Aviation Industry Corporation of China., Ltd. (AVIC) recently mentioned in a post that its “Aviation Industry Fighter Renewal Team” is forging ahead and being brave enough to finish a domestic fighter replacement task. It has achieved excellent results and won the honorary title of “China Youth May Fourth Medal Collective” in 2019.
The outside believes that this news indicates that domestic fighters J-20 and J-10C have been successfully installed homemade Taihang improved engines (WS-10 Improved) to replace the previous Russian-made engines – after the engine was reported to have done its test work in July, 2019, marking the replacement of domestic fighters with Chinese hearts, clearing obstacles for mass production.
The J-20 fighter engine is the Russian AL-31FN-M1, which is an improved version of the J-10 fighter AL-31FN. A larger fan was used to increase the air flow to increase engine thrust. The AL-13FN-M1 afterburner thrust was increased to 13.5 tons, and the AL-31FN was 12.5 tons. The engine control system uses the FADEC system, while the latter’s mechanical control system, FADEC system control is more refined than the mechanical system, which helps improve engine performance and reliability.
However, AL-31FN-M1 is an imported engine after all, and China does not know much about it, especially the key parameters of the FADEC system, and Russia is unwilling to disclose it. The engine replacement technology research mission “broke through the difficulties of the aircraft’s multi-system complex cross-linking technology”, indicating that after J-20 fighter jet had its Russian engine replaced with the Taihang improved engine, it achieved the integration of flight control, fire control and engine control, further enhancing J-20 fighter’s combat capability.
After engine replacement of J-20 fighter, the way for mass production of the aircraft is cleared. In 2019, the Chinese Air Force established the first Weilong combat brigade, and formed combat capabilities in early 2020. The outside world generally believes that the Chinese Air Force will form a second Weilong combat brigade in 2020. With the localization of engines and mass production of J-20 fighters, the formation of the Chinese Air Force fighters is accelerating. We will see more and more J-20 combat troops in the future.
Of course, Taihang’s improved engine is the third-generation engine. After all, its thrust is still insufficient for J-20 fighter, and it cannot display the full effectiveness of J-20 fighter, such as supersonic cruise. The originally planned engine for J-20 is domestically produced WS-15 which was reported in 2019 to have made a significant breakthrough. This engine has a larger thrust and a higher weight-to-weight ratio, which can make J-20 capable of supersonic cruise capability. Therefore, J-20 fighter’s domestic engine may need to be replaced again in the future.
