@ersakthivel,
The official chinese government sites all mention J-10 as RSS and I personally don't subscribe to the Chinese are stupid argument that is typically sold on internet. They have their limitations but engineering acumen is not such a big talent that the Chinese cannot make it.
Having said that I believe that in a one on one the LCA will have the edge despite the LCA development cycle being slower. The bombing does not require a one on one competition so there too LCA more then matches up. For the J-10 the good thing going for it is that since it is bigger there is a lot of room for:
1) going wrong on designs
2) dropping weight and matching up with lighter low wing loaded planes.
Sukhoi variants too are already flying from bases in occupied Tibet. Also if they are talking about J-11 etc replacing J-10 then again we should think about why they are doing it. As it is the Chinese bases are very well equipped take both types in. Currently the news shows that they have stationed only smaller number but it can be deception too.
J-17 was definitely a bad way to go about making planes. Just the way the FBW work for LCA was confiscated and sacntioned. The JF-17 too suffered sanctions. Chinese and Indians both were stupid to even think of relying on the Americans in any manner except at transnational and both paid the price they deserved to pay for their own respective stupidity. JF-17 never really recovered but LCA did and is going strong.
The F-16 may have abandoned RSS. I don't know, nor do I track it. F-16s are historical development patterns. I am interested in only the look forward development possibilities and J-10 does allow some of it. For example, I am really impressed by the fact that instead of waiting endlessly for engines they simply jammed a Su-30 engine into it. So in future what stops ADA from similarly jamming a single FGFA engine into a much larger LCA variant. With that much power at your disposal you may actually be able to shift some of the warload inside the fuselage and do a lot lot more. The air is not going to behave differently with a scaled up LCA. But the differential between the volume to area ( r : r^2 ) of a near cylinderical fuselage will allow for a significant jump in the internal volume relieving you from many of the challenges with current LCA. But this shows how aware Chinese designers must have been of the limitations they were facing. Surely our designers would have done equally if not better but for extraneous reasons which have prevented India from having its own military aviation in last 70 years.
F-16 with its evolving light bombing roles may actually not need RSS any more. In any case F-16 was known to be easily turnable from an RSS to Stable frame, per one of its designers. On top of that early F-16s were said to be positively stable at or around Mach 2. But F-16 from here on is a nearly dead design unless the Americans take interest in it, which they are not.
You dont need to subscribe to the "chinese are stupid " argument. Neither do I, just watch the super computer space & no doubts about this.
What I said was chinese way of ,
1.copying F-16 lavi design with incompatiable & not so reliable AL-31 engines for single engine fighters
2.copying F-35 space age design which relies on space age american engine tech & trying to repeat it with J-31 with dino era AL-31 engines
3. putting FBW into refurbished mig-21 types , ie JF-17s
are not the path that will lead to development of healthy fighter design.
Even on J-20 they are buying mig-1.44 rejected design & putting two AL 31 engines and claiming it as "stealth fighter"!!!
In contrast tejas team achieved more than what they were immediately tasked with if you compare the mk1 A specs with original ASR!!
Now we have
1.a fly by wire tech control laws of Tejas paving way controls of ISRO's shuttle prototype.
2. avionics of tejas finding its way into DARIN upgrades, & su-30 MKI,
3, control laws of tejas forming the back bone of AMCA effort.
Why/ because this is not a copy cat effort , but original R&D.
I have no reason to believe that J-10 can manage RSS, while F-16 couldn't get back its RSS profile due to its extra weight .
Any way we cant argue without facts,
In the past too there were three different specs for JF-17s from three different chinese govt sources.
SOme comparison with J-10,
1.weight of half internal fuel load,( tejas 1.5 ton)(j-10 3tons)
2. empty weight with ,no weapons other than a couple of close combat (6.35 tons)(J-10 9.75 tons)
3. After burner engine thrust.(84 Kn)(125 Kn)
It is 3/1+2
For tejas it is
1.5 tons + 6.35 tons= 7.85 tons= 7850 kg
8400N/7500Kg= 1.12
This will be the thrust to weight ratio of fighters entering dog fight with most of their external stores dumped & BVRs fired.
for J-10
3000kg+9750 kg = 12750Kg
12500/12750= 0.98
So you are wrong on facts,
tejas leads J10 in both ways
tejas has higher TWR & lower wing loading than J-10,
On the flip side the higher volume of J-10 will exact a certain weight penalty , And there are no cutting engine solutions for its future iterations, unlike the GE 414 fall back for the tejas mk2 effort.
Stuffing russian engines into indian single light fighter design has just one problem--Reliability.
All russian fighters after mig-21s are twin engined , so they can maange, not the case for single engined fighters,
IAF wouldn't even tough a tejas with russian engine , not even with a barge pole!!!
It is not the absolute size or thrust of the engine which matters in making fighters agile,
It is the thrust per /Kg of the engines , same like the thrust to weight ratios in fighters,
Even rafale has two smaller engines , opposed to far bigger mirage engines
). Wish I could speak freely, I do wish to reply to quite a few items.
