F-22 versus J-20 milestone comparison (production, test, operations)

The Observer said:

To be honest, I failed to see how F-22 experience could be used to guide our predictions for J-20 going forwards. These are 2 different programs from 2 different nations, done at different times with different priorities, and with different industrial bases.

How are we going to infer anything transferrable between the 2 programs? At most, we have the old F-22 production plan before the whole thing got cut, and then we'll have to pray China has a similar pathway in mind. Otherwise the whole point of this thread is moot.

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Well the bolded part is close to what I think the use of it will be.

Except, I am saying that I think the final production rate and trajectory of the F-22 that they ultimately ended up going with (i.e. for 195 total airframes) can serve as a useful floor for us to try to project J-20 numbers into the medium term future, which is useful for projections of capability in the near term future, as a minimum bound estimate.

Additionally, we had the statement from Shi Lao stating that by 2027 it would be basically guaranteed that J-20 numbers would have reached F-22 numbers, so between 2027 to now, we can also make some preliminary estimates for what J-20s production rate could be between now and then to meet that number, and how realistic those numbers may be in context of the intended production rates and the ultimate real world production rate that F-22 ended up going with.

In other words I think this comparison lets us try to predict with more confidence that "by 202x year, it is very likely that J-20 numbers would have at least reached XYZ airframes".

Bltizo said:

Except, I am saying that I think the final production rate and trajectory of the F-22 that they ultimately ended up going with (i.e. for 195 total airframes) can serve as a useful floor for us to try to project J-20 numbers into the medium term future, which is useful for projections of capability in the near term future, as a minimum bound estimate.

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But does it?

The original intention of the ATF was to replace the whole air superiority(F-15C/D) fleet with a next-gen solution. Simple and straitforward.
The final intention of the F-22 program was to save at least some of a new generation air dominance force(silver bullet), as well as keep the production lines warm enough till the F-35.

We know neither the original nor current intention of the J-20 program, but J-20 is most definitely not seen as a single entity air superiority fighter of the future: the intended mixture for the 2020s is J-20+J-16(and other flankers)+J-10, and all 3 airframes are currently in active production (i.e. will be with us for at least ~20 years to come).
We don't know the planned force levels through the 2020s and 2030s either.

Different air forces, different plans.

Gloire_bb said:

But does it?

The original intention of the ATF was to replace the whole air superiority(F-15C/D) fleet with a next-gen solution. Simple and straitforward.
The final intention of the F-22 program was to save at least some of a new generation air dominance force(silver bullet), as well as keep the production lines warm enough till the F-35.

We know neither the original nor current intention of the J-20 program, but J-20 is most definitely not seen as a single entity air superiority fighter of the future: the intended mixture for the 2020s is J-20+J-16(and other flankers)+J-10, and all 3 airframes are currently in active production (i.e. will be with us for at least ~20 years to come).
We don't know the planned force levels through the 2020s and 2030s either.

Different air forces, different plans.

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The force structure of the PLAAF is of course different to that of the USAF in the early 2000s when F-22 production began and when it began to be received by the USAF.

However, the specific question you are asking in relation to what I wrote, is --- do we think that the force structure of the PLAAF is different enough such that their requirements for J-20 procurement over the next decade and a half, is lower than what USAF F-22s procurement was (in terms of peak annual production rate, production duration)?

The only way in which the F-22 procurement experience would *not* be useful as a minimum/floor for projecting for J-20, is if the answer to the above question is "yes".

Do you think the answer is yes?

Bltizo said:

do we think that the force structure of the PLAAF is different enough such that their requirements for J-20 procurement over the next decade and a half, is lower than what USAF F-22s procurement was (in terms of peak annual production rate, production duration)?

The only way in which the F-22 procurement experience would *not* be useful as a minimum/floor for projecting for J-20, is if the answer to the above question is "yes".

