Performance comparison between J- 1 1O and F- 1 16;

Air Combat Maneuverability Comparison F- 16 mainly emphasized air combat at the beginning of the design, that is, the air combat mode of "biting the opponent's tail", so the wing with medium aspect ratio and medium sweep angle was adopted. The induced drag of this wing is small under the condition of sub-transonic, which is suitable for stable hovering maneuver, but the supersonic drag is large, which is not conducive to supersonic flight. The strake wing configuration used in F- 16 can obviously increase the wing lift, improve the stall angle of attack and reduce the induced drag to some extent. The leading edge maneuvering flap is used to reduce the induced drag and improve the hovering performance.

The F 100-PW- 100 engine with a thrust-weight ratio of 8 makes the thrust-weight ratio of F 16 reach 1. 15. Combined with the above aerodynamic design characteristics, the stable hovering performance of F 16 is excellent, and the climb rate is also very high. The F- 16 basically gave up supersonic performance, and the inlet adopted adjustable pitot tube type. This kind of inlet is light in weight, and the TStl engine has good combination under subsonic conditions, but the thrust loss is large under supersonic conditions. Therefore, although F- 16 claims that the maximum Mach number reaches 2.0, its supersonic performance is actually very poor.

The design of J- 10 and F- 16 is similar in that they both adopt the research results of vortex aerodynamics, which obviously improves the maneuverability compared with the second generation fighters. However, their emphasis on flight performance is obviously different. J- 10 requires good supersonic performance, outstanding subsonic instantaneous hovering performance and good subsonic stable hovering performance. F- 16 gives up supersonic performance, mainly highlights subsonic stable hovering performance, and has better instantaneous hovering performance. Their differences in design emphasis reflect the different needs of air combat in different times. It should be said that J- 10 was developed late, which is more in line with the needs of modern air combat.

The performance of supersonic hovering mainly depends on the residual thrust and aircraft handling performance under supersonic conditions. At supersonic speed, the lift center of the aircraft moves backward, which makes it difficult to balance the horizontal tail and reduces the maneuverability of the aircraft. The wing shape and adjustable inlet of J- 10 are more suitable for supersonic flight, so it can be determined that its supersonic acceleration is better than that of F- 16.

The static instability of J- 10 should be F- 16, and the lift center of canard configuration moves backward less at supersonic speed, so the stable hovering ability at supersonic speed should be better than F- 16.

In modern air combat, over-the-horizon air combat and off-axis launch have become the main combat modes, so the maneuverability of J-10 is more comprehensive than that of F- 16, which is more suitable for the needs of modern air combat.

Multi-task capability contrast F- 16 was originally designed as a cheap fighter, without considering multi-task capability. However, through practical use, it is found that the third generation fighter has good maneuverability, long range and large bomb load, and can be used as a multi-mission fighter. Therefore, F- 16 has improved its ability to attack the ground. On the one hand, the avionics system is modified to meet the needs of ground attack; On the one hand, the structure is strengthened and the maximum takeoff weight is increased. However, the price paid is that the weight of the plane has increased a lot. The 50th batch F- 16C is about 1 ton heavier than the earlier batch F- 16A. The increase of empty weight of aircraft will cause the decline of performance in all aspects. Part of the performance loss can be compensated by increasing the engine thrust, but the decline of instantaneous hovering performance cannot be compensated by increasing the engine thrust, unless the wing area is increased, which involves a major adjustment of the overall shape of the aircraft. In the process of aircraft design, the weight, aerodynamic shape and takeoff thrust-to-weight ratio of the aircraft are the best results after optimization. The substantial increase of aircraft weight will inevitably destroy the effect of this optimization. F- 16 didn't consider the need of multi-task operation at the beginning of design, so it was helpless to increase the weight greatly in the subsequent improvement.

The light fighter F- 16C should be able to meet the needs of multi-mission operations. The empty weight should exceed 8 tons, and the take-off weight should be around 12 ~ 13 tons. Such a weight standard should have been selected at the beginning of the design of 歼-1 10, while F- 1 16 was developed through continuous improvement, indicating that the design starting point of 歼-10 is higher than F-/kloc-0. However, J- 10 is not as good as F- 16C in ground attack capability at present due to the limitation of avionics level and types of ground attack weapons. However, the J-17 and Su -30MKK fighters currently equipped by China Air Force have strong attack capability, and J- 1 10 is more suitable for air combat missions, so it is not urgent to strengthen the ground attack capability of J-10.

