kwaigonegin
Colonel
LOL Wut??
They are optimized for different mission profiles regardless of their similarities of their internal bays.
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VI
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LOL Wut??
They are optimized for different mission profiles regardless of their similarities of their internal bays.
It wouldn't surprise me if the J-20 is limited to 1000 pounder's as is the F-22?? their weapons bays appear to be very similar in size, the F-35 has two narrow but deep weapons bays and can carry two 2000 pounder's.. and to be honest neither the J-20 nor F-22 were optimized as ground attack aircraft, although both are likely being "educated" by system upgrades to do just that, but their forte would be A2A.. but I agree, no doubt Yang Wei was "declaring the J-20" a little "butt kicker"! and he sounds like a proud Papa,, I have stated many times, that you young Chinese lads have every right and should be "proud of your beautiful baby", she is no doubt a sweetie.
We say that for certain, when we used to get those little "black market" videos and pictures, the one I remember most was the J-20 performing an "aileron roll" as it returned from a test flight... back in WW-II, many returning airmen would perform a "victory roll" for each combat "kill".. they were finally forbidden as guys were crashing and burning.. but its apparent the J-20 is quite happy rolling, and flies very well.
If the J10 and J16 can carry the same sized missiles, why need the later?
From a raw performance POV, the J20 should trump the J31 in terms of range and endurance, which will be critically important for a carrier bird, especially a 5th gen, as you don’t want them leashed to slow move and non-stealth tankers (although the USN is working towards addressing this with its work on LO unmanned tankers).
The J20 also has the WS15 in advanced stages of development, while we know of no comparable engine in the works for the J31.
That means while the J31 might perform similarly to the J20 currently, once the J20 gets the WS15, it should move into a different league in terms of flight characteristics. The J31 has no such upgrade on the horizon.
Also, since the J20 is bigger, with correspondingly more thurst, having the same sized bay means the J31 pays a compararively bigger penalty to its performance from having the bay compared to the J20.
It would be similar to hanging the same weapons load on a J10 and J16, the smaller J10 would take a bigger performance hit than the bigger J16.
Since the bays are permanent, that performance hit is also locked in.
The main reason the America F22 and F35 can achieve their kinetic performances are because of their monstrously powerful engines. With a similar layout but significant weaker engines, it would take quite something for the J31 to match the former in terms of agility.
So all in all, I am pretty confident that the J20, even as is, will be better than the J31 in WVR, and once it gets the WS15, it will absolutely dominate.
In a stealth v stealth encounter, where both radar ranges and BVRAAM missile effectiveness will be significantly impaired by the opponent’s stealth, I believe we are on the cusp of entering another golden age of dogfighting, since WVR is where I think most pure 5th gen encounters will be settled.
As such, I feel that raw kinetic performance is going to increasingly matter more than it has since the introduction of BVR going forwards for 5th gens.
I feel this is where America has dropped the ball somewhat with the F35, because when the JSF programme was started and design selected, no one else looked anywhere close to fielding a rival 5th gen.
So the F35 was expected to just easily walk all over legacy fighters in BVR (it doesn’t even have the capacity to carry dogfighting missiles without sacrificing BVRAAMs) and so focused mostly on strike.
With the same layout and weaker engines, albeit with more focus on air combat, I think the J31 would be happy to match the F35 in a dogfight, but the F22 and J20 are in a different league in terms of kinetic performance.
That’s why the PLAAF picked the J20 and has show zero interest in the J31.
The J31 has advantages compared to the J20 for carrier aviation, but the raw performance advantage of the J20, especially the WS15 versions, should still be seriously considered.
I would prefer the PLAN go for both the J31 and J20 rather than just the J31.
It would be like the performance difference between a F14+F18 carrier air wing against one with only F18s.
Having both could really hurt the budget. J-20 very likely has longer range, greater payload, more powerful sensors, more room for future mods, only slightly wider with folding wings (length may be important but not as much as width), better kinematic performance, and is much further along in its program. PLAN going with J-20 for carrier fighter makes sense if budget is considered. Perhaps WS-15 may be used on future flanker variants and J-10 who knows. We do know WS-13/19 and RD-33x cannot be used on any other modern PLA fighter. Range will be as important if not more than kinematic performance. Having J-20 and J-15 versions as carrier borne main fighters with different UAVs is a better future for PLAN carriers. Rather than waste precious funding on inducting and supporting both stealthy platforms as well as J-15. Doing that would only make sense if J-31 has considerable advantages over J-20 in at least one way. I can't think of any apart from the claim that it is more carrier suitable due to smaller size. This comes at the cost of range and other factors mentioned.
reliable source (铁背心) from FYJS claims J20 is seen equipped with TVC nozzle today. Ground test is imminent.
edit: I just looked at some J20 watcher and photographer on weibo, they confirmed that one TVC equipped J20 is spotted at CAC. However, no picture of the aircraft has been seen on the internet yet so we will have to wait a bit.
edit: I just looked at some J20 watcher and photographer on weibo, they confirmed that one TVC equipped J20 is spotted at CAC. However, no picture of the aircraft has been seen on the internet yet so we will have to wait a bit.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
No that’s just sawtoothing.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
Are we sure they're not the same type as the WS-10X seen on the J-10B testbed? It makes little sense to develop two separate variants, one with TVC and one without, when both the J-20 and the J-10X are likely to feature TVC.
No gaps between petals whereas TVC nozzle's petals have distinct gaps between them.
Also, the reason they mounted TVC on a J-10B testbed was because it was immature tech. They wouldn't include immature tech on a newbuild J-20.
Now, after a few months of single-engine testing, it seems the the TVC has matured to a degree where it can be tested on a J-20, most likely on one of the 201X-series prototypes.
Yes. If you just do a straightforward visual comparison between 202X and this TVC J-10 they’re two completely different nozzles. It actually makes a lot of sense that we’re see two different engines. The engines mounted on the 202X series are production ready upgraded variants of the WS-10. 202X isn’t testing the engine itself. It’s conducting integration tests to clear the WS-10 for use on production J-20s. The sawtoothing is a cosmetic feature. On the J-10 with TVC, the focus of the test is the TVC itself and, presumably, the development of FBW systems integration for TVC. 202X is testing a whole plane for production readiness, while the J-10 with TVC is specifically being used to study and further develop TVC technology.
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