Based on this book, it’s just a guess. And most likely the power pack is still metal. Composites could have been used in the landing gear flaps, brake shield, flaperons.
Although Chinese wikipedia says empty weight of 16380kg, which is heavier than the base Su-27 at 16000kg
Yeah that is just J-11B, it does mention reports with the claims, i would have to personally ask the author to point the reports… I’ll trust his book and cut myself some work.
Wikipedia is not a good source, even if it is Chinese wikipedia.
J-11B is lighter than J-11A. J-11A is heavier than base Su-27 from what I know.
Any sources?
J-11A is heavier due to the reinforced landing gear. We also have that modelled in-game, iirc 500kg heavier.
Video that documents fabrication of materials for J-11B.
600kg last time I checked
Yes, and that is a pretty noticeable hit sometimes in terms of flight performance.
Thank you
I think T has adapted for catapult and B hasn’t?
We know that the T is CATOBAR capable, whether the B is or isn’t we still don’t fully know. I see the T as the fighter for Fujian and the B as a replacement for the normal J-15s of the Liaoning and Shandong.
The Abrams dropped two tons of weight from electronics alone when switching to fiber optics and it’s not very large. The total mass is something like 160,000+ pounds. A fully loaded Su-33 is 90-100k.
The Chinese considerably upgraded electronics in these fighters after the mid 2000’s, this very easily explains the weight reduction without the use of composites.
He is a German who is a fan of sino airplanes. All of his information and sources come from the sino defense forum and is no more credible than BBCRF as a direct source.
It is still an authored book, whether if it is accurate or not i honestly don’t care, we don’t have reliable ways of getting info when it comes to Chinese vehicles unless brochures are directly provided by them (export). The best book that could be used for Chinese aircrafts is this one:
Sadly, it stops at J-10A and J-11A.
Majority of Ruprecht’s sources are Janes and forum posts, he doesn’t even list the sources. It’s not a good source.
Actual photos and videos of Chinese equipment has provided plenty of solid information. From these we can visually inspect and determine the J-15 has an Su-33 airframe. I have not seen any place where it isn’t identical.
Further, there is no indication of composites use on J-15T. Weight reduction of 700kg is easily explained with modernized computer hardware and wiring.
Those are literally claims that you’ve made based on your assumptions, you don’t know for sure.
I’m more than happy if you were to provide me other options when it comes to authored works. Photos from Chinese netizens are surely useful, as I’ve made great use of them in the suggestion for the J-15T (should be coming out soon hopefully) but cannot be considered as “sources”. Surely useful tools to observe but that doesn’t give us certainty in any sort of way. Either way it is eefy.
Don’t get me wrong, If I see the J-15T’s canted radome in a picture it surely can be a massive hint towards an AESA radar, more than likely connected to the same exact shape of the radome that we’ve seen on the J-11D. Does that give me certainty? No.
I actually emailed him and spoke with him personally on multiple occasions seeking information for the J-8 series fighters when I was working the report for lack of PL-11 on J-8F. Thanks for asking though before… making an assumption.
The claims that I’m referring to are the ones you’re doing here:
I’m not talking about your general knowledge, why would i care about that right now? I’m just saying that footage alone cannot give us certainty over something, at least not always as I’ve clearly given you an example over here:
If we’re talking about CCTV footage in which they show vehicles and, sometimes, show tests of certain equipment sure, we can make assumptions. But again, we cannot be totally sure unless we’re given solid info. Ofc seeing a PL-17 on the belly of a J-16 somewhat confirms me that it can use it but we have plenty of other cases in which there are too many questions left out unanswered.
The point I am making is that Janes + photos of the aircraft are where Deino gets his information. Conversely, his own writings are no better of a source. This is an arcade video game, it doesn’t need to be historical and Gaijin has made that quite clear. The Su-27SM could never carry dual racks under the belly because the Su-35’s area between nacelles was increased and barely fits them properly in real life as an example.
The radar information is extremely dubious, the only aircraft we’ve had real data for post-1990 for China is the J-8B to my knowledge due to the leaked manual.