Is the first Chinese aircraft carrier fighter J15 a copy of the Su 33?
A documentary recently broadcast by China Central Television (CCTV) sheds light on the origins of the J-15 fighter. According to the documentary, China's most advanced fighter jet is largely descended from a Soviet design, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
The J-15 is China's first locally produced carrier fighter aircraft. Manufactured by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, a subsidiary of the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the J-15 is nicknamed the "Flying Shark". The fighter first entered service in 2014, and according to the latest news, there are about 50 units currently in service, Business Insider reported.
The aircraft received a number of updates last year, including updates to the wings, radar and search and track system. These upgrades are intended to put the J-15 on par with the US F-35, but what are the origins of the Chinese fighter?
In 1998, China bought its first aircraft carrier, a Soviet-designed warship, and was considering purchasing the Russian Su-33 to deploy. According to the documentary broadcast by CCTV, Chinese naval officials decided to use the fighter jets then in service to build the J-15 and assigned the task to the Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute (SADRI). Three years later, the J-15 was flown and successfully landed on the aircraft carrier in December 2012.
Too bad the SCMP reported that the decision to produce the J-15 domestically was taken after the Su-33 deal between Moscow and Beijing failed to materialise. Russia was looking to China for the purchase of at least 50 aircraft, while Beijing was intent on developing the J-11B, the predecessor of the J-15 along the lines of the Su-27.
The J-15's dimensions are exactly identical to the Su-33, and its production models were even powered by Russian Saturn AL-31F engines, Defense News reports, effectively making it an unlicensed copy of the Russian aircraft. China is now working to power the J-15 with its indigenous WS-10 engines. Experts believe that China's improvements to the J-15s have made them far superior to their Russian counterparts, on which they are based. On the battlefield, the origin of the planes is irrelevant. What matters is who would win if the J-15 were pitted against US fighters.
The recent upgrades also include a short-range missile and have improved the J-15's payload carrying capability, Business Insider reported. What is still missing is an improvement in Chinese aircraft carrier technology must now catch up, as aircraft carrier trampolines do not allow J-15s to take off with full payload.
Even with all of its upgrades, the J-15 can only be classified as a fourth generation fighter and does not have the advanced technology that US fifth generation fighters have today. With the lower-powered WS-10 engines, the J-15s might even have a hard time beating the US Navy's fourth-generation F/A-18s, experts told Business Insider, but China is advancing rapidly and the J -20 Mighty Dragon is already in production.
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The article Is the first Chinese aircraft carrier fighter J15 a copy of the Su 33? comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-primo-caccia-per-portaerei-cinese-j15-e-una-copia-del-su-33/ on Fri, 02 Dec 2022 19:07:07 +0000.