Chinese military expert Fu Qianshi recently revealed on a program that the J-10C has become the most feared 3.5 generation fighter in China’s “Golden Helmets” free air combat test in recent years. In the last three years of the “Golden Helmets” exercise, the J-10C has repeatedly defeated the J-16 multirole fighter and the imported Su-35 air fighter, achieving a brilliant record.
He said that the J-10C has defeated the J-16 and Su-35 fighters for three consecutive years (2019-2021) since the aircraft entered service in batch in 2018, taking the largest number of “Golden Helmets”. It is worth mentioning that in this year’s “Golden Helmet” competition, the pilots Gao Benchao and Yang Shuai (a two-man crew) from the “Big Red Eagle Brigade” of Southern Theater overpowered the others and won two “Golden Helmets”. In this regard, some media began to hype that J-10C has “incomparable power”, “even better than the J-16 and Su-35”, there are media claims that the J-10C can “kill in seconds” India’s Rafale.
As China’s most advanced 3.5 generation medium fighter, the J-10C is equipped with an advanced active phased array airborne radar system and can use PL-15 missiles with a range of up to two hundred kilometers; it uses DSI air intakes to effectively reduce the frontal radar reflection area. The J-10C also has the capability to integrate an infrared search and tracking system (IRST), which also allows the fighter to maintain high situational awareness in the absence of radar signals, which allows it to more effectively target stealth fighters at medium to close range. Overall, the J-10C is on par with the world’s top 3.5 generation fighters in terms of avionics, maneuverability, the number of types of ammunition carried, and many other factors.
The J-10C’s avionics and electronic warfare systems, including radar, are very advanced, and its performance is similar to that of the J-16, so there is no generation difference between them.
The J-10C and the J-16 also share many significant similarities. Both use advanced next-generation avionics, electronic warfare systems, composite materials, and the same PL-15 and PL-10 air-to-air missiles, both of which are also used by the J-20. The PL-15 missile uses AESA radar guidance, the only air-to-air missile outside of Japan that has been proven to use an AESA radar guidance head, and has an estimated range of 250 to 300 kilometers. The PL-10 is highly praised for its short-range capability and its ability to engage targets at very extreme angles with its helmet-mounted sights.
The J-10C also has the advantages of easy maintenance and low operating costs, making it suitable for large-scale deployment. It is more agile, especially at lower speeds, and has a lower radar cross-sectional area. The newer J-16 variant uses advanced avionics and electronic warfare systems similar to those of the J-10C and can fly at higher altitudes and at slightly faster speeds. The J-16 has higher endurance, more firepower and a larger radar.
J-16 belongs to multirole fighter, the former fighter-bomber, this type of fighter has both powerful air combat capability and ground/sea attack capability, that is to say, its air combat capability is no less than advanced 4th generation aircraft, and it can mount various precision-guided munitions and air-ground/air-sea missiles to strike land/sea targets, so J-16 is very combat-capable!
The problem is that the J-16 derived from the J-11B not only has an additional seat, but also needs a reinforced airframe to mount heavy aerial munitions (up to 3,000 kg), which leads to an increase in its fuselage weight, but the power of the “Taihang B” engine remains unchanged, so its thrust-to-weight ratio is lower than that of the J-11B, and its short-range combat maneuverability is much lower than that of air-control fighters such as the J-10C, and it is relatively inflexible.
Modern fighters are, frankly speaking, air missile launch platforms, mainly depending on the performance of avionics and air-to-air missiles. It is actually no secret that the Su-35 avionics system is backward. The J-10C has an overwhelming advantage in avionics equipment. Russia has always been behind in electronics, especially the avionics system used by the aircraft. The avionics system is a very complex system, including satellite navigation, relative positioning system, image processing system, targeting, control, computing and navigation systems.
Radar, for example, must use integrated circuits, while Russia is still using a mixture of transistors and electronic tubes in many cases. If it is an early warning aircraft, it is better, because the aircraft has a lot of space. However, if it is a fighter plane, the radar system must be miniaturized, then it is necessary to pass the digital integrated circuit barrier. The level of Russians in this test has always been relatively average. Therefore, many Russian-made fighters are characterized by high radar power, but insufficient accuracy and poor anti-jamming capabilities. However, the Su-35 fighter is still very good as a flying platform, it just needs a software upgrade. As long as some key components of the Russian fighter avionics system are upgraded, it can be greatly improved.
The French Rafale is very popular internationally. It is equipped with an RBE-2 active phased array radar. The avionics and weapon systems are very advanced. It can integrate two infrared search devices and optical devices with the main body of the radar. And its flight performance is pretty high.
In terms of size, both the J-10C and the Rafale are medium-sized fighters, but the Rafale uses two M88 mid-thrust engines, while the J-10C is a high-thrust Taihang B engine, but the flight speed and maneuverability of the two types of fighters are comparable. However, the weakness of Rafale is very prominent. Its radar caliber is too small. It is currently the smallest fighter equipped with active phased array radar and the least T/R component. Therefore, it will be “near-sighted” on the battlefield. This is big trouble. It is very likely that the Rafale fighter would be killed by the J-10C using the PL-15 missiles before it can see the latter clearly in a mid-range air battle.
In any case, the J-10C is a piece of Chinese equipment with full intellectual property rights, and it is not easy to beat the heavy J-16 and Su-35 in a row with the size of a medium-sized aircraft.