Recently a photo of an AVIC Shenyang office reveals that an FC-31 model has been painted with the Chinese army’s emblem “八一”, and this is widely speculated as an indication that this second stealth fighter of China has been officially approved.
According to military analyst Wang Zhenguo, this FC-31 fighter model shows that the aircraft is equipped with air-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles, but it is not yet possible to judge whether the fighter can become a carrier-based type.
Previous photos of the FC-31 fighter jet showed that the black coating of the aircraft was changed to navy gray. However, although the FC-31 fighter adopts the dual front wheel design for carrier-based fighters, its catapult and landing tail hook has been missing for a long time, which indicates that FC-31 seems to be still far away from the ship.
Besides, the limited belly magazine capacity on FC-31 also greatly reduces its compatibility of stealth performance and ammunition load. And as for its configuration of built-in anti-ship missiles, miniaturization and stealth haven’t seemed to be achieved either. And this will also affect the stealth penetration ability of the fighter.
At present, the engine equipped on FC-31 fighter should be two WS-13 engines, which have an afterburner thrust of 9 tons. However, such power is still not enough for FC-31 fighter. The aircraft is supposed to be equipped with a Chinese domestic fourth-generation turbofan medium engine in the future, which is equivalent to the performance of the US-made F-414 engine, of which the afterburner thrust is close to 10 tons. Then the performance of FC-31 will be fully released.
The performance data of the latest version of FC-31 fighter shows that its maximum take-off weight has reached 28 tons, the maximum load has reached 8 tons, the combat radius has reached 1,250 kilometers, and its performance is steadily improving.
Although FC-31 is not suitable for taking off from the deck at this stage, from the perspective of the take-off distance of its land-based runway, the take-off distance of FC-31 is less than 400 meters. In theory, it can still become a carrier-based aircraft. If the new powerful engines are used on the jet, its stealth performance and ammunition load would be solved, and the great potential of FC-31 could be realized, according to Wang.