Photos of the day: Maiden flight of the J-31

As a side note, the J-31 was chased by a pair of J-11BS during its maiden flight


J-31 fighter roars off on maiden flightGlobal Times | 2012-11-1 0:05:08By Xu Tianran      http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/741613.shtmlChina's second stealth fighter, dubbed J-31, makes its maiden flight Wednesday in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. Photo: Pan BinChina's second stealth fighter, dubbed J-31, makes its

Here comes the PLA in Australia

Chinese troops depart for tri-nation drill in Australia(Source: Xinhua)   2012-10-27　　CHONGQING, Oct. 26, (Xinhua) -- Nearly 30 Chinese military personnel, mostly medical professionals, departed Chongqing Friday for a tri-nation exercise on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in Australia.　　Codenamed "Exercise Cooperation Spirit 2012," the drill will be held by Chinese, Australian and

Photo of the day: Liaoning's tire marks

After playing touch-and-go for the last two weeks, the Liaoning is now returned to port with some real tire marks to show for.


Notice the four arresting cables and the positions of the tire marks.








Friday, October 12, 2012


This is what they are doing at sea.

End of an era -- Nanchang ends its production of Q-5 ground-attack aircraft after 44 years.

After extending the production line to cover a limited run on the J model twin-seater trainer, Nanchang finally closes its Q-5 offerings for good. 


http://war.163.com/12/1027/10/8EQM4B0J00014OMD.html
10月25日，中航工业洪都举行最后一架强五飞机总装交付仪式。
强五飞机是新中国研制的第一代超音速强击机，屡建战功，成为空军主力机种之一。1958年8月强五飞机正式在南昌飞机制造公司上马，陆孝彭任总设计师，1965年强五原型机首飞，1968年投产，至今已有44年。
强五系列飞机于1985年获得国家科技进步特等奖，成为享誉国际的“亚洲明星”。强五研制过程中凝炼的“强五精神”

Communist Propaganda of the day: J-15, whether heavy bomber or fighter

With 3.18 trillion US dollars in foreign exchange reserve, you would think the Chinese government could afford to hire a decent editor for its English edition of the People Daily!
  
Joking aside, it seems that they finally acknowledge the official designation for that "Independently developed" carrier bird.


Devastating power of China's J-15 ranks high in the world(Source: People's Daily

Third J-20 stealth aircraft prototype emerges.

While the new J-31 seems to gather all the news headlines over the last several months, Chengdu is quietly working on its third J-20 stealth aircraft prototype.   That is the thing about the Chinese military-industry complex -- they walk more than they talk. 

Judging from the photos below, the third J-20 prototype is sporting a new nose with room reserved for a dedicated EOS/IRST system.


 2,

Luda class DDG 107 "Yinchuan" decommissioned

Luda class DDG 107 "Yinchuan" decommissioned today after 36 years of service (here) marking it the third decommissioned Luda Class in recent weeks.

Status of J-10

Recently, we've seen what appears to be the last batch of J-10A fighter jets making their test flights. The 6th batch of J-10As number all the way up to 637 were seeing making test flights. That indicates there are at least 37 J-10As in this 6th batch. There were also at least 37 J-10As in the 6th batch. One of the commonly asked questions now that J-10A is drawing to a close is how many of these planes are there. If we assume that each of 6 J-10A and 2 J-10S batches have around 37 aircraft, then theer would be 8 * 37 = 296 J-10s. Based on the number of actual regiments we've seen, this seems to be quite unlikely. While the 2nd j-10S batch and the last 2 J-10A batch have produced between 35 to 40 J-10s, the earlier batches probably had smaller number of aircraft.

As far as we can tell, there are 7 PLAAF regiments of J-10 (in 44, 3, 2, 1, 24, 9, 15th division) and 1 PLANAF regiment. In addition, there are also 12 J-10s serving at the August first flight demonstration team and somewhere betwen 15 and 20 J-10s serving with FTTC as aggressor squad. There should be 24 J-10s serving in the PLANAF regiment and 28 J-10s serving in most PLAAF regiments (although we may have 36 serving in the 24th division regiment). Assuming that the last batch of J-10s will be used to fully form the 15th division regiment, we should have at most 24 + 12 + 20 + 28 * 6 + 36 = 260 J-10s in service at that time. If we factor in a few crashed and replaced J-10s, we are only around 30 off that first calculation of 296 J-10s.

