China is studying and stealing from Russia
Sales of jet aircraft engine AL-31 Russia to China exceeded by several thousand units of new orders this year. All of this is due to the fact that China seeks to expand its fleet of modern jet fighters (J-10 and J-11). He also wants the pilots took off as often as possible to develop and maintain combat skills. But the engine of continuous operation wear out quickly. Well, another reason for the new orders are always difficulties arising from Chinese developers in the creation of a jet engine. China is particularly concerned to free themselves from Russian dependence in the development of engines with high performance for its advanced jet fighters. While you can not. With the increase in orders from the Russian Air Force Russian manufacturer AL-31 had to increase production this year, more than a third. In Russian also has a belief that the Chinese will not be able to solve some problems on engine development in the near future. And the fact that China is open (and unsuccessfully) protested against the restrictions which Russia imposed on the use of engines AL-31FN proves this thesis. Russia wants guarantees that the AL-31FN will only be used for its intended purpose, ie to drive the Chinese combat aircraft, and it does not disassemble into parts, that the Chinese engineers were able to improve their illegal clones of the AL-31FN - WS-10A. China is stealing Russian military technology for many years, especially intensified this process with the end of the Cold War. Then Russia itself could not afford to buy new military equipment from their vendors, and only orders from China and India held the Russian companies of the military-industrial complex afloat. Now that you have more domestic orders from the Russian military, the producers in Russia feel confident in their abilities and be able to firmly defend its interests in relations with China. Another problem with the Chinese - do not want to admit that their own efforts to build its engines again and again suffer a failure. For example, last year China has revealed the secret that he had established in his fighter J-10 engines made ​​in China instead of WS-10A Russian AL-31FN. But this year, China has ordered several hundred of the AL-31FN to be delivered over the next two years. No more talk about using the WS-10A on a large scale.
The Chinese claim that the WS-10A exceeds the AL-31F. With that in WS-10A has a lot of things copied from Russian technology, the Chinese claim that they improved the engine. But these improvements have already been made ​​Russian, such as longer lifetime in the base engine AL-31 with 900 to 1500 hours, and, more recently, up to 2000 hours. In addition, the Chinese have not been able to learn some basic technology of jet engines with high performance. The reality is that the WS-10A has a number of serious and unexpected reliability problems, which are becoming apparent. China believes that he be freed from dependence on Russian military jet engines over the next five years, which implies that the Chinese engine manufacturers are still there is the possibility to solve this problem. For years, China has imported two Russian engine: the AL-31 for $ 3.5 million and RD-93 (RD-33 version for the MiG-29) for the JF-17 (aircraft F-16, developed in collaboration with Pakistan) for 2 5 million dollars. At some point, the Chinese engineers felt that they were able to master the technology needed to make a copy of the Chinese motor Russian AL-31. Chinese copy of the WS-10A is part of a program in which also created the WS-13 to replace the RD-93. Although the Chinese were able to make long-lasting engines, they are still having problems with reliability, but it is deadly for the engine fighter when his refusal to fight can be fatal. China has long copied foreign technology, but not always successfully. But in the last ten years, China has invested quite a lot of money in the creation of jet engines. The Chinese are faced with many challenges, which were in Russian and in the beginning. Development of the necessary engine design and advanced training of engineers an easy task. However, China has some advantages. First of all, they knew Russian mistakes, and thus able to avoid many of them. Then do not forget the fact that China had more access to Western technology (both legal and illegal). Finally, China, unlike the Soviets, has the ability to create a production capacity of the engines in a market environment that is much more efficient than a command economy, which had in the Soviet Union and a heavy burden for the country in seven decades. The Chinese believe that the creation of the J-10 and WS-10A - part of the learning process, and they do learn from their mistakes. But to develop jet engines for commercial aircraft is much easier than those needed for combat aircraft, and China is facing more difficulties than he had expected.