Comparison of avionics systems 歼-10 and F- 16C should belong to the same generation in avionics system structure, but the avionics system structure of F- 16 is relatively simple, with a single-stage bus system and two redundant data buses. All functional components are connected to these two buses, with the fire control computer as the bus control computer and the inertial navigation computer as the backup bus control computer. However, the avionics system structure of J- 10 may be similar to that of F/A- 18, which uses dual-task computers to control two sets of dual-channel buses.

From the architecture point of view, the aviation application system of J- 10 is more complex, more digital and easier to upgrade than that of F- 16. The latest model of F- 16 stand-alone avionics is more advanced than J- 10. For example, F- 16 Block60 adopts APG-80 active phased array radar. However, judging from the avionics architecture of F- 16, even if phased array radar is used, the detection performance of the radar will be improved, and it is impossible to reach the level of APG-77' s "integrated RF" system. The improvement of J- 10 avionics system can not only improve the performance of a single avionics, but also develop into an integrated fire, flight and propulsion control system, thus improving the operational performance of the aircraft.

Improved Potential Contrast F- 16 is a multi-purpose fighter with over-the-horizon combat capability and ground attack capability. At present, its position in the US Air Force is mainly to carry out ground attack missions, taking into account air combat, as a supplement to the F- 15 fighter. After many improvements, F- 16 added more weight. Although the engine thrust increases correspondingly, the instantaneous hovering performance decreases a lot. Limited by the aerodynamic characteristics of F- 16, it has played a relatively perfect role in its good range. If we want to improve operability, we can only make big adjustments to the overall situation, which is of little practical significance. Therefore, the future improvement of F- 16 is mainly reflected in avionics and weapon systems.

However, the development time of J- 10 was limited by the technical conditions at that time. Many designs have not achieved the best results after engineering, so there is still obvious room for improvement in operability. For example, J- 10 leaves room for the use of composite materials, and the weight of aircraft can be significantly reduced by increasing the amount of composite materials. If J- 10 adopts an engine with higher thrust, the climbing performance and stable hovering performance can be greatly improved. J- 10 flight control system conservatively sets the limit angle of attack, while the stall angle of attack of delta wings with large sweep angle is generally large (35 ~ 40 degrees). By improving the flight control system or increasing the vector thrust, the flight angle of attack can be relaxed and the lift characteristics of J- 10 can be exerted.

The avionics and fire control system of J- 1 10 should take into account the needs of the continuous upgrading of avionics and weapon systems of modern fighters and fully consider the software. After changing the hardware of avionics equipment or adding a certain weapon, the corresponding control software can be easily upgraded, instead of having to modify it every time, as in the past fighter planes. This is due to the rapid development of information technology in the past twenty years. The advantages of late-born aircraft in information level far exceed those of the previous generation aircraft. For example, in the 1980s, the operation speed of the control computer of advanced fighters was hundreds of thousands of times per second, but now the ordinary CPU has reached hundreds of millions. With such a large difference in operation speed, the complexity considered by designers when designing avionics system control software is completely different, and the completeness of the designed software is also completely different.

By improving the engine, structure and avionics system, the air combat capability of J- 10 can approach the so-called three-and-a-half generations of Typhoon and Gust fighters, and surpass the general third-generation fighters.

F- 16 was developed 30 years ago. At that time, many advanced aviation technologies were adopted, such as relaxing static stability, random control layout, fly-by-wire flight control, strake wing layout and so on. , created a new era of fighters. But the times are always developing, such as the great change of air combat concept and the rapid development of information technology, which are unpredictable in the development of F- 16. Therefore, the design concept of J- 10 developed later is more advanced than that of F- 16 in many places. Although J- 10 is not as good as F- 16 in the function of some single equipment at present, its final overall performance is obviously higher than F- 16. The development of J- 10 has reached or even surpassed China's aviation technology level in the development process, and it is an excellent fighter.