Featured Project Azm: Pakistan's Ambitious Quest to Develop 5th Generation Military Technologies.

[HostileInsurgent]

What's the point of making a next gen modern fighter jet if you are using older generation components.
4th Gen Engine is not a good option for a 5th Gen platform. RD-93 is a enormous heat source. PAF won't be looking west for engine. They will get their engine from China.

Please, just get over this.

Engine quality...
NATO>Russia>China

That’s why we chose american engines for Tejas MK1, Initial variants of Tejas MK1A, Initial variants of Tejas MK2 MWF, Initial variants of ORCA and Initial variants of AMCA.

 

[Indos]

Engine quality...
NATO>Russia>China

That’s why we chose american engines for Tejas MK1, Initial variants of Tejas MK1A, Initial variants of Tejas MK2 MWF, Initial variants of ORCA and Initial variants of AMCA.

Why are you bolding that initial word men ?? Do you think further variant of Tejas MK1A, ORCA, AMCA etc will use Indian engine ??

 

[Bilal Khan (Quwa)]

PAF should have logged 100K Hours on RD-93 by now, not 7K hours or you are quoting a very old report.

Block-1 50 units, in around 10 years at 200 hrs / year = 2000 hrs / plane * 50 = 100K+ hrs just on Block-1s, now add 50% for Block-II and you should cross the threshold of 150K+ hrs.

Perhaps he meant 7K hours on test platforms, but I am just guessing at this point.

On other note, RD-93 will unlikely give the AZM a Super Cruise ability which is one of the desired attribute of 5th Gen, although one can get by without it.

The Turks may try developing a 87-92 kN-class engine for the Hurjet.

I think we should look at co-funding it (or the 132 kN TR Motor engine) for use on AZM -- depending on the size class of AZM. I don't think any of those engines would factor into anything for 15 years, if not longer, but it's a way to get a start in developing our own turbofans for use 30+ years later.

 

[Marker]

What's the point of making a next gen modern fighter jet if you are using older generation components.
4th Gen Engine is not a good option for a 5th Gen platform. RD-93 is a enormous heat source. PAF won't be looking west for engine. They will get their engine from China.

Please, just get over this.

Who said that jet engines whether 1st to whatever gen are not enormous heat source. Modern engines have better exhaust nozzles to reduce IR signatures.

The UEC press release states, "The RD-93MA engine has improved performance. In particular, increased thermodynamic parameters, an improved design of the fan and the hot part, an upgraded automatic power-plant control system... An additional emergency engine start mode was provided... and the possibility of emergency fuel drain was realised. All this is due to the specifics associated with the possible use of the power-plant on a single-engine aircraft..."

Increased thermodynamic parameters means turbine inlet temperatures were increased, and to counter it turbine module and engine exhaust nozzle must have been redesigned to cater high temperature of engine exhaust gases.
Generally this is being done by increasing bypass air flow around turbine stages and exhaust nozzle, redesigning of turbine stators and blades, use of ceramic or similar material in and around turbine stages and engine exhaust nozzle. This in turn reduces the IR signature.

In addition to this, design of fuselage engine intake and rear fuselage which houses engine exhaust nozzle and tail pipe, matters most in reducing RCS as well IR signatures. If PAF is using YF-23 fuselage design fusion then no doubt they are seeking stealth characteristic for this plane.

Furthermore do not underestimate Russian technologies especially their engine technologies, they were competing US till 1990s. Now they are making their own fifth and sixth gen aircraft (unarmed wing man).

Somewhere in this thread, I quoted one of PAF senior officer's remarks regarding durability and reliability of the RD-93 engine. He affirmed that the engine flew 7000 hours which means the metallurgy used in engine critical parts has improved (a lot) since its first production in early 1980s.

Here I must admit that Chinese jet engine infra structure is improving but still not at par with Russian technologies. They need at least 5 to 10 years (at the current speed of improvement) to be at par with Russians and Western technologies in jet engine designing and manufacturing. Who knows, they become the leaders in the jet engine tech after 10 years.

 

[HostileInsurgent]

Why are you bolding that initial word men ?? Do you think further variant of Tejas MK1A, ORCA, AMCA etc will use Indian engine ??

