Chinese TVC nozzle A.Pinkov New 4G fighter. A. Pinkov

<Kanwa News Dec 10, 2002> Authoritative sources from the Chinese military aviation industry Group One told Kanwa that some major progress had been made in the development of the sub-systems used on the 4th generation stealth fighter, particularly the engine. The WS10A turbofan engines originally designed for J10A by Shenyang Liming Motor Company may very likely be installed on this 4th generation fighter for trial flight. The air test of WS10A had already been completed on SU27SK, including a total 256 test items.

The sources indicated to Kanwa's correspondent that the fundamental performance of the WS10A has already attained the standard of AL31F. The maximum augmented thrust power of AL31FN is 12500kgf, power consumption 0.67kg/kgf.h. Sources based in China also claimed that in streamlining the design, WS10A is even better than AL31FN as it focused on reducing the weight. Meanwhile, the upgrading work paid special attention to the reduction of consumption.

The research of the thrust vector control (TVC) technology has also been going on for a long time. The basic design idea is close to the Russian AL31F-TVN TVC engine. That is, China hopes to largely improve the maneuverability of the engine by adding a TVC nozzle on WS10A. Chinese Aviation experts emphasized that the Chinese version of TVC nozzle currently under development can perform 360 degree rotating. Earlier President Jiang Zemin inspected this project, which is one of the key aviation development programs during the "ninth five-year plan. Television images indicate this TVC nozzle can rotate at a range of +-15 degree, the source says that it has also been planned that the China-made TVC engine would be upgraded at appropriate time and installed on J10A in order to " improve the fighter's short-distance taking-off and landing performance and attain the maneuverability standard of F35."<Kanwa Digest news Zhuhai>