Armchair
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There was a lot of rumours some time ago of a twin-engined J-10. I remember even Crobato, a well known Chinese poster spoke about it. What happened to this project?
The project interests me because of the recent rumours of a new Chinese aircraft that PAF may be acquiring. A twin-engined J-10 makes perfect sense for the PAF, as the engines will most likely be a RD-33 / WS-13 meaning commonality with the JF-17.
I thought of starting a new thread rather than posting on another thread and derailing that thread.
Here are some things a quick googling brought me (comment by Crobato on SDF):
@TheTallGuy didn't want to divert that thread so thought of putting this here.
The project interests me because of the recent rumours of a new Chinese aircraft that PAF may be acquiring. A twin-engined J-10 makes perfect sense for the PAF, as the engines will most likely be a RD-33 / WS-13 meaning commonality with the JF-17.
I thought of starting a new thread rather than posting on another thread and derailing that thread.
Here are some things a quick googling brought me (comment by Crobato on SDF):
crobato said:
Sounds really major. More than just a Taihang engine change. I sense that this may be a two engined project with two WS-13s (two Taihangs would force too much structural changes). Rather than produce a full heavyweight fighter in the Su-27 class, this is more of a twin engined medium fighter in the MiG-29/Rafale/Typhoon/Hornet class.
,...
If they ever come up with a twin engined version in the Typhoon weight class, its safe to presume they would stop building the single engined type. Whatever low end would be left to the FC-1, probably even imported from Pakistan. The resources to build such planes would be finite even for Chengdu, and I would probably put it on which plane it would be most effective.
I don't know if the so called stealthy plane and the twin engined plane are one and the same, but in my opinion, most likely are, as it is not efficient to be developing two planes at once. And it probably isn't as stealthy if it decides to recycle as much of the current J-10's front end.
Logically its simpler for the single engined J-10 to follow an upgrade path for the engine, to more powerful versions of the WS-10A or AL-31F. If they are pushing for a twin engined variant, two things must apply.
1. China intends to fully keep the plane domestic, ruling out future versions of the AL-31F or AL-41.
2. China's engine technology still has its limits. It would be easier to achieve the same thrust level with two smaller engines of less thrust combined than one single powerful engine with one overwhelming thrust. Note this lesson applied to the J-8II vs. J-9 development.
3. Chengdu intends to create a larger plane with a bigger wing planform that can hold more hardpoints and weight. Probably means much of the plane from the front end downward may be new, and probably longer.
...
@TheTallGuy didn't want to divert that thread so thought of putting this here.