That’s why I boldened it so that Pakistanis don’t say that ”it is your indigenous plane why it doesn’t have an engine made in India, well we are working with Snecma and Saffran for the joint venture production of AMCA Engine as their offset commitment in Rafale deal is yet not fulfilled so for its fulfilment they are investing in a joint venture engine that will be used in Tejas MK-1A, MK-2 MWF’s, ORCA’s and AMCA’s later production variants.

 

[Marker]

That’s why I boldened it so that Pakistanis don’t say that ”it is your indigenous plane why it doesn’t have an engine made in India, well we are working with Snecma and Saffran for the joint venture production of AMCA as their offset commitment in Rafale deal is yet not fulfilled so for its fulfilment they are investing in a joint venture engine that will be used in Tejas MK-1A, MK-2 MWF’s, ORCA’s and AMCA’s later production variants.

Who cares whether the engine is made in Pakistan or otherwise. Most important fact is 5th gen combat fighter jet's availability by the end of 2020s.

Will you be able to produce yours by the end of 2020s? A million dollar question...…

By the way who knows Pakistan also enter in jet engine design and manufacturing with the help of China and some other friendly countries...……

 

[HostileInsurgent]

Who cares whether the engine is made in Pakistan or otherwise. Most important fact is 5th gen combat fighter jet's availability by the end of 2020s.

Will you be able to produce yours by the end of 2020s? A million dollar question...…

By the way who knows Pakistan also enter in jet engine design and manufacturing with the help of China and some other friendly countries...……

China itself doesn’t have any good jet engine technology, and Jet engines are currently the most complex systems in the world.

our AMCA is expected to fly in next 5 years with an American engine and subsequently with SAFFRAN/SNECMA-GTRE joint venture engines.

Can’t say about Project azm as it is according to PAC “UNDER DESIGN PHASE”.
we already have flight simulators ready for AMCA and a flight test team patch is also ready, means we can see AMCA in action in a few years or so.

 

[Marker]

China itself doesn’t have any good jet engine technology, and Jet engines are currently the most complex systems in the world.

our AMCA is expected to fly in next 5 years with an American engine and subsequently with SAFFRAN/SNECMA-GTRE joint venture engines.

Can’t say about Project azm as it is according to PAC “UNDER DESIGN PHASE”.
we already have flight simulators ready for AMCA and a flight test team patch is also ready, means we can see AMCA in action in a few years or so.

Some Indians were predicting similar comments about Saber 2 and subsequent Super 7 projects. JF-17 was the result of it and it is flying in PAF and other countries since 2003 (first flight).

What about Indian LCA project? How much time it took? How many of theses have been inducted by Indian armed force? How many were sold to other countries?

Having flight simulator does not mean Indians are going to have 5th gen combat fighter in 5 years.

 

[Metal 0-1]

Who said that jet engines whether 1st to whatever gen are not enormous heat source. Modern engines have better exhaust nozzles to reduce IR signatures.

The UEC press release states, "The RD-93MA engine has improved performance. In particular, increased thermodynamic parameters, an improved design of the fan and the hot part, an upgraded automatic power-plant control system... An additional emergency engine start mode was provided... and the possibility of emergency fuel drain was realised. All this is due to the specifics associated with the possible use of the power-plant on a single-engine aircraft..."

Increased thermodynamic parameters means turbine inlet temperatures were increased, and to counter it turbine module and engine exhaust nozzle must have been redesigned to cater high temperature of engine exhaust gases.
Generally this is being done by increasing bypass air flow around turbine stages and exhaust nozzle, redesigning of turbine stators and blades, use of ceramic or similar material in and around turbine stages and engine exhaust nozzle. This in turn reduces the IR signature.

In addition to this, design of fuselage engine intake and rear fuselage which houses engine exhaust nozzle and tail pipe, matters most in reducing RCS as well IR signatures. If PAF is using YF-23 fuselage design fusion then no doubt they are seeking stealth characteristic for this plane.

Furthermore do not underestimate Russian technologies especially their engine technologies, they were competing US till 1990s. Now they are making their own fifth and sixth gen aircraft (unarmed wing man).

Somewhere in this thread, I quoted one of PAF senior officer's remarks regarding durability and reliability of the RD-93 engine. He affirmed that the engine flew 7000 hours which means the metallurgy used in engine critical parts has improved (a lot) since its first production in early 1980s.

