China’s J-15 carrier-based fighter jet to get domestic engines: report

A newly produced J-15 carrierbased fighter jet was fitted with what seems to be a pair of China’s domestically developed engines, according to an official media report on Wednesday, which marked the 10th anniversary of the aircraft’s first takeoff and landing on the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier.

This means that the Chinese aero engine has become reliable and powerful enough under demanding environments on aircraft carriers, reflecting that the Chinese engine has become mature and has likely surpassed its foreign counterparts, experts said.

Celebrating the J-15’s first takeoff and landing on Liaoning 10 years ago, a report by CCTV on Wednesday showed the carrier-based fighter jet’s production line at Shenyang Aircraft Corp and a J-15 undergoing calibration for test flights.

Calibration is done at the end of the production process, as the aircraft would need to complete a series of checks before and after a test flight as well as before its delivery to the military, CCTV said.

A close-up shot of this J-15 in the report showed that it was fitted with what appeared to be a pair of Taihang engines.

The WS-10 Taihang is a series of turbofan engines with high thrust and high thrustto-weight ratio independently developed by China, and they have been used by a number of China’s warplanes including the J-10, J-11, J-16 and J-20 fighter jets, but carrier-based J15s used to use Russian Al-31F engines, Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military aviation expert, told the Global Times.

This is because carrier operation is very demanding, as it requires the engines to have a higher acceleration rate and withstand stronger impact during takeoff and landing, as well as face harsher working environments including high saline and high humidity, which could cause corrosion and negatively affect the engine’s reliability and lifespan, Fu said.