Global Times reported that Chengdu Aircraft Industrial Group Co Ltd under the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China revealed that it recently broke records in terms of aircraft delivery due to high demand, that the J-20 has entered a mass production phase after it solved the last missing piece of the puzzle, the domestically developed WS-10 engine. The WS-10A is advertised as an engine with 120–140 kilonewtons (27,000–31,000 lbf) thrust. It has full authority digital engine control (FADEC). The maker of the J-20, China’s most advanced stealth fighter jet, has been facing challenging research and development, production and delivery missions, as multiple users were waiting to receive delivery of many aircraft.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force displayed J-20s equipped with domestically developed engines at Airshow China 2021. Now that there is no limitation caused by the import of engines, and the homemade WS-10 engine has been tested on other aircraft like the J-10, J-11 and J-16, the J-20 is in a position to start mass production. The switch to domestically made WS-10 engines from imported ones has made mass production possible, Fu said, noting that other systems on the J-20, including the avionics system, radar system and weapons systems, were already domestically developed. In a short time, we will be able to see J-20s operated by all eastern, southern, western, northern and central theater commands, and become the main force to safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial airspace security.
The Shenyang WS-10 (Woshan-10; Turbofan-10), codename Taihang, is a turbofan engine designed and built by the People’s Republic of China. The WS-10 is derived from the CFM56 with the experience gained from the Woshan WS-6 turbofan project, which was abandoned at the start of the 1980s. The WS-10 project was reportedly started by Deng Xiaoping in 1986 to produce an engine comparable to the Saturn AL-31. The work was given to the Shenyang Aeroengine Research Institute (606 Institute) of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). The WS-10 may have been based on the core of the CFM-56II (itself based on the General Electric F101); China purchased two CFM-56IIs in the 1980s before the arms embargo. Furthermore, Salyut refused to sell source code, forcing China to spend nearly 20 years developing its own code independently.
The Chengdu J-20 (Jian-Erling), also known as Mighty Dragon (W?ilong), is a single-seat, twinjet, all-weather, stealth, fighter aircraft developed by China’s Chengdu Aerospace Corporation for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The J-20 is designed as an air superiority fighter with precision strike capability; it descends from the J-XX program of the 1990s. . The J-20 is a multirole air superiority fighter, with the interceptor role only being one of the options. The J-20 made its maiden flight on 11 January 2011, and was officially revealed at the 2016 China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition. The aircraft entered service in March 2017, and began its combat training phase in September 2017. The first J-20 combat unit was formed in February 2018. The J-20 is the world’s third operational fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft after the F-22 and F-35.
