Posted on 01/29/2016 9:39:11 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
BEIJING: China has built a potent military machine over the past 30 years but is struggling to develop advanced engines that would allow its warplanes to match Western fighters in combat, foreign and Chinese industry sources said.
The country's engine technology lags that of United Technologies unit Pratt & Whitney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce, said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
China's Defence Ministry, in a brief statement to Reuters, said there was a "definite gap" between Chinese military technology and some developed countries, adding Beijing would continue to strengthen its armed forces.
Western restrictions on arms exports to China prohibit the sale of Western engines for military use, forcing China to rely on homegrown designs or engines Russia has agreed to sell.
"Chinese engine-makers face a multitude of problems," said Michael Raska, assistant professor in the Military Transformations Programme at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Among the issues, China's J-20 and J-31 stealth fighters cannot super-cruise, or fly at supersonic speeds like their closest rivals, Lockheed Martin's F-22 and F-35 stealth planes, without using after-burners, said two industry sources who follow Beijing's military programmes closely.
After-burners remove a warplane's stealthiness, a capability that allows them to escape radar detection.
Even the warplane engine that experts consider to be China's best has reliability issues, said the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at ndtv.com ...
Oh they could steal one, but replicating it is simply beyond their manufacturing capabilities. The tech involved is very sophisticated. Kind of like if we stole a true starship from some alien and tried to replicate its warp drive en masse...
You’re certainly correct on the grad students and brainpower.
I believe the biggest problem the Chinese have is not design talent but process and manufacturing talent.
They have not (yet) developed consistent quality programs at the very high level needed for these applications.
But that day will come.
A-yup.
And that's a matter of practice. Which we conveniently handed over to them by transferring massive factories and business over the last 25 years.
Won't be long now.
Do they utilize the exhaust heat in marine applications?
When I look at important research being published out of the US these days, the VAST majority have chinese authors. There a very few anglo/western names attached to this research.
I attribute this to (1) the ongoing war on white men by schools at all levels and (2) the universities need for full-pay international students.
There will come a day when these researchers will go home to China and the R&D leadership will have moved to China. US students will then have to go to China for the cutting edge in science and engineering.
Our leaders want to destroy this country and its people.
Outside air is sucked into the inlet, squeezed by the compressor stages, ignited in the combustor section which, as it expands, turns the power turbine which is attached to the turbine shaft which turns the drive shaft.
Without hot expanding gases, nothing works - not even marine industrial turbines (like those that power the Navy's LCACs)
Can we say ‘materials science’???
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