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There's an ancient saying that if you want to solve a problem you should first sleep on it. We now know the reason - during sleep the brain cleanses itself and re-sets and allows you to build a completely different perspective. Which is why endless exchanges on the internet are such a bad thing - you are getting stuck in the same frame of mind. I just slept wonderfully and to my surprise this above comment not only made perfect sense on first reading but started a train of thought that I wouldn't consider yesterday.

I will now attempt to re-phrase what @Bltizo is saying in my own words and he can comment on that and we'll all see if we are coming to some common understanding.

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Imagine that the leadership of the CPC decided that what PLAAF needs is a 6th generation aircraft and they want to cancel the J-20 to start the development and production of the next generation fighter (NGF) as soon as possible.

Can they simply send orders to stop the production and close down the factory?

• If the production of J-20 stops now then for every year that a NGF is not produced PLAAF has to make do with J-11s and J-16s which are inferior to the J-20. What if some kind of crisis emerges in the upcoming decade? What if J-20s are lost due to combat or sabotage or insufficient maintenance - how will the losses be replaced?
• If the production of J-20 stops now then the people who are working on the production line will not be retaining their skills for when the production of the NGF will have to begin. Will they be moved to different posts in the meantime? What will they do?
• If the production of J-20 stops now then an entire chain of suppliers will disappear as without ongoing orders there is no reason to maintain production capacity for parts.
• If the production of J-20 stops now then how will the manufacturer develop technology of production and know-how that will be crucial for NGF?

A compromise will have to be made in which the J-20 will be produced at some minimum level to resolve the problems mentioned above while resources are shifted to NGF.

There is no stopping of J-20 dead in its tracks any more than there was starting of mass-production in 2013.

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This is where the F-22's story begins to suddenly look very similar. Except that we are not looking at how F-22 was being produced but how it wasn't being produced. F-22 production being a death spiral becomes an example of what is the minimum production that must happen for the above-mentioned reasons before whatever economic and political forces stop resisting and allow for cancellation.

If we want to establish through comparative analysis what is the absolute minimum number of J-20 produced we have to look for aircraft which were cancelled rather than those which had a proper, if reduced, production run.

I suggested something completely different because I was thinking about plausible production numbers or the maximum production numbers. The "ceiling" and the "median" and not the "floor". But that's because I simply do not think J-20 will be cancelled for many reasons which I explained. We can all safely assume that China will want to produce as many J-20s as it is practical. Thinking about the lower bound of production is therefore counter-intuitive but not illogical.

If we assume that NGF comes into service no sooner than at the end of this decade and we assume that the speculated rate of production of 1 airframe per month is retained then by 2030 what we're going to have is 10 years of production at 12 airframes per annum and approximately 50-60 airframes produced earlier. That's essentially the equivalent of 186 airframes produced for the F-22.

I think this number is just a coincidence and I uphold my claim that F-22 is not a constructive example for understanding the constraints of J-20 production but I will agree that F-22 can teach us that there's always a cost to be paid once the economic machine is set in motion. So it is not a lesson on quantities as on general principles.

The B-2 which I used as comparison is an example. 132 bombers were planned. They were cut down to 75 during the review and that increased the price to the point where it became a major political issue to the point where George H.W. Bush made cancelling the B-2 one of the points of his 1992 campaign!!! In the end 20 bombers had to be made at the ridiculous cost of half a billion per airframe.

Both B-2 and F-22 show us that you can't simply bring down an aircraft once it takes flight. You have to convince it to return to your hand - and you do it by minimum production quota. If that's what @Bltizo tries to say then he has a point here and a rather interesting one at that if not very practical.

Whether 186 is the number for J-20 is not for me to argue. Let's just remember that of the 186 produced airframes only 148 are "combat coded". The others are deprived of essential elements as a cost-saving measure but the airframes were necessary for the entire logistical chain of sustaining combat aircraft in USAF.

