So you just don’t understand modern aircraft? So a troll pretty much? F-111 was a failure in service, the costs alone made it a failure for the insane amount of maintenance needed. It was no fighter, it was a bomber, a fast bomber. The Su-34 is more comparable to it and still blows it out of the water.
The new Chengdu aircraft is a heavy fighter for a lack of a better word. It is meant as both A2A BVR supremacy and extreme long range deep penetration strikes in very contested airspace. It’s looking like it’s a loadout of 4x Pl-17 and 4x Pl-15 (some claim 6x PL-17 while others claim 6x Pl-15 instead) while having a very small RCS, claimed smaller than the J-20 by a significant margin. Can the F-111 achieve air superiority by striking AWECS 300-500km away? No. Can the F-111 penetrate contested air space with SAM’s and adversary 5th generation fighters? No.
Now, since I’m sure you are well aware of why the F-111 != good aircraft, maybe we can keep this thread back on topic, and not further derail it USfanboyisms?
WS-15 look to be on part with AL-51. My guess its that That jet its on the 22 to 25 tons maybe a little more. But even with 16tons class engine it will have really good TTW ratio.
Other guess it that the engine wont be really that powerful but will be more fuel efficiency.
The designer said that another reason for the three engine layout is for more power generation, which makes sense as it seems that the J-36 (or whatever it is actually called) has multiple arrays of sensors similar to what we see on the Su-57, for more aerial coverage.
The main purpose of the J-36 should be as a force multiplier (essentially a lurker with decently low all-aspect RCS, feed information such as targeting data to other fighters in the area with its powerful radars, while it flies high and fast with its own very-long range AAMs posing a threat to high-value targets such as AWACS/Refueling assets).