The next question is whether or not the number of engines adds up. Based on some help from fellow SDF member asif iqbal, it seems like the delivery of AL-31FN from Russia have been the following.

54 ordered in 2000 delivered between 2001-2005
100 ordered in 2005 delivered between 2005-2008
122 ordered in 2009 delivered between 2010-2011
123 ordered in 2011 delivery’s due between 2011-2013

That would represent 399 AL-31FNs delivered by sometimes next year. A couple of those have probably been used for the J-10B program while a good number of them will be used as spare engines for J-10s. An estimate of 250 J-10A and J-10S by the end of J-10A production run does not seem too crazy. The question of power plant for J-10 is kind of puzzling. It seems like the first batch of J-10B will also be using the base version of AL-31FN. While I do expect J-10B to eventually use WS-10A, it doesn't seem like that will be the case yet. At the same time, if PLAAF does place another order for AL-31FN, I think it would be quite disappointing if it will not be for a higher thrusted version.

At this point, the J-10B project has already been flying for close to 4 years. I had expected to already see the first batch of J-10B to come out by now, but it looks like we will have to wait until next year for that. It does seem like CAC has lost some of its shine recently to the number of new aircraft showing up at SAC. There could be many reasons for the amount of time they have been testing out the J-10B project. A lot of resources are used up for the J-20 projects while production for J-10A remains quite strong. But in the end, I think the change from J-10A to J-10B is quite a large change. CAC is testing out a lot of new technologies that will also be used for other projects.

Aircraft carrier needs three stages to achieve combat effectiveness

Aircraft carrier needs three stages to achieve combat effectiveness(Source: People's Daily Online)   2012-10-18　　The delivery of an aircraft carrier is not the end of an aircraft carrier project, especially when the carrier-based aircraft are not delivered. It is just an important result of a stage in an aircraft carrier project because the supporting weapons and carrier-based aircraft systems

Photos of the day: The 7 China Navy warships off Okinawa

If there are two submarine tenders in that task force ......




















Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012

Seven Chinese Navy warships skirt Okinawa
Kyodo

Seven Chinese warships passed Tuesday through Japan's contiguous zone, a band of water just outside the nation's territorial waters, near an Okinawa island, the Defense Ministry said.

 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121017a3.html

The

U.S., China to Consider Sharing Resources During Joint Missions

U.S., China to Consider Sharing Resources During Joint Missions
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=118202

By Donna MilesAmerican Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2012 – In what U.S. Pacific Command’s
logistics chief calls a groundbreaking development, officials from the
United States and China

Countermeasure Washdown Systems

Photos of the day: Carrier Ops.

This is what they are doing at sea.

J-10S wallpapers

Photos of the day: Clear images of Y-9 Transporter in "China Airforce" color

 Judging from the recently photos, there is no doubt that the Y-9 project has entered serial production.






Wednesday, March 14, 2012


Could this be the first Y-9 in-flight photo?







Thursday, September 16, 2010


Y-9 project, rebooted. 

http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2010/09/y-9-project-rebooted.html
According to China Aviation News (here) the long delayed first Y-9

2nd Z-10 equipped Army Aviation Unit.

Judging from the recent PLA Daily articles and internet photo "releases", the 8th LH brigade of the 38th Group Army, Beijing MR has become the 2nd LH unit armed with the latest Z-10 attach choppers (6th squadron).   It is interesting to note that the 8th is also home to the Z-19 light attack helicopter (5th squadron).

After two years of service with the 5th LH brigade, it is clear that the CMC

Photo of the day: Three 1300t class CMS cutters being being built simultaneously at Huangpu

In addition to the 056 line, there are now THREE lines building the 1300t class CMS cutter simultaneously
-- hmmwv






Thursday, May 10, 2012


Chinese Maritime Surveillance (CMS) to commission 36 cutters in 3 years.




Chinese Maritime Surveillance (CMS) to commission 36 new cutters from
2010 to 2012 including seven 1500 ton class, fifteen 1000 ton class and
fourteen 600 ton class "to

DDG 162 Nanning Decommissioned

In addition to DDG 131  "Nanjing", another Luda class DDG is now being transferred to the Chinese civilian "coast guard", the CMS (China marine surveillance).  This time it is the Nanning. 

Together with Dongce 226 and Nanyun, the CMS will gain four more 2nd-hand ocean patrol and support ships in rather short order.