H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)

[ying1978]

I believe when talking about stealth shaping, the whole 3D profile has to be judged instead of just generalizing the shape on plan. One disadvantage of both the flying wing and cranked kite is that the short fuselage makes it necessary for the engines to be semi-buried, as it is difficult to fit an s-duct to hide the full diameter of the fan blades in such a short space. This eats into the internal volume and more ditermentially, makes the bottom part of the fuselage curved.

Conversely, a cranked diamond shaped aircraft like the one shown in XAC's 2012 paper can have a perfectly flat bottom as the engines can be mounted above the wings.

 

[latenlazy]

. Also contrary to what people believe J-36's planform is not the most optimal for stealth overall neither is it the most efficient for subsonic cruise. J-36 is designed for air combat and high speed supercruising not subsonic cruise with global range, massive payload and extreme stealth.

The F-22 supposedly has a similar RCS to the B-2. You cannot know anything by eyeballing.

 

[tamsen_ikard]

The F-22 supposedly has a similar RCS to the B-2. You cannot know anything by eyeballing.

Makes complete sense when you see the size difference. Bigger things will have bigger RCS no matter how much you deflect away.

 

[Tomboy]

The F-22 supposedly has a similar RCS to the B-2. You cannot know anything by eyeballing.

It's literally basic principle of edge lining, all of B-2/B-21 and basically every other non cranked stealthy flying wing is all shaped in such a way that there will only be 4 angles of alignment which is basically the minimum you could do.

 

[GTI]

ULO/ELO is the bare minimum along with advanced EW and maybe speed combined to buy you survivablility. So your right that stealth is not enough in itself, It's the bare minimum.

Stand off missile truck is only a part of H-20's projected mission along with penetration strikes.View attachment 159062
Here, from this research paper you can see cranked arrow is over a magnitude worse than non cranked design which will be unacceptable. Also contrary to what people believe J-36's planform is not the most optimal for stealth overall neither is it the most efficient for subsonic cruise. J-36 is designed for air combat and high speed supercruising not subsonic cruise with global range, massive payload and extreme stealth.

Firstly, none of those are double deltas they are cranked arrows with (more, comparatively) signature increasing trailing edge geometry.

Now for the main part — who said anything about subsonic cruise (at least outside of the beginning and end phases of a sortie)? If you are subsonic, you will die. What is so hard to understand.

IMO it wasn’t just the missiles. As early as 2019 if not much earlier, the PLA would’ve known J-36, ALHCMs and ALHGVs were all coming. And now they know that air-breathing hypersonic SAMs and AAMs with phenomenal range and speed are in the pipeline too (plus kill webs including dozens of CCAs, UCAVs, ISR UAVs, AEW satellites etc.).

Because you seem so wedded to the prior epoch (honestly, how many months ago did I put forth the no-brainer about what the PLA’s preference for missiles to be very fast, rather than stealthy and slow, would mean for the likely planform, we didn’t even have to wait for a podcast from the trio) — I will put it simply… a supersonic VLO bomber (possibly in a double delta J-36esque planform) is going to be far more survivable in the future, than a subsonic VLO flying wing (including these ELO and ULO terms you’re introducing). In fact, you could even use the former to hunt down the latter (just like how the J-36 will be used, as one of its many mission sets).

If you recall my comments from just after 12.26, when I coined the term “Air Cruiser” (which was screenshotted, placed in a chinese-language mil blog post and received praise, including from one of the trio and apparently a designer at CAC) — I spoke of how future air combat will begin to resemble naval warfare at the turn of the 20th century, might be worth reading (I noticed you only joined this forum in like January 2025, so you may not have read them).

 

[GTI]

Makes complete sense when you see the size difference. Bigger things will have bigger RCS no matter how much you deflect away.

No, no, no. That’s not how the physics works.

*I can show you a tiny luneberg lens that has greater RCS that whatever much larger aircraft its attached to, or some small pyramid shape reflectors with representative of a CVN’s RCS.

Can you please do more reading before some of these posts of yours.

 

[Tomboy]

Firstly, none of those are double deltas they are cranked arrows with (more, comparatively) signature increasing trailing edge geometry.

Now for the main part — who said anything about subsonic cruise (at least outside of the beginning and end phases of a sortie)? If you are subsonic, you will die. What is so hard to understand.

IMO it wasn’t just the missiles. As early as 2019 if not much earlier, the PLA would’ve known J-36, ALHCMs and ALHGVs were all coming. And now they know that air-breathing hypersonic SAMs and AAMs with phenomenal range and speed are in the pipeline too (plus kill webs including dozens of CCAs, UCAVs, ISR UAVs, AEW satellites etc.).

