More likely H-6 as 六爷 (which has been a longstanding nickname iirc) and J-36 as 小六 (name ends with a 6, new kid on the block, so calling it effectively lil'six makes sense to me at least)
Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36)
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
The AESA radome looks huge!
The wing tip is not as pointy anymore? It could be the low res image though
It would look about as expected if accounting for:
- distance of imagery
- automatic post processing/AI enhancement
In other words, it is an image with basically no particular value except for acknowledging "maybe this is a real image".
"Refuel 'Sixth Master' first, then refuel 'Little Six'."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't we yet to see the actual radome of the J-36? I took a quick glance over older images and the colour of the fuselage always seemed to match the "radome", leading me to believe it was similar to J-20 prototype 2001 where there just wasn't a separate radome (since these need to be made of different materials from the main body).
Given the clearly distinguished colouring in this image, is this the first time/prototype where they've got a real radome? Now testing critical subsystems like that could mean the bulk of the aerodynamic testing is completed.
On closer inspection, it could just be the automated AI enhancement simply stretching the known side-facing arrays to be larger than they actually are, and that distorts the colour at the nose.
It looks different because we can see the cockpit from the side, no? The bit of the cockpit we can see is looks like a single- or tandem-seated cockpit, rather than the side-by-side that we saw previously. IMO this is AI-enhanced to hell, and whatever was doing the enhancing has effectively grafted the front of an NGAD CGI in place of the actual head of the aircraft.
More like grandpa 6 in this context.