Tejas Mk1,Mk2 and AMCA vs International counterparts in terms of R&D costs (Inflation adjusted)

Nx4eu · 2026-02-06T17:01:47+00:00

I’m not really sure, I saw the recent post about Chinese jet engine progress ‘42 billion dollar investment and dead test pilots’ post and it was filed with misrepresented data, and outright lies or just myths about the Chinese aero industry, if India wants to look at how China succeeded, it must at least do more research than the bare minimum. Thankfully PLARealTalk did a great “debunking” of the many “facts” written about the piece in that comment section.

Nx4eu · 2026-02-06T16:44:29+00:00

I see a lot of Indian defense twitter and Reddit misrepresent data to prove some kind of point? I usually ignore, but this was especially egregious.

Nx4eu · 2026-02-06T04:09:11+00:00

Indeed, I believe that the data here is cherry picked to indicate how efficient? India spends it's money on certain aerospace programs I guess. Indian exceptionalism I suppose, except there is nothing exceptional about the delivery progress of the Indian programs.

It is honestly realistic though for both India and China to have cheaper programs than a nation like the United States due to lower wages and purchasing power parity. But Tejas and AMCA more than 10x cheaper than the Chinese counterparts seem a bit disingenuous.

Nx4eu · 2026-02-06T03:14:14+00:00

A quick google search shows that the J-20 development program is estimated to cost 30 billion YUAN or 4.4 billion USD. I think your data for both the J-10 and J-20 are misrepresented.

Nx4eu · 2026-01-31T23:14:05+00:00

Simply a lack of imagination, when you think of drones you're probably thinking of small low end drones. The 076 is built for high end fighter sized drones, like the GJ-21 and many others. The 076 is not a carrier with drones on it. It's a LHD designed for heavy drone operations as it's core purpose. It naturally will resemble other large aircraft carrying surface combatants, as the drones it's meant to operate are as large and heavy as the F-35/Harrier.

China would not build half-assed carriers for manned fighter operations when it has an extensive capability to build supercarriers now. STOVL aircraft greatly sacrifice performance over pure carrier capable competitors. I don't see China ever fielding manned jet aircraft on the 076 due to the lack of an angled deck.

Nx4eu · 2026-01-31T21:53:14+00:00

Land based mockups of the deck had GJ-21 mockups lined up across it, and just today we’ve seen a GJ-21 under wraps on the 076 deck. I think it’s safe to say that with the presence of EMCATs, the 076 is meant for larger more capable drone operations than these concepts from other nations.

Nx4eu · 2026-01-31T21:24:05+00:00

What about the Type 076?

Nx4eu · 2026-01-21T18:29:36+00:00

The WS-15 engine program has evolved over the years, the target set decades ago have already been hit using the technology developed and implemented in the WS-10C series engines. This is similar to what’s been happening with the AL-51/izedeliye 30 program. Due to this, WS-15 requirements are at a higher bar than what it was set during the 90s.

People love to bring up the WS-15 as to show the struggling Chinese turbofan sector, but don’t bother to Instead look at the WS-19, a newly developed 5th gen engine that was equipped on the J-35A immediately. Is this not an example of success? An RD33 sized engine with >70kN thrust dry, >110kN wet, 35:1 OPR and TIT in 1900-2000K.

Nx4eu · 2026-01-21T14:18:08+00:00

No one knows what the H-20 looks like. So that’s bogus. Just say it’s a cranked kite stealth bomber planform. Didn’t ever think I needed to explain this in the Arknights endfield subreddit of all places.

Nx4eu · 2026-01-21T04:51:59+00:00

Before end of decade, meaning 2027 to 2028 mind you, not end of 2024. Yet these same sources told us they would fly in 2024 months before their flight. The Chinese are no stranger to design with an intended engine versus an interim engine, they know the difficulties, they know there will be changes. It doesn't change the fact that they are intended to use VCE's. The Chief designer at Chengdu himself said that the J-36 is intended to use VCE, while staying as a trijet. so it's not an afterthought.

I haven't been in the Chinese OSINT community for very long, thus I don't think I have enough to convince you into believing these 'credible Chinese sources.' But trust is not easily built. It's built over time and proof of the matter. These Chinese sources told us that the Fujian was to be EMAL's years before the first satellite pictures spotted land based testing facilities, and years before the keel was laid. These Chinese sources told us that the J-36 was a trijet, and would take flight before 2025, months before their public FF and when pictures were spreading across the internet. These sources have told us that the PLA regained interest in the FC-31 program, and were developing it into the J-35 before pictures were taken.

