Chinese flying wing pin

a reply to: RadioRobert

They'd be more than able to build a powerful twin engine strike aircraft - like a LO H-6K - no doubt about that. Just no strategic bomber with powerplants anywhere close to the F135, not to mention AETD. They're still years and years behind on that.

a reply to: mightmight

There's no doubt they and everyone else is lagging behind in engine tech.

But the B-47 had a 2,000+ mi combat radius with a whopping ~40,000 lbf thrust from six inefficient engines. You don't need AETD engines to build a strategic bomber. The H-6 gets by on two inefficient engines. Two engines in the 25- 30,000lbs thrust range with a decent bypass ratio probably isn't out of the question very near-term.
The WS-15 is supposed to provide 23,000 of dry thrust. Give it a bigger fan and optimize it for a lower velocity range, you could push 30,000 lbs with out too much hassle with a better stfc. If you believe the WS-15 is close to ready, so is a derivative of that core. And a bomber engine takes a lot less abuse, so if the WS-15 is robust enough to move forward, they are real close.

Will it be cutting-edge efficiency and performance? No. But even the WS-15 itself is plenty of engine to mate to a twin-engine bomber with range.

a reply to: RadioRobert

So whats a strategic bomber in your book? I differentiate between medium and strategic platforms. Masionar wrote strategic bomber with long legs, thats what i was replying to.

I dont see the Chinese building a, say 4000nmi 20ton payload vehicle with just two engines. If they wanted to build something like that (they dont), they'd go with four engines anyway.
They can build a decent medium sized strike platform like the H-6 using WS15 or whatever else, no argument there.

I expect the AETD improved F135 variants on the B-21 to have at least 30k lbf. Maybe siginificantly more. Thats leaps and bounds ahead of anything they are supposedly trying to do with the WS-15.

I only replied to your comment that said they can't build a twin-engine bomber. That's really not the case.


Sidenote tinfoil: state-owned ICBC are buying up GEnx and LEAP engines. You think they are above siphoning off engines from those purchases to A) tear apart and attempt to reverse-engineer and B) quietly support a small fleet of bombers? I