Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36) thread

[bsdnf]

It is wrong to claim the J-36 as another Mig-25. The Soviets did not regard the Mig-25 as a fighter that truly changed the times, and the F-15 did not strive to become a great generation of fighters because of the Mig-25, but the result of the long-term leadership of the US aviation industry since World War II. The so-called "not a pound for air to ground" is also a complete myth.

But this time is different. J-36 can achieve every key technical indicator proposed by the NGAD Heavy Version, and we also have shenad. If Americans like to use “historical events” to predict, who can guarantee that the United States will not be like the Soviet Union, which developed the Su-27 under the impact of the F-15, and then encountered the F-22 when it was close to entering service, constantly catching up but constantly falling behind?

America’s past successes, whether it was the “Arsenal of Democracy” or the F-15, or the moon landing, were not achieved suddenly in the short term by underestimating the opponent or the impact of a certain “emergency”, but were the result of long-term planning. Unfortunately, NGAD’s long-term planning has become a long-term burden and confusion. Instead, AVIC’s plan from more than ten years ago has come true, AVIC must complete its own NGAD project’s stage goals by the estimated 2025, no matter how slow the US NGAD’s progress is, they have to keep going

 

[mack8]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I've written up some secondary and tertiary effect now. Just as a main course, here are 3000 km radius circles drawn around Kashgar, Harbin, Shanghai and Sanya. That's how far 3000 km range gets you.

View attachment 142665

Fantastic read.

A question in regards to the above post, what happens in 2038?

 

[iBBz]

So I did this today and now I'm starting to think the J-36 MTOW may be much higher than 50tons. Has this possibility been discussed here? Note that the measurements on the first photo need to be scaled using the J-20's real dimensions.

It's about way more than volume and/or mass; it's about aircraft design. You simply cannot even come close to calculating the range of an aircraft by using volume and mass projections from a completely different aircraft. J-36 looks like a hybrid between a stealth fighter and hypersonic missile head, so comparing it to a stealth fighter with canards intended to allow it to dogfight an F-22 if all else fails is just not going to yield valuable information on its range. The design is clearly much more dedicated to drag reduction, and energy-efficient high speed gliding than J-20, not to mention that it used and still uses much more advanced resources and knowledge for the initial design and continuous optimization. Even the WS-15 engine it uses when it enters service will be undoubtedly superior to the WS-15 that J-20s use today. Additionally, are there manufacturing technique/material improvements that further reduce the supposed weight of the J-36 over what were used on the J-20? Are there fuel composition improvements throughout the years (this could be minimal in benefits)? Literally everything is a variable and not a constant to allow guessing.

You missed my point. I was referring to available volume not automatically translating into usable space that you can go ahead and populate with whatever you want and how there are other limiting factors such as MTOW and structural loads that have to be considered. You are correct about using other aircraft designs as a reference point in order to calculate the range of another aircraft, however, I wasn't using the J-20 as a reference point, but rather as a best case scenario to make a point.

The canards on the J-20 are not there to help with dogfighting. They are there because the J-20 wouldn't function without them. The wings of the J-20 are pushed back and the span is kept narrow in order to conform to the supersonic area rule and keep the wings from interacting with the nose cone shock to increase supercruising speeds. Because of that, the center of lift is so far from the center of gravity, that the plane needs the canards to shift the center of lift forward. Elevons might not have enough pitching authority during takeoff and landing due to low air speeds, so the canards step in to keep the nose up. Lift is directly proportional to the surface area of a wing and the area of a delta wing gets larger towards the back, so the center of lift will also shift rearwards as the speed increases. The canards on a J-20 are large and have a long moment arm (long distance from the center of lift), which means they can provide high lift at high speeds without deflecting too much in order to keep the drag as low as possible.

Your statement regarding the J-36 being more aerodynamically efficient than the J-20 is absolutely incorrect. Just because the J-20 doesn't look as clean and minimalistic as the J-36, doesn't mean it will generate less drag than the J-20 at supersonic speeds. The J-20 is an aerodynamics masterpiece, but it is not easy to see. Compared to the J-36, the J-20 is significantly smaller and lighter. It has a lower aspect ratio and is more biased rearwards. The designers went to great lengths to push the weapon bay as forward as possible and placed the wing as far back as possible in order to be able to trim the fuselage where the wing grew to reduce wave drag, which wouldn't have been possible with the weapon bay in the way.