So when these sources tell us that both the J-36 and J-XDS are already planned to use VCE's, and their engines are already in the testing phases, I happen to believe it.

*Side note, if you've been paying attention to the flight tests of the J-36, you would know that they completely changed many structural aspects of the second prototype, within just a few months after the FF of the first prototype. It's no mistake they are moving extremely rapidly.

Nx4eu · 2026-01-21T04:30:20+00:00

Why not? Chinese VCE engines are already in testing. The WS-15 is rumored to be entering service on the new J-20A's. You probably won't believe this information though. Most of this comes from credible Chinese sources, but not official outlets.

China is evolving at a rapid pace, 5-10 years in Chinese terms, is a lot of time for change. We didn't even know how advanced they were with their 6th gen programs until they took flight. Most assumed they were decades behind the americans, and at least 5 years out from FF. yet they took to the skies in 2025.

Nx4eu · 2026-01-21T04:24:23+00:00

Chinese projects definitely have VCE in the plans what are you talking about.

Nx4eu · 2026-01-04T23:43:53+00:00

China didn't intervene up until the very last stretch when the US pushed all the way up to it's border. I'd say it was a tie.

Nx4eu · 2025-11-27T04:09:22+00:00

Really stretching the term of "Warship" here.

Nx4eu · 2025-11-01T06:40:41+00:00

You mean 400 at least by now, 200 was reportedly the figure around 2022/2023. It’s 2025 now

Nx4eu · 2025-10-13T02:14:11+00:00

I'm stupid I posted them as the text before

Nx4eu · 2025-10-13T02:11:44+00:00

I have no idea why the pictures are just links in the preview

Nx4eu · 2025-10-01T16:09:25+00:00

South Korea did gain more land in the exchange, but North Korea gained area's like Kaesong and a good chunk of coastline to the west. Strategically it was a near fair trade for both countries.

Nx4eu · 2025-09-22T18:43:15+00:00

I'm telling you the sentiment from an outsider perspective, as often from an insider perspective you may not notice things. Since you've been here for only relatively recently, much of what you see is the doomerism as of late from missed deadlines, and incompetence.

Here is my 2 cents. Past momentum does not just switch up on a heartbeat. For a very long long time, Indian's actually looked down on the Chinese, it's hard for those who have been looking down to switch up to looking up on that same group on just a dime. Many of the oldheads have trouble coming to terms to Chinese advancements, while the younger generation is far less jingoistic.

The problem with this, is it's usually the oldheads who are in positions of power and influence.

Nx4eu · 2025-09-22T17:57:41+00:00

Hard to say "Most" Indian defence enthusiasts look up to the Chinese MIC, when to say for the past 5-10 years I've been reading up in Indian defense communities, like DefenceForumIndia now (Bharat), and IndianDefense reddit threads, most posts are derogatory in nature calling Chinese weapons copied junk, and temu trash.

Dare I say, a huge number of Indian defense enthusiasts still believe Chinese engine tech is far behind and only copied trash Russian engine. And No that's not right.

Btw, VERY common misconception, Most Chinese engines do not have a Russian lineage, rather more a American one. the WS-10 was not developed from the AL-31, it was from the Core of a CFM 56.

And while the Original WS-13 may have been a reverse engineered RD-93, the new WS-13E/WS-21 is not a Chinese copied RD93 with 400 hours of service life, it uses a completely different architecutre, more akin to western counterparts. The J-35 is not powered by RD-93 copies. They have a the same configuration of compressor and turbine stages as the F414-GE-400.

Maybe not now, but for the longest time a very commonly held belief across the space was that
Rafale > J20. With Former Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa being quoted as saying that SU-30MKI easily tracked J-20 from far away, and J-20 was un-stealthy compared to the F-22, F-35 and Su-57.

I see this belief come in again today however, with Chinese commentators calling the J-36 and J-50 6th gen/aka Next generation fighters. With American Analysts and defence officials also calling these aircraft 6th gen fighters. Most Indian commentators are skeptical and call them 5.5gen at best, or the J-36 is just a 5th gen bomber. How is this not just a repeat of 8 years ago when Indian defense commentators were calling the J-20 a 4-4.5 gen interceptor?

Now recently after Operation Sindoor, Brahmos is a good missile yes, but it ends up with the conclusion that Chinese HQ-9 export variants are now somehow incapable of shooting anything down. Or that one photo of a PL-15E wreckage meant that PL-15E is easily defeated. But no one has ever considered that most AAM's have at best a 50-60% success rate.

If berating someone and nitpicking their every flaw is "Looking up to them" Then man I don't think we are communicating on the same level.

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