A really good question.
nationalinterest.org
The IAF Sukhoi Su-30MKIs on a sortie in the Northeast managed to track Chengdu J-20 fighters being operated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) over Tibet.
zeenews.india.com
Share It ASAPTweetMade In China JF-17 Grounded due to structural and technical Issues Pakistani Airforce frontline fighters are facing critical issues, due to which 40℅ of JF-17 grounded. The PAC JF-17 Thunder, or CAC FC-1 Xiaolong, is a lightweight, single-engine, multi-role combat aircraft...
ifenewsnetwork.com
www.indianpolitics.co.in
China is developing a new carrier-based fighter aircraft to succeed the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark.The J-15—which is an unlicensed Chinese development
taskandpurpose.com
the first woman to fly chinas j10 fighter plane was killed in a crash during an aerobatics training exercise state media reported on tuesday yu xu 30 was killed after hitting the wing of another jet when she ejected from her aircraft notably xu was one of the four female pilots trained to fly...
inshorts.com
The first woman to fly China's J-10 fighter plane was killed in a crash during an aerobatics training exercise, state media reported on Tuesday.
Chinese warplane meets its match in feathered foe | 2020-10-05 17:17:00
www.taiwannews.com.tw
As China flexes its muscle up in the Himalayas and in the South China Sea, Chinese state-run media published a report of a PLAAF fighter jet crashing down without sharing the exact location of the crash. Why Is US Navy’s Whooping $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier Stuck In The Garage For Last 15...
eurasiantimes.com
The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) said a Sukhoi Su-27 fighter plane crashed on mudflats in Rongcheng city, Shandong province, during a drill, on Sunday afternoon, according to Xinhua.
www.scmp.com
A screengrab from CCTV footage released on 2 March showing a J-10C multirole fighter in PLAAF markin
fighterjetsworld.com
An unidentified fighter jet of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), believed to be either
fighterjetsworld.com
The jet engine has a long and storied history. Its development occurred spontaneously amongst several unrelated groups in the early 20th Century. Frank Whittle submitted a UK patent on a design in …
hackaday.com
Early revisions of the resulting WS-10 engine have fallen well short of design goals which aimed to match the Su-27’s AL-31 engine on thrust output and reliability. Overhauls were required every 30 hours, versus 400 hours for the Russian benchmark. Anecdotal evidence suggests the WS-10 also takes longer to produce thrust.
The problems lie largely in materials and machining. Jet engine components must withstand huge temperatures and pressures, while spinning at high RPM for hours on end. Factors like thermal cycling and crack propagation must be considered for the materials used, lest the engine destroy itself before time. Reliability is as important as performance, as all the thrust in the world is useless if the aircraft needs an engine replacement after every flight. The keys to producing the raw materials, as well as creating the high-tolerance final parts, are closely guarded national secrets. Spy photos are easy to take at airshows, and blueprints can be readily stolen –
often as simply as searching for CAD files and sending them home. Data on metallurgy and materials and production processes can be harder to lay one’s hands on.
After 25 years spent trying to build a competitive fighter jet engine, China is still struggling to match the performance of a design with roots in the 1970s.
Engine flaws and a lack of training have been identified as the likely causes of two accidents that hit the Chinese air force in the space of little over a week – one of which claimed the lives of three airmen. Deaths from the crashes, which happened within a span of 10 days, included a...
www.defencenews.in
The second accident happened eight days later on the Tibetan Plateau where a J-10 fighter jet on a low-altitude flying drill crashed into the mountain.
“Fortunately, the pilot ejected safely in time, but the J-10 crashed into the mountain,” said an informed source, who requested anonymity since no official announcement about the accident has been made.
“Preliminary investigations indicated that the accident had something to with the Russian-made AL-31 engine on board the J-10,” the source said.
Military analysts said the air force needs to improve the durability of its aircraft and training for pilots.
Hong Kong-based military expert Song Zhongping suggested that problems with engines and flight control systems were also key reasons behind some of the fatal crashes.
Two J-15 fighter jets crashed in April 2016, resulting in one death and one serious injury. Investigations into the two crashes pointed to problems with the flight control system.
