Shortly after the island of taiwan
commissioned the first combat wing at F-16V fighter jets on thursday. Nine J-7E fighter jets recently left an
airbase in the east of south china's Guangdong province as they have been
retired from active combat service and
are being replaced by domestically
developed J-10C fighter jets, china
central television cctv reported on
sunday. The J-10C which has been in service with
several other pla air force units is one
and a half generations more advanced
than the J-7E and will give pilots
significantly more advantages in combat, analyst
said.
Colonel Huang Hongbo one of the
pilots in the brigade affiliated with
the eastern theater command air force
switching to fly the J-10C has been practicing on the new warplane
for nearly half a year. Wang said on CCTV that the new aircraft
has changed the way he perceives the
battlefield. With the J-10C the pilot needs to switch
his role from just being a pilot to
being a combatant. Wang said noting that
since the old J-7 uses mechanical flight
controls while the J-10C uses fly-by-wire. The new warplane allows the pilot to
focus on the battlefield instead of on
steering the aircraft.
Judging from the CCTV report footage the J-10 sees the brigade received are
equipped with the domestically developed
ws-10 taihong engines, shanghai-based
news website eastday.com said. The announcement of the commissioning of
the new batch of J-10Cs came after the
commissioning of the island of taiwan's
first combat wing of u.s made F-16V fighter jets on thursday. Media on the island of taiwan claimed
that the F-16V can face down the J-20
stealth aircraft of the PLA which is a
5th generation heavy fighter jet.
But in fact the F-16V is just a 4.5
generation medium fighter jet and the PLA's J-10C is enough to rival it, a
chinese mainland military expert told
the Global Times on sunday requesting
anonymity. The commissioning of more J-10C's will
further widen the power gap across the
taiwan straits, the expert said. In addition to the J-10C fighter the PLA eastern theater command air force has
previously received delivery of the
advanced J-16 heavy fighter, CCTV said highlighting the speed of new aircraft
deliveries.
The PLA eastern theatre command air
force stands ready to safeguard aerial
and maritime security as well as
national unity, CCTV reported. Not only that china's one meter class
hypersonic aerodynamic wind tunnel
recently passed major calibration tests, indicating that the facility is formally
capable of conducting tests for
development projects. The wind tunnel aims to serve china's
aerospace strategy and support the
development of hypersonic weapons and
equipment, its maker announced on sunday.
Designated the FL-64 the wind tunnel
built by the aerodynamics research
institute under the state-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC). Recently
passed airflow distribution calibration
tests under major mach numbers AVIC revealed in a statement published in its Wechat account on sunday.
This development means that the wind
tunnel has successfully passed the first
phase of calibration and has formally
become capable of conducting tests for
development projects, AVIC said. The development of the FL-64 took two
years and broke the construction speed
record compared with similar facilities. The statement said noting that the wind
tunnel is a large and complex one and
its construction was challenging due to
the requirements of being hypersonic
including high temperatures pressure and
speed levels.
It is designed to simulate speeds from
mach 4 to 8 under a total temperature of
900 kelvin, 626.85 C at a simulated flight altitude
of 48,000 meters. AVIC said noting that
it can operate for more than 30 seconds, testing a hypersonic aircraft's
capabilities including the separation
and deployment of weapons from the
aircraft. With a foothold on serving china's
aerospace strategy the FL-64 aims to
resolve the urgent aerodynamic problems
that various aircraft are facing and it
will become another important tool in
supporting the development of hypersonic
weapons and equipment, according to the
statement.
