H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)

Blitzo

Blitzo

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Tomboy said:
I think he means instead of having a diamond, kite or cranked arrow what if we instead just make the aircraft have a larger sweep angle, similar to a B-2 sized GJ-11. It'll still retain the perfect stealth planform while still have a central body long enough to fit weapons bay without having to deal with CoM issues and aerodynamic problems of a flying diamond.
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ACuriousPLAFan said:
No. What I meant is basically stretching the B-2/B-21's length and keeping the wingspan largely the same, rather than turning it into a cranked kite configuration. Namely, resulting in the H-20 having steeper but uniform leading edge sweep angles than the B-2/B-21.



Yes, that's what I meant.
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I see.

Is that somewhat akin to the past flying wing configuration we've seen AVIC study before?
I'm just trying to visualize it.

ZiMUV2u.jpgk1fsb6.jpg


It could certainly be feasible, though how it could compare to a more pure diamond/kite, I'm less sure about.

J-36 is rather close to a pure diamond/kite after all.
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

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Blitzo said:
I see.

Is that somewhat akin to the past flying wing configuration we've seen AVIC study before?
I'm just trying to visualize it.

View attachment 158977View attachment 158978


It could certainly be feasible, though how it could compare to a more pure diamond/kite, I'm less sure about.

J-36 is rather close to a pure diamond/kite after all.
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Yes. Something like those, or a massively enlarged GJ-11. Though, as long as the length is considerably shorter than the wingspan, then the sweep angle shouldn't be too steep/as steep as the ones of the GJ-11.

Of course, I'm not chasing for anything beyond high-subsonic speeds. Only that VLO capability should be maintained as best as possible, being able to fit IWB(s) of longer length(s), and with sufficiently large combat radius to enable cross-Pacific strike missions.

I'm also not looking for a kite/diamond-shaped design with the inquiry/request as well.
 
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Nx4eu

Nx4eu

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Tomboy said:
I think he means instead of having a diamond, kite or cranked arrow what if we instead just make the aircraft have a larger sweep angle, similar to a B-2 sized GJ-11. It'll still retain the perfect stealth planform while still have a central body long enough to fit weapons bay without having to deal with CoM issues and aerodynamic problems of a flying diamond.
Click to expand...
The tradeoff then becomes, lower efficiency and high wing loading. Lower efficiency means the range drastically reduces and higher wing loading means much faster takeoff and landing speeds. At what point does the missile length does not outweigh the benefit of longer aircraft?

To put into perspective the decrease I did some calculations. A theoretical H-20 sized aircraft with a 33 degree wing sweep angle (same as B-2) with a 15,000km range would have it's range decrease by 3,600km or 24% if the sweep angle was increased to 50-60 degrees.

The Northrop LAP example shows an even further extreme, with a wing sweep angle of 68.71 degrees, it's range compared to the traditional B-2, drops from 11,100km to 7,000km, a near 36% decrease in range.

Sure the benefit is safer standoff launch distances, but eventually with decreases nearing 3,000-4,000 km. It starts to limit the strategic part of the bomber.
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

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Based on recent information and discussions on the H-20, I made several CAD illustrations on the possible geometric layouts of the H-20:

Column 1: Pure kite/diamond design, 35-meter length x 28-meter wingspan
Column 2: B-21-esque flying wing design and its variation, 35-meter length x 52.4-meter wingspan
Column 3: Cranked-kite flying wing design and its variation, 35-meter length x 52.4-meter wingspan
Column 4: B-2-sized B-21, for reference

It should be noted that all the IWBs in the following illustration are the same, consisting of two 15-meter length x 2-meter width large IWBs and two 11-meter length x 1.5-meter width small IWBs, arranged in a similar configuration to the IWBs on the J-36.

h20possibleconfig1.png
 
Tomboy

Tomboy

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Nx4eu said:
The tradeoff then becomes, lower efficiency and high wing loading. Lower efficiency means the range drastically reduces and higher wing loading means much faster takeoff and landing speeds. At what point does the missile length does not outweigh the benefit of longer aircraft?

To put into perspective the decrease I did some calculations. A theoretical H-20 sized aircraft with a 33 degree wing sweep angle (same as B-2) with a 15,000km range would have it's range decrease by 3,600km or 24% if the sweep angle was increased to 50-60 degrees.

The Northrop LAP example shows an even further extreme, with a wing sweep angle of 68.71 degrees, it's range compared to the traditional B-2, drops from 11,100km to 7,000km, a near 36% decrease in range.

Sure the benefit is safer standoff launch distances, but eventually with decreases nearing 3,000-4,000 km. It starts to limit the strategic part of the bomber.
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Well, cranked arrow definitely ain't going to cut it due to stealth deficiency. True diamond is going to suffer even worse in terms of aero-efficiency. Of course, you could just simply make the central body part for a B-21 larger but then at some point you might as well have a flying diamond because you start facing the same issues.

J-36's planform without the crank is also going to suffer from the same issue you described while also having worse planform for stealth due to non-symmetry. So, I doubt that as well.

I still expect H-20 to perform similar penetration roles as the B-21 while still serving as a missile truck, so ULO/ELO should still be necessary along with long range. H-6 is becoming obsolete as it no longer can efficiently carry the latest missiles so something will have to take its place in the future. So, I'm pretty interested in what they eventually cooked up because it's pretty hard to imagine a bomber that will tick all of the boxes.
 
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tamsen_ikard

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Tomboy said:
Well, cranked arrow definitely ain't going to cut it due to stealth deficiency. True diamond is going to suffer even worse in terms of aero-efficiency. Of course, you could just simply make the central body part for a B-21 larger but then at some point you might as well have a flying diamond because you start facing the same issues.

