Beijing has made the first move to develop its own fifth-generation fighter. The progress of aircraft construction in the PRC is impressive, but at the same time, the life of Chinese designers is significantly complicated by a number of systemic engineering and technological problems. In the coming years, the attention of the world aviation community will be riveted on how China will tackle this most ambitious task and what it will get as a result.
Last week, an awkward-looking, heavy aircraft with two broken keels and a sleek contour, giving out stealth architecture, took off from the runway at the Chengdu test center. New Year's eve leaks in Chinese blogs showing poor quality photographs of the new fighter taken with mobile phone cameras have been confirmed. On January 11, Chinese sources officially confirmed the fact of the first flight of the J-20, nicknamed the "Black Eagle" in the Western press, a prototype of a fifth-generation Chinese fighter. The PRC enters the game of "big boys", following Russia and the United States, trying to create an aircraft on its own that meets the high technological standards of aviation in the 21st century.
A plane with a thousand names
J-14, J-20, J-XX, XXJ, "Black Eagle", "Black Ribbon", "Mighty Dragon" … As soon as this hypothetical machine was not called in the press and on the Internet, which, in fact, at that time, no one else and did not see it in the eye, content with meager graphic images of "probable type" (varying degrees of fantasticality). At least some information about the parameters and appearance of the new aircraft was obtained only from visual materials about the first test flight, abundantly presented after January 11, 2011 on the Chinese Internet. And this is despite the fact that the very fact of the development of a "promising fighter" in the Celestial Empire was known for a long time.
Back in 1995, there were leaks that Beijing was funding research on fifth-generation aviation elements. This information caused a flurry of irony: the Chinese economy of the mid-90s, with all its indisputable successes, did not at all match in its technological equipment with tasks of this scale. The verdict was unambiguous: the Middle Empire would first need to learn how to make aircraft of the previous, fourth generation, whose brainchildren like the Russian Su-27 were not even put on the "screwdriver" assembly at that time (recall, the Celestial Empire mastered this task only by 2000).
We were shown at best a "demo", an empty shell
In 2005, it was confirmed that the PRC completed research work on the formation of an advanced design for such an aircraft. Public opinion was still skeptical, but much more respectful. The term "fifth generation" was used when discussing future Chinese cars, but with the traditional condescending and excuseful proviso: you understand, the generation may be the fifth, but all the same - this is China, whatever one may say …
In addition, a number of fourth-generation systems in the PRC were still not developed by that time and the country was still dependent on imports. However, the Chinese economy of 1995 was already significantly different from its appearance in 2005: the switch of Beijing's industrial policy from increasing gross industrial production to targeted technological modernization was making itself felt more and more clearly.
On January 11, China made a new application: the world was shown the first "technology demonstrator" of the fifth generation. It is difficult to deny the huge step forward taken by the Chinese aircraft manufacturers, led by Yang Wei, the chief designer of such aircraft as the FC-1 and the two-seat version of the J-10 fighter.
The "Black Eagle", apparently, has a length of about 22 meters (there is no official data, you have to make relative measurements from ground photographs) and a normal take-off weight of about 35 tons. In the layout elements of the twin-engine aircraft, stealth elements, which are "on duty" for modern aviation, are used. The possible device of the machine, "readable" by its appearance, is also quite interesting: as far as one can judge, it has a sufficiently capacious internal compartment for installing weapons.
Almost all observers note that the fighter came out large: for an air superiority plane, it is clearly overweight. It is quite obvious that it is premature and difficult to talk about the tactical purpose of the demonstration test platform, but if we look for the most probable use of a combat vehicle of similar parameters, then it is most likely a strike fighter-bomber like the Russian Su-34. Presumably, the "Black Eagle" is loaded with anti-ship functions (which may be the reason for the potential size of the internal compartment), possibly with the installation of large-scale heavy missiles S-802 or their analogues.
I don't recognize you in makeup
The aerodynamic layout of the aircraft immediately gives out several sources of borrowing. First, the "hand" of the Russian aircraft industry is clearly visible. Some solutions are meticulously copied from domestic "technology demonstrators" of the 90s: the C-37 Berkut of the Sukhoi company and the MiG 1.42 - a competing Mikoyan aircraft made within the framework of the project of a promising multifunctional fighter (MFI).
The design of the nose part reveals a "close relationship" with the only serial fifth-generation fighter to date - the F-22 Raptor. It comes to the ridiculous: for example, the uninterrupted cockpit canopy is made almost one-to-one, like on the American "predator", down to small details noticeable in the pictures. But upon closer examination of the layout of the air intakes, another plane immediately pops up in the visual memory - the American F-35, which has not yet entered the series.
