of the aircraft abroad under the name F-60, while maintaining a fleet of domestic J-31s for the PLA.

With so little known about the J-31, it’s hard to gauge how credible China’s claims are that the J-31 is a low-cost alternative to the F-35. In a report in Defense News last August, shortly after the first few images of the plane surfaced, Project 2049 Institute’s Robert Cliff dismissed the notion that the J-31 would pose a serious threat to the F-35 in terms of overseas sales.

““India won’t buy it. Russia won’t buy it,” Cliff noted, adding: “That pretty much leaves countries like Pakistan, Brazil, some Middle East countries, none of whom [the U.S. is] likely to sell the F-35 to anytime this decade or next.”

He also said that he did not believe Saudi Arabia was interested in the plane.

Pakistan is perhaps the most likely foreign purchaser of the fighter. Pakistan and China previously jointly developed the JF-17 Thunder advanced fighter, although only Islamabad has ended up purchasing the jet thus far. This week Pakistani officials called on China to increase cooperation in the area of defense production. Beijing has long helped Islamabad acquire the necessary knowledge and expertise to develop a more advanced domestic defense industry.

J-21 J-31 stealth fighter jet : 空军世界

Airshow China 2014: Pakistan in talks to buy '30-40 FC-31s' - IHS Jane's 360

PAF wants to buy Chinese stealth aircraft: minister - Pakistan - DAWN.COM

I believe it will be a mix of 4th generation stealth fighter and a fully 5th Generation stealth fighter, according to the pictures above.

What is your take?

 

[The SC]

The possible weapons configurations.

So, it is about the same principle of the US F-35, for internal/external weapon's carriage.

 

[The SC]

Size matters:
With J-20

With J-16

It is also about the same size as the F-35, although with twin engines, while the f-35 is sigle engined.
Is it an advantage?

 

[The SC]

Prototypes of J-11B and J-31/ F60 Fighter Jets in Flight

The J-31 sleekness

Amazing fact: India's A-MCA looks strangely like the JF-17, albeit with double engines !!! Seeing all their criticism of the JF-17 I wonder if it is by ignorance of this resemblance for their futuristic fighter plane. This shows that PAF's JF-17 has some very sound design, adaptable to future design requirements of stealth fighters.

 

[I <3 PAK ARMY]

nyce

 

[Kompromat]

Its certainly a very good option for PAF.

• Same class of engines as JFT
• TOT
• Same class of weapons as JFT
• Possibility of sharing or seeding software
• Shared datalink with JFT
  

These jets given their reliable performance may start replacing our F-16s.

 

[The SC]

Avic Promotes J-31 As An Export Fighter
Shenyang offers a low-observable fighter that, for some reason, does not satisfy the Chinese air force

As much as the resources wielded by the Chinese state aerospace industry impress outsiders these days, few could have expected that one of the companies in the sector would want to produce a stealth fighter on its own account.
But that is just what Shenyang Aircraft wants to do. Equally surprisingly, the Chinese air force is turning its nose up at the result. What looks like a thoroughly modern stealth fighter is apparently not good enough to serve as China's next medium-weight combat aircraft.

After three evidently staged appearances of the real aircraft this year, Avic displayed a model at Airshow China in Zhuhai last week, displaying the fighter that is unofficially called the J-31 and known to come from Shenyang. The aircraft is being developed “for the international defense market,” says Avic.

The model was labeled as a concept fighter, but it showed few if any differences from the real aircraft that appeared first under wraps on a truck in June, then being pulled around an airfield in September and, finally, on Oct. 31, in the air, prominently numbered “31001” and possibly making its first flight. It is clear, then, that the project has transcended the concept stage.

The aircraft has been designed to deliver a highly stealthy configuration at low cost, with a heavy weapons load capability over a wide combat radius, says Avic. The model is a single-seat, twin-tail, twin-engine aircraft with a high wing, like the real aircraft seen in unattributed photographs on the Internet. As described at the show, the fighter has a typical takeoff weight of 17.5 metric tons, is 16.9 meters (55.5 ft.) long and 4.8 meters high with a wingspan of 11.5 meters.

