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

[Antares545]

Well... Length: 57m. Wingspan: 48m. It is bigger than Airbus A300 and it is supersonic

this design would require the fattest ass in any aircraft. to have a massive rotary launcher that far back is completely unfeasible.
just shows whoever makes these have never considered the side profile of their designs.

 

[GTI]

Well... Length: 57m. Wingspan: 48m. It is bigger than Airbus A300 and it is supersonic

Did you at least Check where this nonsense is from?

this design would require the fattest ass in any aircraft. to have a massive rotary launcher that far back is completely unfeasible.
just shows whoever makes these have never considered the side profile of their designs.

It’s a shame really, because next to the “arrowhead” and GJ-X, IMO that’s the best planform out of the various design choices required, if it is indeed supposed to carry very long munitions internally.

It’s the ridiculous number, positioning, and carrying capacity of IWBs, plus the stated dimensions, that ruin the potential credibility of just the overall planform.

It would be nice to come to a consensus on what we think the top 3 best or likely planforms are, based on the 1 credible rumour about IWB length requirements? And then see if any kind users want to make a good CGI of each (as another December project)?

 

[mack8]

this design would require the fattest ass in any aircraft. to have a massive rotary launcher that far back is completely unfeasible.
just shows whoever makes these have never considered the side profile of their designs.

I know some people are poo-pooing the idea of the bay configuration depicted, but take a look at the Su-57 bays and see how far back the rear one goes. Just a general observation, as we don't yet know the true H-20 configuration.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

I know some people are poo-pooing the idea of the bay configuration depicted, but take a look at the Su-57 bays and see how far back the rear one goes. Just a general observation, as we don't yet know the true H-20 configuration.

Yes, we are "poo-pooing" at the idea of the depicted bay configuration because that particular bay configuration is an absolute "poo-poo" by itself.

Here's what you see on the Su-57:



But here's what you don't see on the Su-57:



As a matter of fact, the main IWBs on the Su-57 aren't actually that deep. Each of those main IWBs can fit 3x LRAAMs in parallel, or 2x smaller-diameter cruise missiles (Kh-69) in parallel. This design is pretty typical for stealth fighters.

In the meantime, here's what the Kh-69 (~410mm diameter) compared to hypersonic strike missiles that fit inside the UVLS cells of the PLAN DDGs (~800mm diameter) looks like:



Notice how one is almost double the diameter of the other?

This aside - We haven't even talked about the possibility of the H-20 carrying large-sized strategic missiles in the same category as the JingLei-1. Such missiles would mean diameters that will most likely hover around if not go right past the 1-meter mark.

Moreover, since we're talking about the H-20, which is a strategic bomber - Ever considered avenue of the rotary launchers inside IWBs? Here's one inside a B-1B, unloaded (top/left) and loaded (bottom/right, with humans for scale):



The average US male is ~1.75 meters tall. I believe this should provide a rough visual on how big the IWBs on the B-1 are. The IWBs on the B-2 and B-21 are more or less of similar configurations.

So unless you want the H-20's rear side profile to look like a continental shelf transition profile (which is a rather big no-no for VLO platforms), then what is being depicted in the CGI by that guy is a non-starter.

 

[Jason_]

My eyes bleed when I see the stupid 6 engine supercruise "H-20." Low supersonic speed is literally the worst possible speed regime for a bomber. With subsonic, you get range/payload and IR and radar stealth. With high supersonic/hypersonic, you give up on stealth but become hard to intercept and gives kinetic energy to stand-off weapons. With low supersonic, you have worse stealth, worse range and payload, and is still easy to intercept with contemporary weapons -- all the cost with basically no benefit. This is the same reason why no one makes a Mach 1.5 supersonic anti-ship missile. You either go subsonic (cheap, stealthy) or >M2.5 to hypersonic (hard to intercept).

 

[GTI]

My eyes bleed when I see the stupid 6 engine supercruise "H-20." Low supersonic speed is literally the worst possible speed regime for a bomber. With subsonic, you get range/payload and IR and radar stealth. With high supersonic/hypersonic, you give up on stealth but become hard to intercept and gives kinetic energy to stand-off weapons. With low supersonic, you have worse stealth, worse range and payload, and is still easy to intercept with contemporary weapons -- all the cost with basically no benefit. This is the same reason why no one makes a Mach 1.5 supersonic anti-ship missile. You either go subsonic (cheap, stealthy) or >M2.5 to hypersonic (hard to intercept).

