Media: China is ready to abandon Russian aircraft engines
China refuses to use Russian AL-31F engines on J-20 stealth fighters, preferring its own developments, the media write. Beijing really intends to go for "import substitution" in the creation of fighters, but so far this is technically impossible, experts say. However, the solution to this problem is only a matter of time.
Last week, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper reported that in the future, Chinese 5th-generation fighters with low radar visibility J-20 will no longer be delivered with Russian AL-31F engines. The decision, according to the publication, is due to the fact that Russia insists on linking future sales of AL-31F engines with further deals on the import of Su-35.
"China cannot rely on the Russian engine because Russia has asked China to buy more Su-35 fighter jets in exchange for deals with AL-31F engines," an insider source told the South China Morning Post.
However, Vasily Kashin, a specialist in the Chinese military-industrial complex, senior researcher at the Center for Integrated European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics, does not agree with the conclusions of the Chinese press.
These engines in various modifications were massively supplied to China to equip Chinese-made aircraft long before the conclusion of the contract for the supply of Su-35S in 2015, including against the background of protracted, difficult negotiations on the contract for the Su-35 in the first half of the 1990s," the expert notes.
The Air Force of the People's Liberation Army of China was the first to acquire a multi-purpose super-maneuverable fighter with a controlled thrust vector of the Su-35 generation 4.
The purchase of 24 fighters was carried out as part of the 2015 contract. But, according to SCMP, the PLA Air Force is no longer interested in acquiring additional Su-35s. At the same time, the source of the publication claims that
"With the exception of the advantage of the Russian fighter in a larger radius of combat use, in all other technical characteristics (onboard radar, navigation system and other electronic components), the Su-35 is inferior to the Chinese J-16 fighter," the SCMP believes.
According to Vasily Kashin, despite the active advertising in the media massively purchased by the PLA Air Force in recent years, Chinese J-16 fighters (by the way, created on the basis of the Su-30MKK) and the presence of a radar with AFAR on them, there is no reason to assume that they are superior to the Russian Su-35S in real combat capabilities. Su-35S are considered by the PLA Air Force as a valuable acquisition, are placed in a strategically important area and are regularly involved in major exercises.
Temporary replacement
"At the same time, there is no doubt that the Chinese intend to switch to the production of a fifth-generation fighter exclusively on their own second-stage engines. Moreover, over time, this will certainly happen, just as after many years of efforts, import substitution was achieved in relation to engines for fourth - generation fighters," Vasily Kashin notes.
According to the South China Morning Post, the PLA is switching to the WS-10C, an improved version of the older Shenyang WS-10 turbojet engine. An insider of the publication confirmed that in the future, J-20 fighters will be delivered with WS-10C engines, which, in his opinion, will be similar in their characteristics to the AL-31F.
As the SCMP source acknowledges, both AL-31F and WS-10C are temporary solutions. The J-20 was supposed to go into mass production with the new WS-15 engine, but the fighter was urgently adopted with the AL-31F amid a sharp decline in US-Chinese relations during the presidency of Donald Trump.
Chinese industry insiders expressed optimism in 2018 that the WS-15 is on the verge of certification, but these hopes were not fulfilled.
Nevertheless, the Chinese aviation industry continues to struggle to bring the WS-15 to the state of mass production. In previous years, it has been reported that the WS-15 single-crystal turbine blades suffer from reliability and resource problems. In 2015, during tests, the WS-15 engine completely exploded, according to the publication The National Interest.
Problems with the WS-15 engine are still not solved, and the PLA Air Force leadership is beginning to lose patience: "The use of the WS-10C to replace Russian engines was caused by the fact that the WS-15 did not pass all the necessary tests," the source told SCMP.
The PLA Air Force is unhappy with the final results, demanding that engine specialists work on the WS-15 until it meets all standards, such as the American F119 engine used on the F-22 Raptor fighter, NI writes.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further stymied the WS-15 development, which has no end in sight, the American publication concludes.
"It is premature to sprinkle ashes on your head"
As emphasized in a conversation with " Gazeta.En " Deputy Director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Konstantin Makienko, any aircraft engine is the most technological product that can only be in mechanical engineering. This is, without any exaggeration, the sky-high peak of the industry.
If you look at who, for example, can produce jet engines with a thrust of 12-14 tons for medium-haul civil airliners (such as Boeing 737 and MS-21), the list of companies will be very, very short. These are the American company Pratt & Whitney, the British Rolls-Royce, the Russian UEC and the alliance of General Electric with the French corporation Safran SA (GE makes the "hot" part of the engine, Safran SA - "cold"). That is, the output is five economic entities that are located in only four countries. Equally, the above applies to power plants installed on military aircraft.
According to the expert, sooner or later China will join this privileged club. Whether this has already happened is a big question. A nominal thrust of 15-20 tons can still be obtained, for example, but questions arise - how will the engine life look like, its reliability, and how much it has already flown, and whether the engine is made in single copies or the series has already been launched.
These messages look dubious. If one or two experimental engines have flown, then at this stage it does not mean that the problem as a whole has been solved," Konstantin Makienko believes.
However, according to Vasily Kashin of the Higher School of Economics, the only question is how long it will take China to solve this problem and how far progress in engine construction in Russia and the West will go by this time.
As a conclusion, we can once again say that the insider sources of the South China Morning Post do not cause any confidence. As a rule, issues related to the supply of Russian weapons and military equipment in general (and aircraft engines in particular) to China are classified to the limit (sometimes just some mega-secrecy is recorded), and this happens, as a rule, exclusively on the initiative of Beijing.
And to imagine that a regional publication such as the South China Morning Post will become the owner of any exclusive (and most importantly, reliable) information on promising developments in the field of national engine construction, and even more so the local media will get acquainted with the details of China's military-technical cooperation in this area with the Russian Federation, it is necessary to have a very rich imagination.
In turn, according to sources of "Gazeta.En", there are no alarmist sentiments and related operational decisions in the Russian military-industrial complex. Work continues, production is not stopped, deliveries have been going on and on.
Mikhail Khodarenok
