Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36)

vincent said:

Wake me up when AN/APG-85 goes into production.

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Issue isn’t with AN/APG-85 but integration with F-35 (mounting/power supply). In this respect having a good pool of electrical engineers helps a lot. I’ve read that one reason why J-36 is proceeding faster than J-20 did (other than Chinese aviation industry being more robust) is that a lot of the subsystems for avionics/radar/EODAS etc were ready for integration before the prototypes were assembled. When 2001/2002 first flew they didn’t have or used counter weights for most combat critical systems.

GypsophilaDream said:

Some new surprise coming in
According to @Monkey King on Weibo:
"(Traiangle) History will finally remember this day(triangle)"
And from @Crosshair:
"OMG Even 3 months earlier than my "carving the boat to find the sword"(prediction)"
And the closest prediction he made was October 2026 J-36 Production Model will make its first flight

3 months earlier is exactly right now
Still waiting for further picture or video

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(PS:Just saw what siege posted and we might not have to wait for further images)
View attachment 178670View attachment 178671

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Any evidence of a prototype being flown in 2021?

siegecrossbow said:

Basically all the convos/photos about new J-36 prototype have been deleted. Make of that what you will.

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Only surviving post from the sixth gen Weibo purge…

“Welcome new comrade”.



052D is pretty credible guy but he shitposts/doesn’t post too frequently.

siegecrossbow said:

Issue isn’t with AN/APG-85 but integration with F-35 (mounting/power supply).

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Right now issue is with APG-85 itself. When it'll be solved, others will come up, but that's in the future.
But I'd indeed suggest caution with cavalier attitudes. Can't say for military radars specifically, but in closely related non-military fields Chinese tech stack is still doing catch up through different parts of the supply chain.
Raytheon, NG etc are still broadly international radar tech benckmark.

siegecrossbow said:

Base J-20 are very hard to upgrade. In one of the podcasts Yankee claimed that PLAAF top brass expressed dissatisfaction that some of the components between J-20 AL-31 and J-20 WS-10 are not interchangeable. I think that a full upgrade to J-20A level is gonna be difficult.

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Well, it's kind of expected for them to be "Tranche 1"... Few fighter jets emerge immediately in their most glorious.
F-35 itself took years to a useful combat build (was it like 2019 when it actually got its jamming capability?).

Gloire_bb said:

but in closely related non-military fields Chinese tech stack is still doing catch up through different parts of the supply chain.

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please elaborate, which specific civilian field China is still behind in radars ?

China is the global leader in 3rd/4th generation semiconductor materials like GaN/GaO specially 4th gen Gallium Oxide rapidly commercializing.. Hangzhou Garen Semiconductor launched the world's first mass-production line compatible with both 6-inch and 8-inch homoepitaxial gallium oxide wafers.

USA is currently lagging behind China in both the upstream supply chains and high-volume downstream manufacturing of Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Gallium Oxide (Ga₂O₃).

Gallium Nitride and Gallium Oxide are not just essential for defense but they are the backbone of modern civilian radar infrastructure as well.

sunnymaxi said:

please elaborate, which specific civilian field China is still behind in radars ?

China is the global leader in 3rd/4th generation semiconductor materials like GaN/GaO specially 4th gen Gallium Oxide rapidly commercializing.. Hangzhou Garen Semiconductor launched the world's first mass-production line compatible with both 6-inch and 8-inch homoepitaxial gallium oxide wafers.

Gallium Nitride and Gallium Oxide are not just essential for defense but they are the backbone of modern civilian radar infrastructure as well.

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We don't really know how good the backend is and it is arguably far more important than just having a fancy antenna.

sunnymaxi said:

please elaborate, which specific civilian field China is still behind in radars ?

China is the global leader in 3rd/4th generation semiconductor materials like GaN/GaO specially 4th gen Gallium Oxide rapidly commercializing.. Hangzhou Garen Semiconductor launched the world's first mass-production line compatible with both 6-inch and 8-inch homoepitaxial gallium oxide wafers.

USA is currently lagging behind China in both the upstream supply chains and high-volume downstream manufacturing of Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Gallium Oxide (Ga₂O₃).

Gallium Nitride and Gallium Oxide are not just essential for defense but they are the backbone of modern civilian radar infrastructure as well.

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Algorithm and digital signal processing matter more than the antenna.

siegecrossbow said:

Algorithm and digital signal processing matter more than the antenna.

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yeah. AESA radars heavily utilize FPGA/RF chips. They are critical to the radar's performance and USA is too good in Analog chips. i was actually talking about downstream material supply chain which China heavily dominates.

Until fairly recently, China's ADCs, FPGAs, analog chips, etc. were nothing to write home about. But that's changed, most notably with the release of a domestic 90 GHz oscilloscope. Not only does such a device needs cutting edge chips of this kind as components, it itself is crucial to the development of a lot of systems relevant to a radar backend.

"China can't into backends" is the new "China can't make engines."

Gloire_bb said:

Can't say for military radars specifically, but in closely related non-military fields Chinese tech stack is still doing catch up through different parts of the supply chain.
Raytheon, NG etc are still broadly international radar tech benckmark.

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Lol hell no. I'm sorry but no, as someone with actual working experience with Chinese engineers, suppliers, companies, etc in RF engineering, they very much lead the world now in civilian RF tech by a long, long shot. Raytheon and Northrop don't come close, they don't even retain the top talent for electrical engineering anymore, especially not Raytheon, who's like the bottom of the barrel when it comes to RF and electrical engineering talent pipeline. The best talent actually goes on to work at places like Apple. No offense but this is a very ignorant comment.