May 21, 2007:
Chinese J-10 fighters have been
spotted porting a satellite antennae behind the cockpit. This could either be
for satellite communication (SatCom) or, more likely, satellite navigation.
Either way, it's possibly using the Chinese satellite navigation system called
BeiDou. Think of this system as GPS light. BeiDou only covers East Asia, and
not even all of China. But it covers the areas along the coast, and Taiwan. The
BeiDou system is less accurate than GPS, slower, but it does allow two way
traffic. This is useful for sending short messages (up to 120 Chinese
characters so, about a hundred words). Sort of IM (Instant Messaging) class
stuff. The system can only handle a few hundred thousand users, but that would
be sufficient for the number of Chinese troops involved in any major operation.
BeiDou also suffers some reliability problems, and is apparently very
vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. Because of all that, it is believed that
BeiDou is just a first generation system. A training system, one where China
learns the ins and outs of building satellite navigation systems.
The J10 is also Chinese made. It looks something
like the American F-16, and weighs about the same (19 tons). Like the F-16, and
unlike the Su-27, the J10 has only one engine. Originally, the J10 used a
Russian AL-31FN engine, but China has been working for a decade to manufacture
their own version of this, the WS10A. It's no accident that the J10 resembles
the F-16, because Israel apparently sold them technology for the Israeli Lavi
jet fighter. Israel abandoned the Lavi project, because of the high cost and
availability of cheaper alternatives (buying F-16s and F-15s from the United
States.) But the Lavi was meant to be a super F-16, and incorporated a lot of
design ideas from the F-16 (which the Israelis were very familiar with, as they
used them, and had developed new components for them.)