J-10 fighter aircraft is a fourth generation fighter aircraft made for Chinese air force to face the challenge of the challenge of F-22, SU-27 , Mig-29.
It is a multirole ,Suit for any weather(day/night) condition fighter aircraft which can be used for both air-to-air & air-to-ground missions .
The project to build this aircraft started at mid 1980 .It is designed by Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute and built by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) of AVIC.
At first it was planned as a air superiority fighter but the changing requirements & continuous development made it as a multirole jet fighter .
The J-10 fighter first made it flight at March, 1998 lasting for twenty minutes , from 1998 to 2003 the fighter make it capable in aerial refueling , from December 21 to December 25 it completed it’s test flight as a firing aircraft .
Probably it is used operationally by the 131st regiment of 44th division .
Many nations have shown their interest to by this multirole fighter jet like Iran,Thailand, Indonesia & Pakistan .
Though there is a rumour that China has taken technological support from Israel & Russia it is strongly rejected by the Chinese defense source .
This fighter is very user friendly for the pilot during dog fight like other fourth generation fighter aircrafts containing an zero zero ejection seat which can perform a safe ejection in an emergency even at zero altitude and zero speed..
The pilot enjoys a 360 degree visual coverage using two piece bubble canopy which is a vital feature during air-to-air combat.
The fighter use the fly-by- wire flight control system .This system provides automatic flight coordination and keeps the aircraft from entering potentially dangerous situations such as unintentional slops or skids. This therefore frees the pilot to concentrate on his intended tasks during the dogfight
The pilot receive information visually by using LCD multi-functional displays in the cockpit .
The J-10 fighter has a tailless delta canard aerodynamic layout .This configuration is aerodynamically unstable which provides a high level of agility specially at supersonic speed .
This fighter uses a Chinese infra-red search & track technology which has a maximum range of 75km .
The J-10 fighter aircraft uses a multi-mode fire control radar system which can track 10 targets at the same time of which 2 can be engaged simultaneously with semi active radar homing missiles or 4 can be engaged with active radar homing missiles .
It is equipped with a 23mm twin barrel canon .It can carry about 6000kg weapons such as missile & bombs .
It can be externally equipped by air to air missiles PL-8,PL-9 ,medium range short guided air to air missiles PL-11,PL-12, laser guided bombs ,anti shipa &anti Radiation missiles like PJ-9 .
The variants of this aircraft are J-10A, J-10B ,J-10C,J-10S .