So as you can see, the J-20 is designed for serious speeds. Once you venture outside of subsonic flows, the subject of aerodynamics becomes a bit counter intuitive. This doesn't mean the J-36 won't be able to go faster, it will have more thrust after all. It just means the J-36 will be consuming far more fuel at speeds the J-20 is designed for. It is however likely the J-36 will be far better optimized for high subsonic flow than the J-20.

I'm surprised they haven't yet mentioned the X-36. That one has probably the most similarity (out of anything else they possess) to the Shenyang ngad.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

They also have the X-47A Pegasus, which was meant to be a UCAV, a really cool VLO concept that I hoped would be scaled up and made into a bomber instead of the B-21, but the US always makes weird choices, just like when they went for the F-22 instead of the F-23 and the F-35 instead of the F-32. I guess they know more than I do, but this is easily one of my favourite plane concepts.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[lcloo]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I've written up some secondary and tertiary effect now. Just as a main course, here are 3000 km radius circles drawn around Kashgar, Harbin, Shanghai and Sanya. That's how far 3000 km range gets you.

View attachment 142665

Excellent writes. By the way, what does CRUDES stand for?

 

[Blitzo]

So I did this today and now I'm starting to think the J-36 MTOW may be much higher than 50tons. Has this possibility been discussed here?


View attachment 142662

J-20S is not 23meters long -- it they based it off that number to get 24m for J-36, then that length is of course an overestimate for J-36.

As for the MTOW of J-36, we do not have any definitive estimates yet, so it's not so much whether the possibility has been discussed but rather that in theory nothing has been excluded yet.

 

[EmoBirb]

It is wrong to claim the J-36 as another Mig-25. The Soviets did not regard the Mig-25 as a fighter that truly changed the times, and the F-15 did not strive to become a great generation of fighters because of the Mig-25, but the result of the long-term leadership of the US aviation industry since World War II. The so-called "not a pound for air to ground" is also a complete myth.

But this time is different. J-36 can achieve every key technical indicator proposed by the NGAD Heavy Version, and we also have shenad. If Americans like to use “historical events” to predict, who can guarantee that the United States will not be like the Soviet Union, which developed the Su-27 under the impact of the F-15, and then encountered the F-22 when it was close to entering service, constantly catching up but constantly falling behind?

America’s past successes, whether it was the “Arsenal of Democracy” or the F-15, or the moon landing, were not achieved suddenly in the short term by underestimating the opponent or the impact of a certain “emergency”, but were the result of long-term planning. Unfortunately, NGAD’s long-term planning has become a long-term burden and confusion. Instead, AVIC’s plan from more than ten years ago has come true, AVIC must complete its own NGAD project’s stage goals by the estimated 2025, no matter how slow the US NGAD’s progress is, they have to keep going

This whole "MiG-25 super fighter hurr durr" fairy tail is incredibly obnoxious anyway. It's always funny to see the sheer denial of people when you tell them that the F-15 was more so influenced by the performance of the USAF in Vietnam than by a Soviet high speed interceptor. Not to mention that the USSR never claimed it would be some grand air superiority fighter and that people who buy into this story essentially imply that the US wasn't aware of common knowledge in the Soviet MIC (that the MiG-25 was a very specialized interceptor aircraft), at a time where espionage was common.

Along with "aircraft with canards cannot be considered stealth" and "wood screws" one the worst and often repeated pieces of misinformation.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

Excellent writes. By the way, what does CRUDES stand for?

Cruiser/Destroyer

 

[iBBz]

J-20S is not 23meters long -- it they based it off that number to get 24m for J-36, then that length is of course an overestimate for J-36.

As for the MTOW of J-36, we do not have any definitive estimates yet, so it's not so much whether the possibility has been discussed but rather that in theory nothing has been excluded yet.

I used 21.2m length and 13.01m width


21.2-------23.2872
x----------24.37923

x=(21.1)(24.37923)/(23.2872)=22.2meters=length



13.01--------11.33886
x-----------19.53196

x=(13.01)(19.53196)/11.33886=22.4106m=width

 

[Blitzo]

I used 21.1m lenth and 13.01m width


21.1-------23.2872
x----------24.37923

x=(21.1)(24.37923)/(23.2872)=22.2meters=length



13.01--------11.33886
x-----------19.53196

x=(13.01)(19.53196)/11.33886=22.4106m=width

I don't understand -- of the first two images, you're saying you didn't depict the lengths on the first image, but you merely preserved the ratios? If that's the case, then it is reasonable.

I see you did an edit afterwards saying the measurements on the first photo needed to be recalibrated, the original post I saw didn't have that. Though there have also been plentiful other pictures to enable measurements, but that's fine.

 

[A.Man]

Assume J-36