The deadly crash of a People's Liberation Army Air Force military plane last month has raised questions about whether China's relentless push for military modernisation has outpaced its actual capabilities. Read more at straitstimes.com.
www.straitstimes.com
The deadly crash of a People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) military plane in Guizhou province last month during a training exercise has raised questions about whether China's relentless push for military modernisation has outpaced its actual capabilities.
The incident, which claimed the lives of at least 12 crew members onboard, has severely hit air force morale, as it happened just weeks after the crash of a J-15 aircraft carrier-based fighter jet, a source told the South China Morning Post.
"We must recognise that in China, there is a fatal gap between the air force's combat-ready training and its imperfect aircraft development," the source said.
Despite engine and aircraft design problems, pilots have been pushed to fly the warplanes "because there is this political mission to build a combat-ready fighting force", explained the source.
The crashes are the latest in what appears to be a growing string of often-fatal accidents involving China's military planes.
While the PLA does not openly report such incidents, there were at least seven known crashes in the last two years, including one last November that killed Ms Yu Xu, one of China's first female fighter pilots.
TECHNOLOGY AND CORRUPTION ISSUES AT PLAY
The PLA's air programmes face significant challenges, not least because most of its warplanes are cloned from foreign designs.
The use of ageing aircraft, such as the 1990s-era Tu-154, for long-distance maritime missions also shows a lack of confidence in the new models when it comes to longer missions, said S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies research fellow Wu Shang-Su.
A more deep-seated problem is the PLA's graft-riddled past, which has likely compromised the quality of its fighter jet programmes.
Former PLA chief Guo Boxiong was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 for having amassed a fortune in bribes.
"As vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission over the past decade, Guo was in charge of R&D (research and development) and reports were that he took 'tremendous bribes' from the defence industry," said PLA expert Arthur Ding of the Taipei-based Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies.
"If that's the case, the technology and quality of platforms like jet fighters may not meet the PLA's demands, and this can partially explain why they are suffering this kind of incident rate."
PLAAF limitations arise from the defence technology sanctions placed on them by all major defence technology exporters. Even Russia doesn't trust them with their latest technology and only sells them outdated and downgraded weaponry.
If the PLAAF already had advanced radar technology on their J-20, there would be no point in buying the SU-35 with outdated and downgraded avionics.
The Russians don't trust the Chinese IP thieves, hence they always sell them downgraded versions of their technology. All PLAAF missiles are based on downgraded "dumbed down" versions of Russian missiles, which are also behind western technology by 2 decades.
Meanwhile IAF has jammers based on latest western technology that can jam primitive PLAAF radars.
Fact 1: There have been several crashes of PLAAF's flanker copies (also J-15s of PLA navy) as well as J-10s (including 1 that killed the first female J-10 pilot) due to airframe and engine reliability issues. This would be a death sentence if J-10's Russian engines fail when they are forced to do repeated sorties from high altitude airfields during war.
Fact 2: The Chinese bought the SU-35 from Russia even as the J-20 was becoming operational, and they are planning to buy more. The SU-35 comes with a PESA radar based on Russian radar technology from the 1990s; the version sold to China had an even more downgraded version of this radar and other avionics, because the Russians don't trust the Chinese IP thieves. If the Chinese already had advanced modern avionics on the J-10 and J-20, why buy a Russian fighter with outdated and downgraded avionics?
Fact 3: The J-20 has been repeatedly tracked by IAF fighter radars. This is because China does not have the technology to hide the J-20 radar or canopy from being tracked by enemy radar. The canards of the J-20 are also detrimental to stealth due to them being radar resonance hotspots. The Russian engines on the J-20 also lack stealth, and make the J-20 severely underpowered so it needs to use its afterburner to turn. The cracks appearing on over 40 percent JF-17s exported to Pakistan give further evidence of how limited Chinese materials science currently is. Even the US had issues with making durable stealth in the F-35 when the program was delayed by 2 years due to g-force related cracks. And we are supposed to believe that China (which supposedly stole technology from US via hackers) was successful in operationalizing J-20 2 years ahead of the F-35's problems without any issues? Give me a break. That is why it makes sense that the J-20 is just a propaganda/psy ops barbie doll fighter for brainwashed CCP drones, and why IAF fighters keep tracking it.
Any country that cannot design and manufacture reliable 4th generation aircraft and engines simply does not have the materials technology to make 5th generation fighters and engines.