If there are still some grounds for the conclusion about the origin of the visually observed layout solutions, then the most contradictory assumptions about the "stuffing" of the aircraft are sometimes put forward. So, the motor block J-20 raises a lot of questions. Initially, Western media claimed that the plane was equipped with nothing more than the Russian AL-41F-1C, aka "product 117C" - the standard engine of the Su-35S fighter. However, after analyzing the photographs of the tail section, this assumption disappeared: the configuration of the nozzles clearly did not correspond to the known images of the "117". And there is no information about the actual deliveries of this unit to China.
Somewhat helped in the search for the officialdom of the Celestial Empire: the published message about the awarding of the creators of engines for the J-20 aircraft. It indicates that we are talking about the WS-10G - the latest modification of the "tenth" family, the Chinese functional analogue of the Russian AL-31F engines. The G series differs from its predecessors in the increased thrust to 14.5 tons and a new FADEC unit (electronic digital engine control system) of its own production.
However, a number of doubts remain here as well. For example, some aviation enthusiasts, comparing several photographs of the rear of the Black Eagle with the well-known images of engines, came to a completely stunning conclusion: supposedly the Chinese fifth generation took off … on the Russian AL-31FN, the standard engine of the J-10 fighter.
Be that as it may, it is obvious that the Chinese also did not avoid a temporary option: their fifth-generation prototype took off on an intermediate engine, like our T-50, which is awaiting fine-tuning of the standard "product 127". However, in contrast to the Russian situation, this step is due to much more serious systemic problems in engine building.
What instead of a heart?
Engines are, without a doubt, the primary headache for the Black Eagle developers and the entire Chinese aircraft industry. Advancement in the field of engine building lags far behind the pace of development of the aviation industry as a whole. Here the Chinese are faced with a number of fundamental problems, first of all, with the technology of materials and special-purpose alloys that they lacked.
You can get (quite legally, under contracts with Moscow) relatively modern (designed in the early 80s) engines from the AL-31F family. However, it is not possible to simply copy them and start production. This task requires the creation of new industries in the field of metallurgy and metalworking, capable of supplying designers with modern materials and ensuring the required manufacturing and assembly accuracy, bringing the resource of motors at least to the minimum acceptable values.
The slow, painful growth of the WS-10 Chinese motor family demonstrates this thesis. Particularly severe problems are observed with turbine parts. A number of experts note that China purchases from Russia a whole set of components for aircraft engines, but it is showing particular interest in turbine blades and discs. Their technology is the weakest link in the PRC's motor industry. It is quite possible that in the next few years we will see a picture when the Chinese engines will basically use imported "critical elements" made in Russia.
Nevertheless, this industry is progressing. But even a few years ago, the products of the engines of the Celestial Empire could only be called "crafts": in fact, their resource did not exceed 20 hours even at the stand. Now these indicators have improved significantly, but they are still far from the 1000 hours required by the Chinese military. Recall that the standard resource of the Russian AL-31F is 800-900 hours, and the version of the AL-31FN produced by MMPP "Salyut", intended for J-10 fighters, according to reports from China, has been brought to 1500 hours (here the question of the real operational reliability - after all, such an increase in the resource of the PRC does not come from a good life).
So far, nothing good has been obtained when copying another family of Russian motors. The already mentioned Chinese light fighter FC-1, better known under the export marking JF-17 Thunder, has not yet been transferred to WS-13 engines (they have been in development for about ten years), and production vehicles continue to fly on our RD-93 - close relatives of the RD-33 installed on the MiG-29 family of fighters. The reasons are exactly the same: the reliability and resource of our own engines are still insufficient to transfer machines with them into operational operation, and even more so for significant export supplies (for which the JF-17 is largely intended).
Hence the persistently declared interest of Beijing in the procurement of the already mentioned "product 117C". It is difficult to judge whether the Chinese will eventually manage to get their hands on this motor. According to some reports, our country is fundamentally not opposed to such a sale, which was confirmed during a recent visit to China by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. However, knowing the well-established rules of the domestic military industry, we can say that China will not see the 117th before Russia has at least a tested prototype of an engine of the next technological level (the same “product 127”). Until then, the Black Eagles will have to be content with little: the insufficiently powerful WS-10G or the still very vague and promising WS-15, which is supposed to get up to 18 tons of thrust.
However, the fact that the J-20 took off on non-native engines is not so important in comparison with some preliminary conclusions regarding, for example, the design features of the air intakes. Some experts indicate that their shape is optimized for a subsonic non-afterburner mode.
