Power Plant
Research revealed that the turbojet engine was not sufficient enough to provide the thrust needed to meet dogfight requirement, so a domestic turbofan engine originally used for Chengdu J-9 was used instead. The turbofan engine was designated as WS-6 (short for Wo Shan, 涡扇), with development first begun in 1964. After seventeen years of development, the performance parameter finally reached the desired requirement in October 1980. Although the pre-production authorization was granted in 1981, the program continued as a research project instead of a mature one for production. In addition, research revealed that the 71 kN (122 kN with afterburner) WS-6 was not sufficient enough to power Q-6 to meet the dogfight requirement. In 1983, an improved version WS-6G (G = Gai 改 meaning improved) appeared, originally intended for the cancelled Shenyang J-13. The new engine provided thrust of 138 kN (with afterburner), with thrust to weight ratio greater than seven, but due to the limitation of the Chinese industrial capability at the time, the engine was not reliable at all, and in addition to be highly unreliable due to the immature design, the MTBO of the engine was rumored to be only around fifty hours at most, and the engine never progressed beyond the research stage under laboratory conditions. The problem in the power plant caused by the limited Chinese industrial capability was another factor contributed partially to the final cancellation of Q-6.
Read more about this topic: Nanchang Q-6
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