What does it say in the text Rational quoted? Anything important to know?
Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36) thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Round nozzles speculation can end for good now. We all know the real reason why they suggested that.
@Rational314159 is basically slamming the article in that screenshot, because the article's author is claiming that some kind of J-36 V2.0 is capable of near-space/sub-orbital flight at hypersonic speeds, and that the J-36 and J-XDS are actually competing against each other instead of being concurrent projects for the PLAAF and PLAN.
The only things that the author get right are the fuel dump tests and the probable induction time period (and perhaps the relative maturity of the J-36 & J-XDS subsystems).
TL; DR - Whoever wrote that article is mainly talking from his/her own arse.
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Most of them are low value conjectures
Can anyone find the uncompressed version of this picture? I tried searching with the Rednote ID 51833043 but got nothing...
I don't think we've gotten hard confirmation of TVC but it should have at least some TVC in the pitch axis to deal with supersonic trimming. Id be very surprised if it didn't.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I would not be surprised if it doesn’t feature TVC. The Chinese just doesn’t seem to rate it despite a lot of testing and first hand experience.
I actually think it’s more likely that the J36’s rear engine layout ends up resembling the YF23, with more focus on radar and IR signature mitigation over raw agility.
This would mesh with the PLAAF and CAC’s experience with the J20, that while the J20 can certainly dogfight with the best of them, you are using it wrong if you end up in a dogfight to start with. So in that regard, it would not be surprising if they chose stealth over agility when forced to choose.
Now, it might be possible that they incorporate TVC into a YF23-esq design with a fixed lower lip and the TVC nozzle can swivel upwards to give it faster positive turn rates, but would taking 100% of the sunk weight and complexity penalty be worth it for maybe 75% of the utility if you are going to restrict the range of motion of your TVC nozzle to just a single direction?
I think if they value supersonic/supercruise performance for the J-36 then they likely would have to include at least some degree of TVC to deal with supersonic trim drag, and reduce the deflection that trailing edge control surfaces would have to do.
In general though I do think the idea that J-36 is making agility tradeoffs for stealth is true, and these tradeoffs significantly hamper supersonic efficiency. My guess as to why they went with 3 engines was so they could brute force through those inefficiencies and achieve supersonic speeds when they need to.
The first half of video is a super low-altitute J-36 incoming clip.
The latter half of the video is stitched together from two separate images. I'm NOT very certain about the authenticity of these images.
But IF these images are genuine, this would be our first confirmed sighting of the leading-edge flaps.
The latter half of the video is stitched together from two separate images. I'm NOT very certain about the authenticity of these images.
But IF these images are genuine, this would be our first confirmed sighting of the leading-edge flaps.
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