Here's what it looks like for F-22A:

• Primary mission aircraft inventory (PMAI): 123
• Primary training aircraft inventory (PTAI): 28
• Primary development aircraft inventory (PDAI): 16
• Backup aircraft inventory (BAI): 19
• Attrition Reserve: 0

That being said I wanted to move on and see if there is a way to establish the plausible and upper bounds of production through comparison of ratios of heavy and light/multirole fighters in service in American and Soviet air forces in 1991.

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Fighters in USAF in 1991 - total production numbers, I will look up Gulf War Air Power survey for Pentagon data in coming days:

365 F-15A + 59 F-15B built 1972-1979 - average 53 airframes per year
409 F-15C + 61 F-15D built 1979-1985 - avg. 67 airframes per year
additionally 125 F-15E built 1985-1990 - avg. 21 airframes per year
1759 F-16 in 1991 per GAO report on Desert Storm (seems unlikely)

If we combine the data we will have 894 F-15A/B/C/D to 1759 F-16s - a 1:2 ratio. Interestingly the data I have indicates only about 300 F-15Cs and only 1080 F-16s in active USAF service which would skew the proportion of heavy to light fighters to 1:3 ratio.

Fighters in Soviet Air Force (1st value) and Soviet Air Defense Force (2nd value) in 1991:

90 + 210 Su-27 built 1982-1991, fully introduced in 1985 - avg. 30 airframes per year
540 + 0 MiG-29 built 1981-1991
595 + 850 MiG-23
0 + 360 MiG-31 built 1975-1991 - avg. 21 airframes per year
0 + 350 MiG-25
0 + 500 Su-15

The ratio of heavy to light fighters is 1:2,4

Approximate current composition of active PLAAF fighter fleet per 2020 scramble.nl :

~50 J-20
~100 J-11A + ~130 J-11B + 24 Su-35 - ~250 Flankers
~340 J-10A/B/C
~ 240 J-7/J-8

300: 580 is a proportion of 1:2

Questions:

• Is it plausible to assume that PLAAF will find ratios of between 1:2 and 1:3 to be economically viable and possibly settle on 1:2,5 or will geographical considerations skew it closer to 1:1,5-2 just as RuAF is composed almost exclusively of large fighters?
• Should J-16 be counted among fighters - this will bring the proportion to almost 1:1, but is it representative of how J-16 is used tactically?
• Is it plausible to assume that large "loyal wingman" UCAVs will replace light fighters in this calculus?

You guys try those. I'm not that smart.

There's also the issue of technological progress isnt it? Probably easier to design stealth with modern computing than in the 90s

MarKoz81 said:

I will now attempt to re-phrase what @Bltizo is saying in my own words and he can comment on that and we'll all see if we are coming to some common understanding.

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Imagine that the leadership of the CPC decided that what PLAAF needs is a 6th generation aircraft and they want to cancel the J-20 to start the development and production of the next generation fighter (NGF) as soon as possible.


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This is where the F-22's story begins to suddenly look very similar. Except that we are not looking at how F-22 was being produced but how it wasn't being produced. F-22 production being a death spiral becomes an example of what is the minimum production that must happen for the above-mentioned reasons before whatever economic and political forces stop resisting and allow for cancellation.

If we want to establish through comparative analysis what is the absolute minimum number of J-20 produced we have to look for aircraft which were cancelled rather than those which had a proper, if reduced, production run.

I suggested something completely different because I was thinking about plausible production numbers or the maximum production numbers. The "ceiling" and the "median" and not the "floor". But that's because I simply do not think J-20 will be cancelled for many reasons which I explained. We can all safely assume that China will want to produce as many J-20s as it is practical. Thinking about the lower bound of production is therefore counter-intuitive but not illogical.

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I appreciate the reply.

So, I'll establish a few of the premises I am operating upon, and my belief for how useful this "comparison" of F-22 and J-20 production rates is.