The aircraft that flew last month has two Klimov RD-93 engines, which project engineers do not regard as sufficiently powerful, industry executives say. As fitted to the JF-17 (or FC-1) single-engine export fighter from Shenyang's rival, Chengdu Aircraft, the RD-93 produces 19,000 lb. thrust. Regardless of the RD-93's power, Shenyang needs a Chinese engine if it is to avoid Russia holding a veto over J-31 sales. Judging from photographs of the prototype, the nacelles may be designed for engines larger in diameter than the RD-93, a derivative of the MiG-29's RD-33. The alternative may be the reported WS-13 Taishan from the Guizhou plant of propulsion specialist Avic Engine.

Avic says the J-31 has a combat radius of 1,250 km (780 mi.) on internal fuel or 2,000 km with external tanks. Maximum speed is Mach 1.8, takeoff distance is 400 meters and its landing distance 600 meters.

“Operational effectiveness will be higher than current or upgraded fourth-generation fighters or almost equivalent to typical fifth-generation,” says Avic. The reference to fifth-generation aircraft presumably indicates the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35.

The J-31 is known to come from Shenyang because the company displayed a flyable model of a similar fighter last year with the designation F-60 and because a wrapped object that was presumably the real aircraft was trucked in June from Shenyang to Xian, where China has a flight-test center.

The designation “J-31” may be no more valid than the widely assumed but unconfirmed moniker “J-20” applied to a larger fighter from the Chengdu fighter works. The Shenyang aircraft is also sometimes called J-21—again, without any certain validity. The J-20 was revealed in late 2010 and appears to have made its first flight in January 2011. It was not promoted at Zhuhai.

And therein lies a key piece of evidence of the status of the J-31. The J-20 was not at Zhuhai because it is not for sale and because China does not want to reveal too much about it. It is intended for the Chinese air force.

Conversely, because the J-31 was exhibited at Zhuhai and is promoted as an export product, the Chinese air force obviously does not want it. Early production of a fighter intended for Chinese service would be reserved for the air force, as has been Chengdu's J-10, the current Chinese medium-weight fighter.

Why, then, has Shenyang developed it? There are a few possibilities. It could be a technology demonstrator funded by the military, one that the company's management thinks has good potential for full development as an operational fighter.

Alternatively, it could be an internally funded program for the export market, as the company seems to suggest, encouraged by the knowledge that not all countries have access to Western fighters. The J-31 would mainly be a competitor to Russian fighters—though Shenyang might also be calculating that buyers of Western equipment will want more choice as some U.S. and European types go out of production over the next decade or two. Importantly, the Chinese fighter should be cheap, as the JF-17 is, while offering at least the prestige of stealth technology.

Shenyang is working on China's ship-borne fighters, raising the possibility that the J-31 was at one time intended for the newly commissioned aircraft carrier Liaoning and its successors. If so, it probably is not now destined for such service, since the navy, like the air force, would not want to exhibit an aircraft that it intended to operate.

The difference in the sizes between the J-20 and J-31 indicates that they have probably not been designed for the same requirement. Moreover, Avic makes no mention of any domestic use for the aircraft.

A foreign aerospace executive with insight into Shenyang and the wider Chinese industry has perhaps the simplest explanation for the J-31's existence: “This is the program of a company that has more engineers than it knows what to do with.”

While a prototype or technology demonstrator is flying, a key question is whether much progress has been made in developing low-observability features that are easily maintained and do not encumber the aircraft with much weight. An even greater challenge for Shenyang and its suppliers to overcome is fitting the aircraft with electronic systems that merge the inputs from various sensors to give the pilot situational awareness. Avic's statement that the aircraft will offer capability “almost equivalent” to the latest U.S. fighter suggests that it aims to go some way in that direction.

And yet that could all be far away. There is a world of difference between, on the one hand, flying an aircraft that from the outside looks like a fighter and, on the other, building an operational combat aircraft. The F-35 will go into service almost 20 years after the first flight of its X-35 technology demonstrator. Similarly, Shenyang may so far have little more than a bare aircraft that an “export” customer would be expected to help fully develop, or at least fund, as Pakistan has with the JF-17.