Here I must admit that Chinese jet engine infra structure is improving but still not at par with Russian technologies. They need at least 5 to 10 years (at the current speed of improvement) to be at par with Russians and Western technologies in jet engine designing and manufacturing. Who knows, they become the leaders in the jet engine tech after 10 years.

Still RD-93MA is not 5th Gen engine. Even the engine used in 5th Gen Su-57 is on par with f-22 and F-35 engine.

 

[Marker]

PAF should have logged 100K Hours on RD-93 by now, not 7K hours or you are quoting a very old report.

Block-1 50 units, in around 10 years at 200 hrs / year = 2000 hrs / plane * 50 = 100K+ hrs just on Block-1s, now add 50% for Block-II and you should cross the threshold of 150K+ hrs.

Perhaps he meant 7K hours on test platforms, but I am just guessing at this point.

On other note, RD-93 will unlikely give the AZM a Super Cruise ability which is one of the desired attribute of 5th Gen, although one can get by without it.

No I am talking about service life of the engine. These engines have flown 7000 hours exceeding their predicted service life of 2000 to 4000 hrs.

RD-93MA will be producing 54 kN dry thrust and two of these will collectively produce 108 kN dry thrust.
Depending on the airframe design, the aircraft may attain super cruise ability.

Furthermore, it is not necessary to attain super cruise ability for a 5th gen combat jet. F-35s do not have such ability.

 

[HostileInsurgent]

Some Indians were predicting similar comments about Saber 2 and subsequent Super 7 projects. JF-17 was the result of it and it is flying in PAF and other countries since 2003 (first flight).

What about Indian LCA project? How much time it took? How many of theses have been inducted by Indian armed force? How many were sold to other countries?

Having flight simulator does not mean Indians are going to have 5th gen combat fighter in 5 years.

Hey I am not here to troll anyone, I just said the truth, if chinese engines are mature enough then why doesn’t PAF use chinese engines in JF17 Block 3.

and plus in the race with India you inducted the JF17s early at the cost of a generation, Block-1 was a 3rd gen aircraft (upgraded heavily now btw).
Tejas was a planned 4th gen aircraft, so Tejas MK1 is comparable to JF17 Block 2 and Tejas MK1A is comparable to JF17 Block 3.

It is mainly a chinese jet getting deals due to high end features in low price, Tejas is a also an excellent fighter best in its class but a bit expensive and it took time due to Kaveri Engine Lacking afterburner capabilities for more then 1 minute and causing delay, plus Sanctions on us after nuke tests and various reasons. Both are the pride of their respective airforces.

 

[Marker]

Still RD-93MA is not 5th Gen engine. Even the engine used in 5th Gen Su-57 is on par with f-22 and F-35 engine.

Can you define 5th gen engine please.

One of the important characteristic of 5th gen aircraft is its stealth ability. To achieve this, one of the pre requisites for jet engines is to have low IR signature. This is attained by upgrading the engine exhaust nozzle and tail pipe and rear fuselage housing it.

Most of us assume that engine producing higher thrust are modern, but these assumptions are wrong. There are many older engines produce more thrust than the current modern engines.

Modern engines have low low fuel consumption per unit thrust, high mean time between failure, long service life, no exhaust smoke, low IR signature and most importantly better performance during all phases of flight. RD-93 is meeting almost all of these characteristics.

 

[Marker]

Aircraft designing can be based around a given engine specification. Since RD-93 MAs will be readily available to PAF, the airframe design of the new aircraft will focus to attain optimum stealth, agility and speed with this engine.

 

[Trango Towers]

Engine quality...
NATO>Russia>China

That’s why we chose american engines for Tejas MK1, Initial variants of Tejas MK1A, Initial variants of Tejas MK2 MWF, Initial variants of ORCA and Initial variants of AMCA.

Not indigenous engine then

 

[CodeforFood]

Damn this thread is fast approaching its second anniversary, yet the topic still remains Hott!

and nothing concrete in it also...

why cant it be WS15 ? two will give it super cruise capability ..

so I am assuming we would never try to create our own. Apart from metallurgy and probably few other knowledge gaps. Have we actually try to create an engine (turbofan) be it with worst possible alloys and even with relatively high entropy materials, so that we can actually iteratively start targetting some of the area where we would find ourselves lacking and focus energies there.
I think it would be nice if we start, as they call it, putting pen to the paper so that we have something to critic. We don't have to build something that necessarily can be placed in the aircraft as first iteration.