【Military Sub-Plane】Author: Le Le
Recently, the latest prototype of the domestic J-10 fighter, known as the "J-10D", has been widely circulated on the Internet. Because the initial pictures are blurry and the changes are mainly focused on the back of the fuselage, there has been a lot of discussion about whether the "J-10D" exists or whether its back upgrade is to increase fuel or improve electronic warfare capabilities, but it has not been widely recognized. However, with the appearance of a relatively clear picture on the Internet in recent days, and the Pakistani media has also mentioned the latest improved model of the J-10 in public reports, things have shown new developments.
▲ The J-10 has once again become the focus of attention
In terms of technical route, the domestic J-10 has undergone the continuous evolution of the J-10A, J-10B, and J-10C, and the radar has been upgraded from the early Doppler radar to the passive phased array, and the final active phased array structure. Coupled with the upgrade of fuselage configuration and avionics equipment, the performance of the J-10C single aircraft in the final service is already a height that the early J-10A could not reach. It is also in this case of successful improvement experience that the outside world has been very much looking forward to the "J-10D", hoping that the design unit can continue to work the basis of the J-10C and launch a more advanced model. However, behind this good expectation, it is easy to overlook a problem that the equipment needs of the domestic air force fighter unit are completely different from the 2016 when the J-10C first entered service.
▲The J-10C is the peak of the J-10 series
Before 6 years, the equipment environment of the Continental Air Force has not been fundamentally improved, a large number of J-7 and J-8 second-generation aircraft are still in service, and the nearly 100 Russian-made Su-27SK imported are about to run out of service. In order to rapidly expand the scale of the Air Force's third-generation aircraft equipment, but also for the J-20 part of the avionics and combat software for mass production verification considerations, the J-10C in 2016 ready for mass production, and in the following 5 years has maintained high-speed production, and now the total number of equipment has exceeded 200. At the same time, the J-16 has also completed relevant improvements and mass production, and now the scale of equipment is basically the same as that of the J-10C. If you add the J-20, which is generally considered to be equipped with more than 100 aircraft, the domestic air force has been equipped with nearly 600 advanced fighters in the past 6 years, and the history of the limited performance of the fighter force has completely ended, and has become the second air force in the world after the US Air Force.
▲ The number of equipment for the J-20 is also considerable
In this case, it is difficult for the Air Force to continue to make greater improvements to the J-10C in order to tap the potential and mass-produce it again. After all, the "J-10D" is doomed to be unable to compare with the J-16, which is better on the airframe platform, whether it increases the fuel load and expands the range, or improves the electronic warfare capability. Now the performance of the J-20 has been completely mature, not only the engine from the imported Russian AL-31F, replaced by a completely domestic turbofan-10, but also other aspects have been fully tested, and has set up more than one production line, the mass production speed is very amazing. In other words, the significance of verifying new technologies undertaken by the J-10C during mass production has ceased to exist, and the role of the backward fighter has basically ended, in fact, there is no need to continue to improve and mass-produce, which is the fundamental reason why the outside world was very surprised after the "J-10D" was unveiled.
▲ The J-16 is obviously a better platform for improvement
However, it is an indisputable fact that a further improved prototype based on the J-10C has appeared, and the outside world also held a half-convinced attitude at the beginning to verify the positioning. In the end, the reports of Pakistan's civilian media unveiled the mystery of the problem and also resolved all the previous doubts about the "J-10D". According to the Pakistani media, this new prototype is to increase the internal fuel capacity of the J-10, which is actually a further improvement based on the export of the Pakistani J-10CE. The reason for this, of course, is that it cannot obtain a heavy fighter like the J-16, and it is normal for the J-10CE, as the most advanced fighter in the Pakistani Air Force, to continue to tap its potential. After all, in addition to the Indian Air Force's procurement of the first batch of 36 "Rafale" F3s, there have also been rumors recently that the second batch of 42-46 "Rafales" may be purchased, and the Pakistani Air Force needs to take countermeasures.
▲ J-10CE exported to Pakistan
Since then, the doubts about the "J-10D" have basically been solved, which is actually the Pakistan Air Force, in the case of not being able to obtain three generations of semi-heavy fighters, and it is impossible to equip stealth fighters in the short term. The program of improving the J-10CE, the most advanced fighter it can obtain, to cope with the aggressive development of the Indian Air Force is not directly related to the domestic navy and air force. In fact, after a long period of production, the scale of more than 200 J-10C has been very impressive, basically reaching the upper limit of the production number of domestic fighter subtypes since the J-7, and the possibility of continued production in the future is unlikely. Ensuring that purchase orders from Pakistan and other countries in the future will gradually become the core task of the J-10 production line, and it is also the direct reason for the emergence of the latest modification.
▲ The number of J-10C in service is already considerable
Of course, the model further improved on the basis of the J-10CE is not meaningless to the J-10 series equipped by the domestic air force. For example, the U.S. Air Force received the last F-15E in 2004 and then transferred to the production of the F-22A stealth fighter as originally planned. However, due to the small production quantity of the F-22A and the failure of the plan to restart the production line, the F-35 series could not be mass-produced due to technical complexity. Faced with aging early F-15 and F-16 fleets, the U.S. Air Force eventually ordered more than 200 F-15EXs. Almost all of the subsystems, known as the ultimate improved model of the F-15, come from the mature parts that Boeing obtained when it exported the F-15 after 2004, and really used the export results to the extreme.
The F-15EX uses a large number of mature subsystems
At present, it is unlikely that the domestic production of the "J-10D" will continue to be produced, but the more than 200 J-10C and more than 50 J-10Bs that have been equipped are facing the need for improvements to extend service in the near future (the early J-10A lacks upgrade potential and is expected to be directly retired or resold to other countries). At this time, the export model further improved on the basis of the J-10CE is a very valuable reference object. Of course, the workload of all-round improvement of the back of the aircraft is extremely large, and it is actually unlikely to appear in the upgrade of the J-10B and J-10C, but in the fields of radar, electronic warfare, avionics equipment, etc., it can still save a lot of effort. In essence, there is no difference between the domestic practice of improving the J-11B fleet with the abandoned J-11D as a reference. From this point of view, the latest prototype of this J-10 still has a significance that cannot be ignored.