There is a USAF study I’ve linked before that disagrees with you.

Also, that planform is essentially a J-36 (although not sure where the 6 engines thing comes from). Is the J-36 similarly vulnerable? There is no future where aircraft can rely on VLO (including all the stupid “super duper LO” acronyms people are making up).

I “gave up” on the flying wing the instant we saw the J-36 last December and the JL-1 style missiles we’ve seen over the years. Then it was actually things like your J-36 in DCA graphic that makes me so heavily doubt the viability of slow speed (but subsonic is still likely, it’s only the flying wing planform I’m adamant about), plus the parade HCM and HGV reveals (the H-20 would have some serious standoff range munitions), and lastly GJ-X (and WZ-X).

I don’t know why we have to relitigate this every time.

 

[Puss in Boots]

As it seems, likely the huge GJ-X UCAV was seen again.

 

[ougoah]

My eyes bleed when I see the stupid 6 engine supercruise "H-20." Low supersonic speed is literally the worst possible speed regime for a bomber. With subsonic, you get range/payload and IR and radar stealth. With high supersonic/hypersonic, you give up on stealth but become hard to intercept and gives kinetic energy to stand-off weapons. With low supersonic, you have worse stealth, worse range and payload, and is still easy to intercept with contemporary weapons -- all the cost with basically no benefit. This is the same reason why no one makes a Mach 1.5 supersonic anti-ship missile. You either go subsonic (cheap, stealthy) or >M2.5 to hypersonic (hard to intercept).

Supersonic doesn't preclude stealth though. Maybe IR stealth to a slightly greater degree than subsonic but IR detection of VLO aircraft (even those flying supersonic - J-20, F-22, J-35, F-35 etc) doesn't happen until very close ranges anyway.

high supersonic/hypersonic bomber is beyond current capabilities... at least true for higher payloads. Not only the advantages you mentioned but you're also 3x to 5x faster onto target.

Supersonic is still better than subsonic. You would expect worse range and payload but you can design a supersonic aircraft to have a certain level of payload and range you require. That's for the engineers to achieve. It's certainly easier to get a subsonic to that level of range and payload but again this isn't a factor to disparage a supersonic bomber that achieves the required payload and range.

No benefit for supersonic over subsonic? Say we're comparing average cruise and weapon release speed of mach 1.2 vs subsonic bomber at mach 0.8, that's approximately 50% more kinetic energy, almost 50% faster time to target.

I think supersonic is simply too small an overall benefit for the expense and the engineering difficulty. Better to have very good subsonic than just good enough supersonic. For priority tasks, high supersonic or hypersonic is better with smaller payloads. But this ground is achieved more effectively and affordably with SRBM - ICBM/FOBS. Hypersonic bomber is simply not worth it when you have China's HCM and HGV capabilities... possibly even the FOBS that released payload in 2022 test.

So H-20 is most likely subsonic but supersonic and everything else being equal, the supersonic aircraft is simply better when we dont consider cost and complexity. If H-20 ends up being supersonic, then China's capability is FAR beyond what even the most optimistic of us expected.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Yes, we are "poo-pooing" at the idea of the depicted bay configuration because that particular bay configuration is an absolute "poo-poo" by itself.

Here's what you see on the Su-57:

View attachment 162847

But here's what you don't see on the Su-57:

View attachment 162848View attachment 162850

As a matter of fact, the main IWBs on the Su-57 aren't actually that deep. Each of those main IWBs can fit 3x LRAAMs in parallel, or 2x smaller-diameter cruise missiles (Kh-69) in parallel. This design is pretty typical for stealth fighters.

And here's a couple more to better illustrate my point:




(The 3rd photo depicts the IWB on the Su-75, which is basically carried over from the Su-57)

So as you can see - The IWBs on the Su-57 aren't exactly that deep or large. Hence, the same configuration cannot be copy-pasted over to the H-20, which is expected to carry large-sized (if not super-sized) missiles inside its IWB(s).