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FGFA / T-50 New Engine (Product 30) Testing to Start in Two Years

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Testing of the new engine that will finally power the T-50 stealth fighter will start in 2014, Evgeny Marchukov, General Designer-Director of A. Lyulka Scientific-and-Technical Center, forming part of NPO, recently told the press. (via Lenta.ru)

"The first engine will be assembled in two years and the testing will be started in the network of the engine's full-scale development. This is a brand new engine, that is why its development is taking much time", Marchukov said.

Moscow-based Salut and NPO Saturn are building a brand new stealthy powerplant for the T-50, which is not a derivative of the AL-41F1 (Product 117) engine that powers it currently.

Called Product 30, the new engine will be 30% lighter than the Product 117 engine and come with 30% lower life-cycle cost.

The new engine is expected to offer about 17.5 tons (171.6 kn) of thrust in full afterburning mode and somewhere in the range of 12 tons (117.7 kn) in dry mode, allowing the aircraft to comfortably super-cruise at around Mach 1.5.

CEO of NPO Saturn, Ilya Fedorov, said in April 2011 that development of the new engine is running ahead of schedule and the first engines will be delivered to the Russian Ministry of Defense in 2015. The first serial T-50s should be acquired by Russian air forces the same year.

Earlier, NPO Saturn and Salut were competing to develop an engine for the T-50 with designs known as Eniseysk-A and Eniseysk-B, respectively.

Minimizing Development Risk

According to Salut CEO Yuri Eliseev, in order to minimize risks, technologies that will go into the second-stage engine will be developed and tested as upgrades to the Al-31F engines that power the Su-27/Su-30 family of fighters.

As part of the first stage of development, a new compressor has been fitted into a new version called AL-31FM1 with a thrust of 27,000 lb., interval between overhauls of 1,000 hr. and service life of 2,000 hr.; compared to 25,000 lb. thrust, 500 hr. between overhauls and 1,500 hr. of service life for the serial AL-31F.

The AL-31FM1 already powers modernized Su-27SM Russian air force fighters and has also been approved for installation on Su-34 bombers.

A further development, the AL-31FM2, is being bench-tested. The engine features a new combustor chamber and turbine and reached 29,200 lb. thrust.

Interim Powerplant: NPO Saturn AL-41F1 (Product 117)

In March 2010, Sukhoi chief Mikhail Pogosyan said the T-50 would enter service with the air force powered by the Saturn 117. He indicated development of the second-stage engine could take another decade.

The 14.5 tons thrust NPO Saturn AL-41F1 (Product 117) engine is an upgraded version of AL-41F1S engine intended for Su-35, which in turn is a derivative of the NPO Saturn's AL-31F series that power the Su-27/Su-30 family of fighters.

The Product 117 engine comes with a new full-authority digital engine control unit and uses key components of the AL-41F1S supercruising core. The AL-41F was developed for the Mikoyan MFI fighter (Mikoyan Project 1.44).

The Su-35 is the first non-US fighter with substantial sustained supersonic cruise capability, so even initial models of PAF-FA should support good supercruise giving it a good advantage in initial engagement.

According to Saturn, the Product 117 engine satisfies most air force requirements (including supercruise ability) but is not a stealthy design.

FGFA / T-50 New Engine (Product 30) Testing to Start in Two Years

:chilli::chilli::chilli:
 
I don't think China is in the arms race with India. No Chinese military procurement is aimed at India. Can't be said the other way, though.

That should be obvious isn't it? You only aim your procurements on countering a more capable opponent and Chinas main opponents are the US, Japan and S. Korea, not India.
The problem however is, China has started the arms race at the Indo-Chinese borders, so while their procurements are aimed at other countries, their build up policy in this area is aimed and India and we have to react on that threat. That's why we've decided that older Mig 29s are not the right choice to counter PLAAF and why we procure MMRCAs instead. The same goes for M777 howitzers, or even our SSBN developments to have real deterrence against them.

When buy Russian's engine, we buy the repair and overhaul plan and even build our own spares parts, we never put the fate of our country into Russian's hand.

Which India does as well, be it for Migs or for Flankers, but you tried to copy their engines and even with all that money and effort, you still can't build silimalry capable engines as Russia. That's why you want to get a hand on the Su 35 engines, because you need that engine techs for your stealth fighters, which again shows that you are still dependent on Russia.
India on the other hand has free access to Russian advanced techs, we can buy them and we can co-develop with them and that's why you still are trying to get TVC, while we will get Russias NG engine techs.
China has an impressive capability to produce things, even superior to many western countries, but your own R&D is still not on par with them, nor with Russia.
 
