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

mond

New Member
Registered Member
I think the positioning of your exhausts in your image are at approximately the right height, but are too central for the photo angle we have. Instead, by virtue of the length of the aircraft, they are more "offset" to the left side of the photo, like this:

Overall, I think the nose of photo is taken some 15-20 degrees offset from the aircraft's frontal perspective, and if we consider the length from the dorsal intake lip to the exhaust itself, the geometry starts to make sense.

View attachment 153808

I think we should remember that the intake manifold tapers in a straight line to central exhaust (see below). There is no upward hump on the dorsal intake like with the X-47B and Taranis. Going by your illustration of where the exhaust are (which are accurate enough for this), I've drawn the line in question in green (note the foreshortening).

006UU68Rgy1i0qou0e0yvj317i0l0afn copy.jpg
1749317747865.png

If we instead choose the larger silhouette that you've illustrated here, we would get something completely nonsensical, where the silhouette of the central intake intersects the height of the exhausts around where the left exhaust is. Also notice the prominent groove in between the side and central nacelle, which should be distinctly visible at this angle.

Screenshot 2025-06-07 at 11.18.31 AM.png

I'd like to mention though that your left exhaust is almost certainly not positioned correctly, because it is jutting out the left, and we also know that the exhaust should form the bulk of the silhouette, since it is aft of everything else. The way I inferred them in my illustrate was to assume that the exhausts were forming the shoulders on the left and right.
 
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Blitzo

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
I think we should remember that the intake manifold tapers in a straight line to central exhaust (see below). There is no upward hump on the dorsal intake like with the X-47B and Taranis. Going by your illustration of where the exhaust are (which are accurate enough for this), I've drawn the line in question in green (note the foreshortening).

View attachment 153815
View attachment 153817

Actually there behind the intake itself there is a hump before it depresses downwards, highlighted in yellow

1749342068105.png

Viewed from our angle, but on the opposite side of the aircraft, it is highlighted and seen as below

1749342170171.png




If we instead choose the larger silhouette that you've illustrated here, we would get something completely nonsensical, where the silhouette of the central intake intersects the height of the exhausts around where the left exhaust is. Also notice the prominent groove in between the side and central nacelle, which should be distinctly visible at this angle.

I don't think that's the case, because a depression of the dorsal intake/fuselage when looked at from this frontal offset angle would not directly visually "travel" to the exhaust like that. Instead it would be mostly wholly obscured from this angle. I.e. it "should" look more like a hump from this angle rather than a direct, highly angled drop.


View attachment 153819

I'd like to mention though that your left exhaust is almost certainly not positioned correctly, because it is jutting out the left, and we also know that the exhaust should form the bulk of the silhouette, since it is aft of everything else. The way I inferred them in my illustrate was to assume that the exhausts were forming the shoulders on the left and right.

The left exhaust is not actually "jutting out" -- that's because we cannot actually see the rear of the aircraft from this angle.
The entire rear of the aircraft, either due to photo resolution issues or AI post processing, is basically fully gone.

However, I positioned the left and right exhausts where they would be at the rear, in the position that is at the same immediate rearward position to each respective air intake from a fuselage perspective.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
Why do we still have this argument after May 7th…
So long as people think military watching is about historical knowledge and not functional knowledge we will continue to have these arguments. Most people use “what others did before” as a substitute for understanding “how do these things work” because the latter is too intellectually inaccessible. Associative rather than fundamental comprehension.
 
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