1. I believe that J-20's overall eventual production run will be greater than what F-22's overall production run ended up being. This is in context of a variety of force structure factors, future force development factors, and operating on an assumption of relative geopolitical and economic stability in terms of the ability to fund and procure and develop the requisite moving systems.
2. I believe it is of interest to try and find a "minimum floor" of how many J-20s may exist into the medium term future, i.e.: say up to 2030, and various years between now and then (2025, 2027, 2030 for example).
3. F-22 and J-20 are of sufficient similar role and capability, sufficiently similar in general intuitive public understanding, that a superficial comparison of their production rates and trajectory is useful. (Or at least, much more useful than say, comparing J-20 with F-35 or Su-57, or Su-27 or F-15 production for instance).

Therefore, to me, I believe the F-22 and J-20 comparison is useful exactly because it gives us something close to a "guaranteed" minimum number of J-20s that may exist, by 2025, 2027, 2030. I put the word "guaranteed" in quotation marks because what I really mean is "very likely to be achievable".
That is to say -- the purpose of this comparison is only to try and establish a "floor".

This comparison was not intended to be used as a way of establishing what a plausible median or maximum production number could be, because that is a far more complex task.

Instead, I was wanting to use a method for us to establish a ballpark production run and production rate that we can confidently say that "by year 202X, the number of J-20s that would have flown, is very likely to be greater than or equal to this ABC number".

There are of course, other methods we can use to try and establish a "guaranteed" minimum number for the rest of this decade, but I think the comparison between F-22 and J-20 is the most intuitive comparison that:
1. Many people can understand and refer to (given everyone knows what the F-22 is, and given most people know how many F-22s were built)
2. The relatively small number of F-22s produced and the exceptional factors that resulted in its small production run (which do not apply to J-20), means that whatever "minimum number" we reach based on references to F-22, is both a relatively conservative minimum number but also therefore a minimum number that provides a relatively high confidence number in relation to J-20.

MarKoz81 said:

If we assume that NGF comes into service no sooner than at the end of this decade and we assume that the speculated rate of production of 1 airframe per month is retained then by 2030 what we're going to have is 10 years of production at 12 airframes per annum and approximately 50-60 airframes produced earlier. That's essentially the equivalent of 186 airframes produced for the F-22.

I think this number is just a coincidence and I uphold my claim that F-22 is not a constructive example for understanding the constraints of J-20 production but I will agree that F-22 can teach us that there's always a cost to be paid once the economic machine is set in motion. So it is not a lesson on quantities as on general principles.

The B-2 which I used as comparison is an example. 132 bombers were planned. They were cut down to 75 during the review and that increased the price to the point where it became a major political issue to the point where George H.W. Bush made cancelling the B-2 one of the points of his 1992 campaign!!! In the end 20 bombers had to be made at the ridiculous cost of half a billion per airframe.

Both B-2 and F-22 show us that you can't simply bring down an aircraft once it takes flight. You have to convince it to return to your hand - and you do it by minimum production quota. If that's what @Bltizo tries to say then he has a point here and a rather interesting one at that if not very practical.

Click to expand...

That isn't exactly what I'm trying to say -- let me be clear, I fully expect J-20's production run to greatly exceed that of F-22's.

However, what I want is to have an intuitive and easy to understand way of producing a "minimum guaranteed number" of J-20s that may exist in the intervening years up to the medium term (i.e.: between now and 2030), and I think the F-22's production run and trajectory is very useful for us to reach a number with a high degree of confidence.

I want a number that we can agree and say with relative confidence that "by 202X year, the number of J-20s that exist is very likely to be equal or greater than ABC" -- and I think the F-22 production run is able to establish a minimum (and IMO quite conservative) number or model that we can work with.

MarKoz81 said:

Whether 186 is the number for J-20 is not for me to argue. Let's just remember that of the 186 produced airframes only 148 are "combat coded". The others are deprived of essential elements as a cost-saving measure but the airframes were necessary for the entire logistical chain of sustaining combat aircraft in USAF.