Thus, the Chinese "promising fifth-generation demonstrator" with some degree of probability is not intended for testing cruising "supersonic" - at least in the currently observed form. This decision is quite logical: the Chinese now have no engines that are capable of delivering more than 9 tons of thrust without afterburner, which is completely insufficient. At the same time, the size of the Black Eagle's air intakes additionally confirms the likelihood of installing a more powerful engine in the future.
Eyes and ears
The technological level of development of the Chinese radio-electronic industry is also completely insufficient. The Celestial Empire is far behind Russia and the United States in the development and production of modern avionics. The maximum that can be talked about in terms of stable serial production of reliable samples is the "localization of analogues" of Russian radars of the N001 family, which were part of the onboard complexes of the Su-27SK and Su-30MKK fighters transferred to Beijing, as well as the Zhemchug radar, which was delivered later.
As a number of experts note, their own Chinese radars (for example, 149X, devoid of even a passive phased array, or having its "type 1473", created on the basis of the Russian "Pearl") have rather ordinary parameters and, despite the impressive pace of progress, the lag in the system the design of radio-electronic complexes is preserved. For example, the PRC does not have radar systems with an active phased antenna array (AFAR) that are at least close to being put into service.
This means that the Black Eagle avionics complex most likely lacks the equipment that it ultimately requires as a supposedly fifth generation fighter. As you can see, here again we are talking about a test platform aircraft rather than a combat vehicle (even a pre-production version) with a full set of required tactical and technical parameters.
Developing the avionics problem, we can also mention avionics. The requirements for fifth-generation vehicles in this area are quite high, and it is still completely unclear to what extent China is able to provide the Orlov with powerful information and control systems, especially in terms of combining them with weapons control systems. On the other hand, it should be noted that the Celestial Empire has recently achieved quite tangible successes in the development of avionics for its third-generation technology, so this part of the task looks somewhat more solvable against the background of, say, much more severe problems with engines.
There are even questions to such a thing as a smooth cockpit canopy, which brings us back to the already mentioned difficulties with special materials. The Chinese have demonstrated for the first time that they are capable of producing such products (especially noting that the lantern is made on serial equipment). However, at the moment there is absolutely no clarity about its quality and ability to operate in a long-term supersonic flight - have Chinese materials scientists mastered the proper technologies?
The same questions remain when we turn to another technological element of the fifth generation aircraft system - the radio-absorbing coating. It is impossible to say at the moment how adequate the Chinese "stealth materials" are to the tasks set (and in general whether they are capable of solving them at least to some extent).
Five years at four
So what has China got its hands on? For starters, it's anything but a fifth generation fighter. At first glance, the "Black Eagle" gives the impression of a "dump" of promising elements of the world aircraft industry, adopted on the principle of "everything will fit in the economy."Perhaps the creative originality of the Chinese product lies in the unique synergy of the complex of these borrowed solutions, which will yield high tactical efficiency, but it is clearly premature to judge this. It is likely that this crude prototype will turn out to be quite a successful car, but its design and potential "filling" already now raise more questions and doubts than answers and statements.
Stably and independently, China is now capable of producing only high-quality third-generation vehicles with improved weapons, avionics and avionics. Already the transition to fourth-generation technologies is accompanied by a radical drop in the quality of production of components and a weakening of the tactical and technical characteristics of products. The release of modern technology of the fourth generation, however, is also possible, but it still requires the import of a number of critical elements. The school of Chinese aerodynamics also lags behind in development, despite the dense and long-term support from high-class Russian specialists.
Under these conditions, it is impossible to talk about the ability of the Celestial Empire to design and sustainably produce a fifth-generation aircraft system. Moreover, as we have already said, the "Black Eagle", apparently, is not such a system. Most likely it belongs to the "4+" generation with individual elements of the fifth - and then only if stealth technologies are successfully implemented on it. This aircraft cannot be considered a fifth-generation fighter either in terms of the characteristics of the engines available today, or in terms of on-board radio electronics. With a high probability, it is not so also from the point of view of the parameters of the afterburner cruising flight.
We were shown, at best, a "demo", an empty shell, and in the coming years it will gradually be filled with modern structural elements, which, perhaps, will radically change the current ideas about the future Chinese car. On the one hand, the absolutely fantastic pace of technological modernization of the Chinese defense industry and the most active policy of Beijing in the field of transfer of defense technologies (not always legal, by the way) are pushing to this conclusion. On the other hand, it is just as obvious that there are no miracles, and the Celestial Empire's aviation industry will have to go all the way, having first learned how to make less complex machines. Until 2020, which American analysts believe is the most optimistic date for the adoption of the Eagle's successors into service, there is still quite a bit of time left.
