when did I talk about being more advanced? I was just talking about the speedOld retired J-8 could do Mach 2.2 .... with your logic J-8 is more advanced than J-20 ?
Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36) thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
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I think it's more the combination of tailless all aspect stealth, next gen sensors and supercruise / energy availability that makes it 6th gen (assuming all 3 engine are of same type, otherwise it's a different story).Old retired J-8 could do Mach 2.2 .... with your logic J-8 is more advanced than J-20 ?
B-2 is subsonic bomber with maximum Mach 0.95 while B-1 is Mach 1.2 .. so with your logic B1 is more advanced ?
F-22 maximum speed is Mach 1.2 and F-4 is Mach 2.2 .. surely with your logic that F-4 is much more advanced
Supersonic tailless flying wing (or call it BWB if you want) has never been achieved before and isn't easy at all, this alone is a big deal.
Sensors with implicit BVR engagement capability against 5th gen stealth is another big one but hard to visually gauge.
If there are DEW self defence that would be huge, or simply power available to drive next gen sensors.
Speed doesn't make it next gen on it's own but its multiplicative with other attributes, once you put everything together you're looking at the ability to suppress enemy engagement envelope well below your own, and that's how you achieve dominance.
altitude also. High altitude, high speed will make it exceedingly difficult for ordinary 5th gen aircraft to fight with it. You can't see me, and even if you could see me, you cannot shoot me down.
So? Not sure why the obsession about 'top speed'? Do you get a medal like in the Olympics? With a plane or a racing car, you can always achieve extra speed or agility by stripping down to bare metal (or using your AB like they are J58s) but what purpose does that serve in real life unless you are going for a record or you are flying acrobatic. 'Top' speed is not really a meaningful measure about any aspect of a plane. In real life, your pocket book (and the DSI) constrains how fast you fly most the time. During the Cold War, there are merits for short high-speed dashes in the European theater but the Pacific today is a totally different story. Talking about 'top speed' is like talking about the wow and flutter of your granddad's Kenwood turntable.
Where is this assertion that high altitude and high speed confer advantage vs 5th gen coming from? If anything, this assertion is directly contradicted by another post talking about the concepts behind the Shenyang 6th gen here. With the relevant portion quoted below:
Energy maneuverability theory. It is the fundamental doctrine of air combat.
I would be extremely worried if Shenyang hasn't solved ground decluttering, which was solved in 1970 with the introduction of pulse Doppler radar and should have never been an issue ever again.
Altitude provides line of sight, more potential energy for maneuvers, more 3D region of uncertainty for a LO target, etc. Otherwise if altitude and speed doesn't mean shit then SAMs with 0 altitude and 0 speed should be the greatest aircraft of all.
I don't agree with his assertion.
I actually fully read the post(s) and I disagree with him wrt high altitude/speed and his general comments about maneuverability claims.
Don't take me wrong, it's cool to see that China now has so much funding and industrial expertise where they can afford to fully explore different theoretical directions but I am more aligned with CAC's theory
Just my opinion of course, I could be wrong, but given that the talk and rumours about 7th gen is about extremely high-altitude to sub-orbital altitude I don't think I will be proven wrong. As a matter of fact, we see that with each new generation of "air superiority fighters" there is trend towards either flying higher or/and having higher sustained speeds than the previous generation
Stealth fighter aircraft have a hard cutoff at 2.0 Mach because heat above that speed can do a number on your RAM coating. The Raptor also keeps speed below Mach 2 for operational deployment for this reason.
Probably the plane would also light up like a Christmas tree on infra-red sensors too.