Which India does as well, be it for Migs or for Flankers, but you tried to copy their engines and even with all that money and effort, you still can't build silimalry capable engines as Russia. That's why you want to get a hand on the Su 35 engines, because you need that engine techs for your stealth fighters, which again shows that you are still dependent on Russia.
India on the other hand has free access to Russian advanced techs, we can buy them and we can co-develop with them and that's why you still are trying to get TVC, while we will get Russias NG engine techs.
China has an impressive capability to produce things, even superior to many western countries, but your own R&D is still not on par with them, nor with Russia.

Chinese engine is in pre-production stage, of course there still work that need to be done, first we continue to buy Russian engine to cover our Airforce demand and balance Russia trade deficit while continue WS-10 in parallel traject, at least we still have option in case Russia is playing a nasty blackmail game with us. As for Su-35’s engine, of course we’re not stupid to turn down something that better than what we have, and mark my word the last thing we want is depend on Russia, without Su-35 engine, our J-20 still fly and continue the test, it nice to have but that will not prevent us from sleep.

What about your engine? Didn’t you guys spend effort and money on it? And how it perform compare to the one you bought?? Sure Russian, U.S and Europe are more than happy to sell it to India because they know how capable you’re in your own engine development...and press your luck for Russia to give away of the core of their engine technology to India.
 
Sancho, China never tried to copy the Russian engines. Reverse engineering of engines is simply impossible. Instead, China LEGALLY obtained original TOT from the US decades ago, and have been developing the WS series from there as a domestic effort. This is why WS-10 or WS-13 look nothing like the AL-31 or RD-33.





That should be obvious isn't it? You only aim your procurements on countering a more capable opponent and Chinas main opponents are the US, Japan and S. Korea, not India.
The problem however is, China has started the arms race at the Indo-Chinese borders, so while their procurements are aimed at other countries, their build up policy in this area is aimed and India and we have to react on that threat. That's why we've decided that older Mig 29s are not the right choice to counter PLAAF and why we procure MMRCAs instead. The same goes for M777 howitzers, or even our SSBN developments to have real deterrence against them.



Which India does as well, be it for Migs or for Flankers, but you tried to copy their engines and even with all that money and effort, you still can't build silimalry capable engines as Russia. That's why you want to get a hand on the Su 35 engines, because you need that engine techs for your stealth fighters, which again shows that you are still dependent on Russia.
India on the other hand has free access to Russian advanced techs, we can buy them and we can co-develop with them and that's why you still are trying to get TVC, while we will get Russias NG engine techs.
China has an impressive capability to produce things, even superior to many western countries, but your own R&D is still not on par with them, nor with Russia.
 
i'm sure with their sustained efforts, the chinese will iron out the remaining kinks. best wishes to them.
can we now get this thread back on topic?
 
at least we still have option in case Russia is playing a nasty blackmail game with us.

No you don't, that's what the interest in the 117S engines shows. Your engines don't offer similar performance yet and they lack the NG capabilities, so your only option is to take what Russia offers, to the costs that Russia decideds!
India on the other hand, has at least alternatives in the light engine class, that's why we could reject RD93 for LCA and could choose between similar US or European engines.


without Su-35 engine, our J-20 still fly and continue the test, it nice to have but that will not prevent us from sleep.

True, J20 will continue to fly, but not with 5th gen capabilities like thrust vectoring or Supercruise. Just like JF 17 or J10s can be tested today with Chinese engines, but although PAF would prefer Chinese once over Russian once, they still don't seem to fullfil PAFs requirements, which also tells us something about Chinese engines today. From the recent reports, we know that Russia offers upgraded RD 93s for JF 17 too and as long as Chinese engines won't offer more performance than for testing, Pakistani and possibly even Chinese forces will continue to buy Russian engines.

What about your engine?

We messed up the development, but for LCA that's even a boost of quality, because of the options mentioned above.

Sancho, China never tried to copy the Russian engines. Reverse engineering of engines is simply impossible. Instead, China LEGALLY obtained original TOT from the US decades ago, and have been developing the WS series from there as a domestic effort. This is why WS-10 or WS-13 look nothing like the AL-31 or RD-33.

That's more than debatable and the looks doesn't tell you about the techs inside, as the Chinese stealth fighters also shows.
However my point is, that China is far from beeing self-sufficient today especially with regard to engines. Beeing able to produce things is good, but beeing able to design and develop things alone is even better and here other countries still have advantages.
 

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