They are from a video, which might be the one above. Just not sure how legit it is.
Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36)
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Different video. And I am pretty sure what you sent are AI genereated, the original picture has different background, road lamp beside the number plate, and a hangar to block the rest part of the runway.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
The chain is sharper, and the sensors are a bit different
Assuming the new images isn’t AI ‘enhanced’ to hell, than the change of the imaging sensor housings would be quiet significant and interesting, as now they appear to be placed below the edge tip of the fuselage instead of being part of it before.
The most oblivious implication is now these sensors can only look down, whereas before they could also look up, which would be a significant capability reduction no matter how you look at it.
There could be any number of reasons for the change, from tactical (the J36 is expected to fly so high that there isn’t really much to see above it) to engineering (the sensor housings compromise stealth to an unacceptable degree) to materials science (housing couldn’t stand up to the heat of being where it was). Or it could be a combination.
But this early in the prototype stage, I think design changes are most likely as a result of findings from test flights rather than from requirement changes from the PLA. If anything, I would expect PLA requirement changes to move things the other way where additional capabilities are added rather than have planned capabilities watered down.
Might be too early to tell. It looks like the previous housing wrapped around the edge. They could have now split it and have a corresponding housing on top, with the fuselage "chine" between the two. I think a top down picture is going to be needed to see what was done.
Or they could have simply placed another sensor housing at the top of the fuselage like there is on the J-20 in front of the canopy.
One of the new ones, it has the changed landing gear, and the engine cutouts.
Here is another angle showing landing gear difference.