Here's what it looks like for F-22A:

• Primary mission aircraft inventory (PMAI): 123
• Primary training aircraft inventory (PTAI): 28
• Primary development aircraft inventory (PDAI): 16
• Backup aircraft inventory (BAI): 19
• Attrition Reserve: 0

-snip-

Approximate current composition of active PLAAF fighter fleet per 2020 scramble.nl :

~50 J-20
~100 J-11A + ~130 J-11B + 24 Su-35 - ~250 Flankers
~340 J-10A/B/C
~ 240 J-7/J-8

300: 580 is a proportion of 1:2

Questions:

• Is it plausible to assume that PLAAF will find ratios of between 1:2 and 1:3 to be economically viable and possibly settle on 1:2,5 or will geographical considerations skew it closer to 1:1,5-2 just as RuAF is composed almost exclusively of large fighters?
• Should J-16 be counted among fighters - this will bring the proportion to almost 1:1, but is it representative of how J-16 is used tactically?
• Is it plausible to assume that large "loyal wingman" UCAVs will replace light fighters in this calculus?

You guys try those. I'm not that smart.

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I have nothing against this suggested model, but it is also very much separate from the one I am describing in this thread.

One tidbit I would challenge is that I think Scramble's assessment of fighter fleet size is a bit undercounted, and also that when I count overall PLA fighter fleet size, I categorize it by "tactical fighter aircraft" which includes PLAAF and PLANAF together, and I also include JH-7/As, and I very much consider J-16 to be a multirole fighter.
However that's just me, and is also off topic from the purpose from this thread and more orbat relevant.

Given the air-to-air capabilities of the F-35, the J-20 would be expected to counter both the F-35 and F-22

So it would be more realistic to compare against the combined numbers of F-25 and F-22

AndrewS said:

Given the air-to-air capabilities of the F-35, the J-20 would be expected to counter both the F-35 and F-22

So it would be more realistic to compare against the combined numbers of F-25 and F-22

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If the expectations were that J-20 would be the only land based 5th generation fighter type that the PLA would procure, then sure.

However, I was not talking about the expectations of what the median or maximum numbers of J-20s the PLA may buy into the far off future, but rather talking about the most likely minimum numbers of J-20s that could be produced in the near to medium term future, up to around 2030.

Bltizo said:

If the expectations were that J-20 would be the only land based 5th generation fighter type that the PLA would procure, then sure.

However, I was not talking about the expectations of what the median or maximum numbers of J-20s the PLA may buy into the far off future, but rather talking about the most likely minimum numbers of J-20s that could be produced in the near to medium term future, up to around 2030.

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Up to the 2030 mark, it will primarily be the J-20 that is expected to counter the F-22 and F-35
If a naval J-35 finishes development in 2025 and starts LRIP, you would only see very limited numbers of a land-based J-35 variant by 2030

And it is the 2020-2030 timeframe which is the most fraught in terms of the power shift from the US to China

AndrewS said:

Up to the 2030 mark, it will primarily be the J-20 that is expected to counter the F-22 and F-35
If a naval J-35 finishes development in 2025 and starts LRIP, you would only see very limited numbers of a land-based J-35 variant by 2030

And it is the 2020-2030 timeframe which is the most fraught in terms of the power shift from the US to China

Click to expand...

You are coming at this from a different angle to me.

I am saying that F-22's production rate experience is useful for us to try and predict what J-20's minimum production rate may look like into the medium term future, because I believe it is of interest for us to try and gauge what the likely number of J-20s that may exist between now and 2030 is a useful end goal in and of itself.

You are saying that J-20's total numbers should be compared to the total numbers of F-22 and F-35 because those are its most likely adversaries.


However, I am not interested in the number of total F-22s and F-35s by 2030, because I'm only interested in establishing a likely floor/minimum estimate for J-20.