What does Russia say when the Chinese pilot claims ‘J-16 surpasses all variants of Su-30’?

A veteran Chinese pilot recently confirmed that the J-16 multirole fighter developed from the Su-27 outperformed all Russian Su-30 variants.

Pilot Wang Zunxi (a fairly well-known PLAAF officer) in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV 7) gave a very remarkable point of view. According to the veteran pilot, the multi-purpose fighter J-16 manufactured in Shenyang Aircraft Corporation and is being massively employed for PLAAF combat units of generation 4 ++. “J-16 fighter jets (including the J-16D electronic warfare version) have surpassed Russia’s Su-30 series heavy multi-role fighters in almost all tactical specifications. “. “The superiority shown in both avionics and electrodynamic properties, the radar reflection area reduction coefficient (RCS), the J-16 retains only the aerodynamic layout of the airframe”, pilot Vuong said clearly. Faced with the above situation, the Russian press stated that in order to seek export contracts or bring high morale and psychological state to the soldiers, the weapons manufacturers used very sophisticated promotional tools and are not always objective. Russian military experts rebuttal when emphasizing that the Chinese pilot is comparing the technical specifications of the electronic equipment on the Su-30MKK and Su-30MK2 fighters that are somewhat out of date. These fighters were supplied to the PLAAF 20 years ago, and they are actually significantly inferior to the J-16 when facing exercises (both for surface attack and long-range interception missions). ). The reason is that China’s Su-30 integrates the N001VE passive phase array radar (PESA), which ensures the realization of “truncated” synthetic aperture and “truncation” (SAR) mode with low resolution. , only allows the detection and classification of targets with large RCS parameters. In addition, the capacity and anti-interference ability of the N001VE radar is quite low, it can only catch the 1m2 RCS aerial target, 75 – 80 km away in case the enemy does not use electronic countermeasures. In fact, the J-16’s high energy and anti-interference active phase array (AESA) radar has a target capture range with 1 m2 RCS from 130 to 150 km, and high anti-interference ability, range is only slightly reduced in a highly noisy environment. This is due to the presence in the electronic architecture of the advanced AESA radar, which consists of more than 1,500 transceiver modules, each equipped with an individual arsenide / gallium nitride microwave transistor. Moreover, this type of radar is also capable of operating in synthetic aperture (SAR), reverse synthesized aperture (ISAR) and tracking ground targets moving in real time. Although the equipment for the J-16 is very advanced, the Russian side thinks that it is necessary to compare the J-16 with more modern modifications, for example the Su-30SM2 variant is about to enter service. Although the N035 Irbis radar that will equip the Su-30SM2 of the PESA class may be significantly inferior to the J-16’s AESA radar in terms of interference resistance, the capacity is higher (providing target acquisition range. with 1 m2 RCS at a distance of 250 – 270 km). With the N035 Irbis radar, the Su-30SM2 will have the ability to “foresee and shoot before” the J-16 in a direct confrontation situation, especially when Russia is still completing the long-range air-to-air missile “product. 180 ”. But it must be noted that the Su-30SM2 is still on paper, while the J-16 has been on duty for many years and there is no guarantee that the Russian fighter really possesses outstanding features. as they still publish.