Avionics immaturity may be the reason why the J-31 is an export-only aircraft, even though it seems well-sized as a successor to the Chinese air force's J-10 and as a cheaper, large-production complement to the J-20. The air force may well have decided that Chinese industry has enough of a challenge in improving the J-10 and integrating systems for the J-20. But yet another possibility is that Shenyang or Chengdu is cooking up something more advanced than the J-31. With no clear answer, that probably remains the key mystery about the J-31: Why does the Chinese military not want it?

Reviewing the J-31's configuration, it appears that the designers have aimed for an aircraft that has stealth but also conventional fighter versatility, and they are not trying to achieve supersonic flight without afterburning, as the F-22 does. The choice of a quad aft-tail arrangement—two horizontal and two vertical stabilizers—indicates the designers wanted to combine low radar reflectivity with high angles of attack and therefore easier handling in combat, which that would have been hard to do with a canard configuration.

The aft-tail layout also puts hard points close to the center of gravity, probably making the carriage of stores easier and thereby promoting versatility. Photographs of the aircraft at an airfield in September revealed the doors of a large ventral weapons bay.

The model has only moderate sweep on the leading edge of the J-31's wing. To minimize radar reflections, air inlets for the engines have no boundary-layer diverter plates. The nose volume is not large, leaving room for only a modestly sized radar antenna.

For all its habitual secretiveness, the Chinese military displayed two recent attack helicopters at Zhuhai for the first time. One of these was the Z-10 (or WZ-10), which Chinese media suggest is sized between the Eurocopter Tiger and Boeing AH-64 Apache. It is a product of the Changhe works of Avic rotary-wing specialist Avicopter.

The other was the Z-19, an adaptation of the Z-9 and, ultimately, Eurocopter AS352 Dauphin, but with a new fuselage and tandem seating. As a Dauphin derivative, the aircraft should have a gross weight of 4-5 tons, making it somewhat smaller than the Z-10. Harbin Aircraft, also part of Avicopter, builds the Dauphin derivative. It did so originally under a license that Eurocopter says has expired.

Both attack helicopters are powered by Chinese engines, says Avic. The Z-10, at least, has reportedly been fitted with foreign engines during development.

Harbin has also developed an attack version of the Z-9 that retained the bulky cabin of the original utility helicopter. The Chinese army allowed rare close inspection of a recent version, the Z-9WZ in July.

Avic Promotes J-31 As An Export Fighter | AWIN content from Aviation Week

Bias, jealousy? The helicopters too, were on the Zhuhai air show, how come the Chinese military still wants them? and not the J-31 for the simple reason that they were shown in the show with the possibility of an export version !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Icewolf]

Pakistan will definently no doubt get this bird

 

[TOPGUN]

Looks like the best option for us , lets see what the future holds .

 

[rockstar08]

this will be best possible option for us in future , but i think we will see what happen after Jf-17 block 3 start producing

 

[Cyberian]

Can't imagine Pakistan buying a Chinese fighter aircraft that the Chinese won't buy themselves unless it's designed specifically for Pakistan like the FC-1 Fierce Dragon / JF-17 Thunder.

 

[Kompromat]

Can't imagine Pakistan buying a Chinese fighter aircraft that the Chinese won't buy themselves unless it's designed specifically for Pakistan like the FC-1 Fierce Dragon / JF-17 Thunder.

Chinese Navy will buy it.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Pakistan should opt for it 100% TOT , and share of knowledge with Chinese Private Company
This would be a great strategic asset to have to make visits to New Delhi for special ocassions

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Pakistan should opt for it 100% TOT , and share of knowledge with Chinese Private Company
This would be a great strategic asset to have to make visits to New Delhi for special ocassions

100 % is not viable
we dont have the ability to build engines
if we opt for it it will be mix of western avionics and chinese systems

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

The ideal scenario would be we get the TOT and Production line , and wait untill Chinese perfect their local engines and then make a switch

Engines construction should be not an issue provided we setup a local program to reverse engineer available engine components we have all the tools when needed

J-31 would be a big scalp of action

However, I do feel that China will need itself 500-700 jets in stealth category so we are better off tarketing J11 class Air-Air role fighters in mean while

This plane is ideal for China / Pakistan for strategic needs