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

[mack8]

Who is the guy doing the presentation? Many peoples were/are poo-pooing claims such as Mach 3 and 30,000 m ceiling etc. Is he someone well known/reliable?

 

[ougoah]

Personally i'm skeptical about hgv aams. A ramjet-rocket staged aam should be able to reach 1000km range without all the fuss.

They've just been playing with it. If they can score kinetic kills using an HGV which implies tens of thousands of km range, against high speed manoeuvering targets, then China's missile tech is decades ahead of the next best already. It's hard to believe such a weapon is even feasible atm let alone reliable and affordable enough to warrant mass production.

I also would expect a HGV AAM to have much more range than 1000km. I just used that figure arbitrarily to indicate a different tier of AAM range.

1000km can be reached by PL-17's successor. Even PL-17 isn't that far off 1000km when PL-15 has a third of that range.

I'm just dreaming about a near space, near hypersonic "fighter". Would certainly be a great compliment. I wouldn't classify it as a separate generation since it won't overlap much with the J-36 and J-50. Perhaps something to consider experimenting if they haven't already. Anyway this is getting way off topic. Apologies.

 

[siegecrossbow]

On a side note then, the idea of a super fast, near hypersonic, air to air "fighter" has merit. It would basically form a perfect trifecta of air supremacy on the shooting side.

You have the J-36 central piece - EW, AWACS, C4IRS, Signals, magazine depth, all aspect stealth, keeps up with 4.5 and 5th gen fighters in speed. Still flies high, fast and far. NOT a dogfighter.

J-50 - bit more of a traditional "fighter", improving on the 5th gen with greater all aspect stealth and generally upgrading software, systems, computing and integration... and engines. Newer and more modern everything, designed from the ground up to accept the tech of the 2020s instead of the 1990s in Raptor's case and 2000s in F-35, J-20's case. Can dogfight and do the near pointless hollywood bit turning around mountain ranges to strike some $5K truck but why be an idiot?

Then a near space, > mach 3 platform for dropping those hypersonic glide, > 1,000km air to air missiles being tested at the moment. Would never even get close to WVR.

Tied all together with CCAs and various UAVs.

The J-36 doesn't look like the air launching platform for the thousand km HGV AAMs. It won't be some subsonic giant H-6 or H-20 doing this either.

Edit to add that the thousand km ranged AAMs are just concept expansion of existing HGV tech. By no means are they proven to be feasible AAMs. Even without this long ranged weapon, a circa mach 4, near space aircraft firing PL-17 replacements does the job for next generation's hard kill, aerial A2AD. This generation's equivalent is represented by the J-16 J-20 combo with PL-16 and PL-17. It needs to be supported by striking regional military bases and the naval A2AD is a critical part of the kill chain. Next generation's should be more independent and serve as a redundancy. Soft kill side is probably more effective and secretive I would imagine. We almost never hear about PLA's cyber and EW programs.

That would be Gen 7.

 

[Deino]

Tom Coopers (ACIG) attempt to draw the J-36: ... actually something looks strange on the front and he still calls it "New Chinese (Stealth) Strike Fighter"

 

[styx]

Seeing the actions of the Israeli Air Force against Iran, I thought that the role of the J-36 could be exactly that: attacking a nation's aerial defense system at all levels and also serving as an intelligence platform and a controller for expendable assets like drones. This fits within Sweetman's definition of an "airborne cruiser."

 

[simonov]

Huitong photos of side by side cockpit, means the first China fighter that position side by side. PLAAF want fighter bomber like F-1111/Su-24 which pilot and copilit sit side by side configurations

 

[4Tran]

Huitong photos of side by side cockpit, means the first China fighter that position side by side. PLAAF want fighter bomber like F-1111/Su-24 which pilot and copilit sit side by side configurations

It's more that the better 6th gen fighters are going to have so much workload that they're going to require a second pilot and AI support. For this purpose a side-by-side configuration is ideal so it will be used whenever possible. If the J-50 has a fuselage to support this setup, I'd suspect that it'll have it as well. Both planes will still be multirole fighters with a strong emphasis on air superiority though. The PLAAF may still have a new fighter bomber but it's unlikely to look like either of these two planes.

 

[gelgoog]

Nah. This is clearly a kind of modern equivalent of the F-111. A long range multi-role fighter bomber.

The huge weapon bays are another clear indicator.

 

[vincent]

Huitong photos of side by side cockpit, means the first China fighter that position side by side. PLAAF want fighter bomber like F-1111/Su-24 which pilot and copilit sit side by side configurations

The pic has been posted long time ago.

 

[4Tran]

Nah. This is clearly a kind of modern equivalent of the F-111. A long range multi-role fighter bomber.

The huge weapon bays are another clear indicator.

The huge weapon bay is a clear indicator that its primary weapon is the PL-17.