J-36's planform without the crank is also going to suffer from the same issue you described while also having worse planform for stealth due to non-symmetry. So, I doubt that as well.

I still expect H-20 to perform similar penetration roles as the B-21 while still serving as a missile truck, so ULO/ELO should still be necessary along with long range. H-6 is becoming obsolete as it no longer can efficiently carry the latest missiles so something will have to take its place in the future. So, I'm pretty interested in what they eventually cooked up because it's pretty hard to imagine a bomber that will tick all of the boxes.
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Every weapon design is a compromise. You prioritise the most important attributes.

If H-20 cannot be both a penetrator and a H-6 successor bigger missile truck, then China will just have to design another platform to do that job.

My proposal is to use a Transporter like the Y-20 or its bigger brother (upcoming) to be that missile truck. The missiles will be launched from the back as canisters. This is similar to how US wants to turn all its transporters as missile trucks.

Another B-52 type Bomber could be designed, but I don't think its necessary when Transport planes can do that Job.
 
Tomboy

Tomboy

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tamsen_ikard said:
Every weapon design is a compromise. You prioritise the most important attributes.

If H-20 cannot be both a penetrator and a H-6 successor bigger missile truck, then China will just have to design another platform to do that job.

My proposal is to use a Transporter like the Y-20 or its bigger brother (upcoming) to be that missile truck. The missiles will be launched from the back as canisters. This is similar to how US wants to turn all its transporters as missile trucks.

Another B-52 type Bomber could be designed, but I don't think its necessary when Transport planes can do that Job.
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Launching stuff from transports isn't easy especially when you are effectively airdropping very heavy missiles. There is a good reason why literally no one is doing that, and people resort to dedicated bombers. Plus, it'll be really inefficient because transport aircraft are designed to transport stuff and not lobbing large missiles. USAF's Rapid Dragon system is meant for relatively small cruise missiles like the AGM-158(4m long) while the kind of missiles we are talking about is 15m long air launched ballistic missiles or HCMs.

So, IMO it's either H-20 will be a bomber that does everything which probably is why the project was overhauled or they are building a new bomber which is rather unlikely.
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

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tamsen_ikard said:
Every weapon design is a compromise. You prioritise the most important attributes.

If H-20 cannot be both a penetrator and a H-6 successor bigger missile truck, then China will just have to design another platform to do that job.

My proposal is to use a Transporter like the Y-20 or its bigger brother (upcoming) to be that missile truck. The missiles will be launched from the back as canisters. This is similar to how US wants to turn all its transporters as missile trucks.

Another B-52 type Bomber could be designed, but I don't think its necessary when Transport planes can do that Job.
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In addition to what @Tomboy has explained:

The PLAAF is procuring all the WS-20-powered Y-20Bs in MRTT configuration precisely because the PLAAF still doesn't have enough refueling tankers to support their massive (and still growing) fleets of warplanes. And you want to take some of those away just to act as (glorified) missile launchers? Come on...
 
GTI

GTI

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Tomboy said:
Well, cranked arrow definitely ain't going to cut it due to stealth deficiency. True diamond is going to suffer even worse in terms of aero-efficiency. Of course, you could just simply make the central body part for a B-21 larger but then at some point you might as well have a flying diamond because you start facing the same issues.

J-36's planform without the crank is also going to suffer from the same issue you described while also having worse planform for stealth due to non-symmetry. So, I doubt that as well.

I still expect H-20 to perform similar penetration roles as the B-21 while still serving as a missile truck, so ULO/ELO should still be necessary along with long range. H-6 is becoming obsolete as it no longer can efficiently carry the latest missiles so something will have to take its place in the future. So, I'm pretty interested in what they eventually cooked up because it's pretty hard to imagine a bomber that will tick all of the boxes.
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I don’t know where this premise that a cranked arrow can’t be sufficiently VLO comes from, or that “stealth” is supremely survivable in the first place. Added to that, carrying HCMs and HGVs with purported 4000km+ range vastly increases the size and amount of “places you don’t need to be”.

The USAF, circa 2013, did a study on future air combat. The section on survivability looked at stealth vs. speed. This is the order of survivability:

1. Hypersonic and stealth negligible
2. Supersonic and VLO
3. Subsonic and VLO
4. Subsonic, non-stealth

I think it’s more likely to be just a very big J-36, maybe with a longer / elongated front section (first delta) relatively in proportion to the rest of each respective aircraft.

Air Cruiser, Air Battleship.
 
Tomboy

Tomboy

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GTI said:
I don’t know where this premise that a cranked arrow can’t be sufficiently VLO comes from, or that “stealth” is supremely survivable in the first place. Added to that, carrying HCMs and HGVs with purported 4000km+ range vastly increases the size and amount of “places you don’t need to be”.

The USAF, circa 2013, did a study on future air combat. The section on survivability looked at stealth vs. speed. This is the order of survivability:

1. Hypersonic and stealth negligible
2. Supersonic and VLO
3. Subsonic and VLO
4. Subsonic, non-stealth

I think it’s more likely to be just a very big J-36, maybe with a longer / elongated front section (first delta) relatively in proportion to the rest of each respective aircraft.

Air Cruiser, Air Battleship.
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ULO/ELO is the bare minimum along with advanced EW and maybe speed combined to buy you survivablility. So your right that stealth is not enough in itself, It's the bare minimum.

Stand off missile truck is only a part of H-20's projected mission along with penetration strikes.13078347_10208820330847595_722045487_o.jpg
Here, from this research paper you can see cranked arrow is over a magnitude worse than non cranked design which will be unacceptable. Also contrary to what people believe J-36's planform is not the most optimal for stealth overall neither is it the most efficient for subsonic cruise. J-36 is designed for air combat and high speed supercruising not subsonic cruise with global range, massive payload and extreme stealth.
 
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