Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36)
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
J-50 definitely looks better based on conventional aesthetics.
To get back a bit to that CGI, looks like the page is no longer up. The changes we see apart from intakes, landing gear, TVC, like the beak nose, reshaped cockpit etc. are those mere artistic licences or actually those are changes indeed present on J-36 no. 2? I imagine quite a lot more images would circulate between chinese aviation enthusiasts in private. One thing i saw in the replies is someone apparently saying there might be no DSI bumps, further reinforcing the theory of intakes akin technologically to those of J-50.
Really? And any hints what are they testing?
IMO it makes no sense to built to such similar but still dramatically different aircraft to test different things?!
Not sure about that leading edge. Second prototype images also seem to feature a kink in the nose edge, like the first prototype.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Obvious ones would be that they are for testing different parts of the flight envelope. No1 might by able to give better data on how the top mounted intake performs, especially at the extreme edge of the flight envelope (high supersonic speeds, high AoA etc) which might not be possible with triple DSI if the DSI itself is the limiting factor that needs pushing to the limit.
Similarly, No1 could be testing rear aspects stealth while No2 tests out the agility benefits of unrestricted TVC.
Engineering is all about balancing pros and cons of different design choices. Being able to do real world testing of those different pros and cons as well as how they impact the overall design is a fantastic way to do things. It’s just rarely done because of the multiplication of costs and increased development time that will result from doing parallel testing like this.
Looks like these really are no-expense spared projects for the PLAAF.
1700:
At 2145 Yankee suggested that the second airframe's SN is 36022:
Yankee also expressed great optimism for the speed of development (at 2745)
They also discussed wind tunnels and various testing activities. The word 验证 came up often specifically in context of J-36, including in 验证机. While 验证 can mean either “to verify” or “to demonstrate,” in this context it seems closer to the former, even though in English, 验证机 refers more so to an experimental research or concept demonstration aircraft.
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