Because you seem so wedded to the prior epoch (honestly, how many months ago did I put forth the no-brainer about what the PLA’s preference for missiles to be very fast, rather than stealthy and slow, would mean for the likely planform, we didn’t even have to wait for a podcast from the trio) — I will put it simply… a supersonic VLO bomber (possibly in a double delta J-36esque planform) is going to be far more survivable in the future, than a subsonic VLO flying wing (including these ELO and ULO terms you’re introducing). In fact, you could even use the former to hunt down the latter (just like how the J-36 will be used, as one of its many mission sets).

If you recall my comments from just after 12.26, when I coined the term “Air Cruiser” (which was screenshotted, placed in a chinese-language mil blog post and received praise, including from one of the trio and apparently a designer at CAC) — I spoke of how future air combat will begin to resemble naval warfare at the turn of the 20th century, might be worth reading (I noticed you only joined this forum in like January 2025, so you may not have read them).

Supersonic bomber is basically impossible, all known tenders/papers point otherwise. There is also in fact 0 credible rumors about a supersonic H-20. How are you going to solve the range issue? 4 massive VCEs? We don't even have a small VCE yet. A supersonic bomber will likely have worse signature than a subsonic flying wing just due to the aerodynamic sacrifices you have to make, again it's basic edge alignment also how are you going to suppress IR signature from ever advancing satellite based IR detection systems.

You can't just say, supersonic VLO bomber, mmm yummie and ignore all the engineering challenges which prevented anyone from building one. Yes, sure a supersonic bomber with the same signature performance as B-21 is going to be much better but also nearly impossible to build if you also want global range. While I also want the PLA to build a super bomber, you also have to be realistic.

 

[Gloire_bb]

Now for the main part — who said anything about subsonic cruise (at least outside of the beginning and end phases of a sortie)? If you are subsonic, you will die. What is so hard to understand.

?
Subsonic flying is fine, it's just slower.

It also comes with much less restricted flight path choices, and your stealth worth so much more as you're much colder(not just way less signature, but one entire band less - very popular mwir less).

If you recall my comments from just after 12.26, when I coined the term “Air Cruiser” (which was screenshotted, placed in a chinese-language mil blog post and received praise, including from one of the trio and apparently a designer at CAC) — I spoke of how future air combat will begin to resemble naval warfare at the turn of the 20th century, might be worth reading (I noticed you only joined this forum in like January 2025, so you may not have read them).

But cruising, by definition, isn't darting in and out.
Both J-SY and J-36 are quite thick ladies, with their wing sweep angle easily explainable by stealth considerations rather than supersonic performance.
I'd personally expect J-35 and especially delta canard J-20 to have way more attention and intent placed on supersonic part of their performance.

Yes, sure a supersonic bomber with the same signature performance as B-21 is going to be much better but also nearly impossible to build if you also want global range.

Oh, no, it's totally doable. You'll just pay with size and ridiculous price.

 

[Tomboy]

Oh, no, it's totally doable. You'll just pay with size and ridiculous price.

I would assume part of H-20's requirements would be mass producible and can use mostly existing infrastructure. What's the point of a bomber that has a wingspan of 80m with a take off weight in the hundreds of tons and cost 20 billions.

 

[GTI]

I would assume part of H-20's requirements would be mass producible and can use mostly existing infrastructure. What's the point of a bomber that has a wingspan of 80m with a take off weight in the hundreds of tons and cost 20 billions.

Nope. If China were to build a military aircraft that costs $300M to $1B, it would be like the US building an aircraft that costs like $750M to $2.5B, but still likely under budget and ahead of schedule.

Don’t look to the waste and inefficiency of the US MIC, for your projections and extrapolations about China’s capability.

It’s going to be expensive and naturally, the most expensive combat aircraft China has ever built. That much should be expected.

I really hope your main rationale isn’t “well, we’ve never seen it elsewhere, so it can’t be done” (if that’s the case, then we still just have to wait for the “reveal”, before that long overdue conversation about PLA watching methodology that I alluded to some time ago… for goodness sake, I’ve even spent months too terrified to speak of my thoughts, for fear of ridicule and eventual bans from mods… and now look, our “PLA Watching Overton Window” has this possibility firmly in the centre of it as “acceptable and sanctioned” discourse).

…
P.s. — Also, I’m lost. Who said anything about an 80m wingspan? Are you thinking about the correct planform? The B-2 has a 53m wingspan and 170t MTOW. Not that I’m saying the H-20 will be similar… but for the XB-70 it was a 32m wingspan and 245t MTOW, respectively.