Yeah, I was hoping to see where the original documentation they had obtained was from. Gaijin has gotten empty weight of aircrafts wrong on many occasions.
Also, I was told that it is important to look at the aircraft’s maximum weight as well. Several sources state 19,277kg. But, the J-10A in-game does not have all of its IRL weapons such as perhaps anti-ship missiles which weighs considerably. Documentation on the weapons and their weight will also be required for the reports.
The most common empty weight figure of the J-10A is usually stated to be around 8840-8890kg. What is interesting is that Gaijin states this figure in their shooting range video as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIyl80-nGpQ&t=65s&ab_channel=WarThunder.Officialchannel.
The 9750kg figure is supposedly for J-10C, but I also doubt the validity.
J-10A MTOW should be 18600kg.
Most CN sources state 8800kg region.
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1633498435060616213&wfr=spider&for=pc
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1689577991034230089&wfr=spider&for=pc
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1764747222515104866&wfr=spider&for=pc
However, some analysis by sources such as AFM and Sinodefenseforum report 8300kg.
There are some people with official connections to AVIC on Sinodefenseforum, so I wouldn’t count them out entirely. I’d imagine that this is where Gaijin got the 8300kg figure for the J-10A ingame.
At the same time, J-10A seems to have a substantial increase in drag right after Mach 1, the drag curve is pretty weird.
Especially the fuselage drag, the increase seems almost unnatural.
I think more research should also be done on this aspect as well.
The problem with Chinese aircraft is that since so little official information is revealed, most of it at the start is “guesstimates” and for the longest time 9750kg was used, probably as it was a parameter for the canceled J-9 project.
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I personally wouldn’t report this right now, for the sake of gameplay the J-10A is pretty balanced as of current, having notably worse flight performance compared to EFT, Rafale, and being comparable to the Gripen.
It already struggles at high-altitude in terms of acceleration and turn, which is quite strange as in real life the J-10A was designed to be a high-altitude interceptor and one that through wind tunnel testing/CAD, minimizes drag. Many aspects such as the delta wing dihedral came about as a result.
Not to mention that sources are all over the place and everything contradicts one and another.
No one reported the empty weight to Gaijin in the dev server when the J-10A figures were being made, I think they know more than us on this topic.
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Perhaps reporting it would nudge Gaijin to bring PL-8B to the table or add J-10C right away sooner or later. I know that J-11B and J-10B are in the works and could be released as soon as March Major Update.
It seems far more likely that the J-10A is 8,800kg as you said and the J-10C is 9,750kg. The problem still is that the 8,800kg is still heavier than the 8,300kg in-game, which still adds up to missing 500kg.
The problem with this theory is that the J-10A could likely be heavier than 8,300kg IRL, but that it’s possible people with actual primary sources never came forward and instead decide to benefit from having the J-10A at a lighter than IRL weight.
This is a separate issue, the J-10A having increased empty weight should only affect initial take-off run as well as very low dogfight speeds.
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Then make the report.
But I hope Gaijin will do something about the drag issue in particular.
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I don’t trust western sources about chinese vehicles at all, most of them are full of errors.
Most of them base their books or reports on a somewhere forum or Wikipedia.
All I can say for sure here is that the J-10A has 19277kg maximum take-off weight.
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FC-1 irl had an empty weight close to ~6400kg iirc and J-8II is ~9,000kg or that ballpark. I can see the Chengdu J-10 being somewhere between the two having similar dimensions and of course all are within the same light to medium fighter area as the F-16 variants.
It should be noted that the sources I posted above also state 19,277kg MTOW. Currently I don’t believe the J-10A can come close to the 19,277kg MTOW as it is right now but I’ll have to look further into this.
Thanks for your time.
Is 8300kg in the files for the J-10A?
The shooting range video involving the J-10A posted by Gaijin themselves says 8800kg, or 8.8 tons.
According to the official JF-17 website, the JF-17 is 6411kg empty.
Yes, it’s 8,300kg in the files. Likely irl the J-10A is 8,800kg and the J-10C is 9,750kg. Makes no sense for the J-10A to jump from 8,300kg to 9,750kg on the J-10C. That is a 1,450kg weight jump! More likely the J-10A is 8,800kg like you said and J-10C is 9,750kg.
I guess.
I suspect the extra drag might be Gaijin compensating for the lighter weight, which affects especially the supersonic part of the flight envelope.
The weight could increase by 500kg and the top speed remains the same as it’s not a function of power to weight but rather thrust over drag provided it has sufficient lift to maintain the required altitude for best thrust to drag performance.
It seems balanced for now, changing these things may bring motr problem.
the only real problem is the strange drag.
I think it’s just a balance issue, make it a nice all-around plane, if also with low drag, it would be too OP at that time.
From: Encyclopedia of Chinese Aircraft Volume 3, Aviation Industry Press, ISBN 9787802438231.
The book’s credibility is only behind CAC’s own marketing materials, as its authors are a PLAAF general, an ex-Chengdu engineer, and a commissioner at Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In the forewords they mentioned the use of official channels for info accuracy.
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The J-10C hanging PL-17 appeared in CCTV reports！
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