This is not directed at anyone in particular. Quotes are for reference only. Technical commentary is specific. Social commentary is general.
Another interesting tidbit is that J-20 has set the flight endurance record for any PLAAF fighter aircraft some time between 2021 and 2023 via multiple midair refueling. They jokingly referred to it as fighter aircraft cosplaying a UCAV but the pilot was completely exhausted afterward. If it were a two seater the situation could be much improved.
No it couldn't. The limitations on pilot's endurance have little to do with workload and everything to do with physiology and ergonomics. Our bodies were not evolved for this.
Traditional seating arrangement in fighters is developed from traditional air mission which rarely exceeded 2 hours of flight time. With multiple refuelings that time is at minimum 6 hours and likely more than 10.
Put yourself in a seat for 10 hours without being able to move. It is incredibly unnatural for human body to behave like this and your brain will put your muscles in a state of agitation where they will try to force movement. Except you can't do it to any degree that would calm your physiological reaction to discomfort. There's a reason why ergonomic chairs for desk work exist. Sitting at your desk for 8 hours is bad for your health.
Add to that a helmet with HMD which puts a strain on your neck. Add to that limited fluid and caloric intake. You don't need high g-loads or combat stress to be exhausted from just spending 10 or more hours like this.
Actually... just try sitting in one place without moving about for 2 hours. See how that works for you. Especially the "being focused and capable of doing complex tasks" part. You will be very surprised how your own body betrays you because you never pay attention to how much freedom you have on a daily basis. This is why getting injured is often a moment of awakening for many people. You simple are not aware of what your body does 99,9% of the time.
This is why Russia designed Su-34 to have parallel seating arrangement - it allows for more room and also allows for the pilots to share the same situational awareness so they can lose focus for the time they need to stretch when they fly missions that lasts multiple hours. That's why F-111 was designed this way too. Pilot comfort matters when you have to fly for hours, do your mission exactly as trained and come back alive. Can't do that with cramps all over your body and general sense of confusion. It's just as bad as Maverick pulling 9g and shooting bullseye with the bomb.
If you have carefully read descriptions on places like airforcemag, you will actually find that the U.S. Air Force is more inclined to use this situation to push Congress for the approval of the update services for early warning aircraft. This is because they emphasize the connection between the KJ-500 early warning aircraft and the J-20. They aim to achieve a specific goal by retiring the aging E-3 series and instead procuring the updated E-7 with modernized software and electronic equipment. Their level of attention to the J-20 is not very high; both the F-35 and F-22 have more extensive upgrade projects, including this year's decision on the contractor for the NGAD.
I am surprised this has to be stated in online space for supposedly knowledgeable people. Whatever is being reported is not what happened. You are always being given the information that is meant to have an effect.
You always have to
first establish i you're having an honest conversation or if you're being influenced for whatever purpose. Public or commercial media is for influencing only. There is no honesty.
With any piece of information being put in public sphere you always have to ask yourself:
why am I receiving this information in this form at this moment.
Repeat it as a mantra and you will be deceived maybe only 50% of times. We have too many psychological biases working against us. We haven't evolved for this level of information density. We're savannah monkeys, not space age creatures.
USAF desperately wants E-7s because the E-3 is woefully outdated and they can tell the difference whenever they have joint exercises with USN or allied forces using more modern AEW. It's not only for the radar but also for the passive ELINT capabilities.
Besides the F-35 was likely flying with its radar off or with most basic mode, and likely also with a radar lens because there is no point in revealing either radar or airframe signatures. The J-20s were therefore not spotted not on the F-35s radar but on whatever radar was doing situational control and that can have its own limitations based on location, stationary or mobile, power, band etc.
The narrative is simply "
Oh my gosh our bestest plane is in danger! Quick throw a lot of money at us!" It's so obvious but yet you fall for it because childish circlejerks are more rewarding to you than being an adult. Some people simply don't grow up. They look like adults but looks can be deceiving. Except your online space looks as if a child played with it, which is the problem that worries me. Because you play with it, and everyone else has to live with the consequences.
The F-22 is basically a dead duck. Only half of the airplanes built will be upgraded. So they will have like a hundred upgraded planes. It is totally curbstomped in numbers by the J-20 really.
It's irrelevant. F-22 doesn't matter anymore. VLO aircraft in general only matter against non-VLO aircraft because of distribution of detection ranges for both types of airframes.
325th Fighter Wing in Tyndall AFB, Florida is currently retiring F-22A in favour of F-35A. Decision was made in 2021, with proposal give in 2019 and first aircraft arrived in 2023.
The clearest mark will be when 1st Fighter Wing in Langley AFB, Virginia gets F-35A. 1st FW is a "Praetorian" unit with crews selected for loyalty as coup prevention so they always have the best equipment and full complement. This is also why they got the privilege of shooting down the Treacherous Chinese Baloon. Currently they're still flying F-22s because of training and experience and the only reason why they wouldn't get F-35 is that they will receive upgraded F-22s and then move straight for NGAD.
F-22 doesn't matter because it was designed for 80s tactical requirements which have been made irrelevant by technological advances in computing, radar and missile propulsion. But the way Pentagon procurement works is that if you have a flyoff, you already have all the main requirements set in stone. The flyoff between YF-22A and YF-23 was in late 1990 and in April 1991 YF-22 was announced as the winner. Desert Storm - which proved instrumental in turning JSF into the main fighter due to unexpectedly good performance from F-16s - was 17 January to 28 February.
YF-22 fired an AMRAAM during the test but it wasn't designed around it. Its tactical requirements were based on 4gen fighters like F-15 and F-16. When the tactical scenarios were being devised it never worked like the F-117s sneaking up on A-50s in Red Storm Rising. They worked the same way F-15C with AIM-7M worked, only better. Initially 5gen wasn't a revolution but an
evolution. This is why it retained high maneuverability and high flight performance: speed, altitude and climb. Within 5th generation F-35 was the revolutionary design because it already builds on new technological developments like ARH use in BVR and emerging sensor fusion.
F-22 was cut from 750 to 187 aircraft not because the US couldn't afford it but because it was no longer necessary to have such aircraft.
But it took USAF commanding officers who flew previous generations to see with their own eyes that it is easier to upgrade a missile, let alone that is it possible to guide it with help of AWACS through datalinks, before they gave up on outdated ideas. And that process took some time which is why even today you hear some of them talking about the error of shutting down F-22 production lines. This is old dogs not being able to learn new tricks.
You can't outmaneuver a missile if it catches you in its energy envelope and the energy envelope is only going to grow.
This also applies to J-20. It is what it is because it is designed in the same tactical regime as F-22 except in the Pacific everything is bigger so technology hasn't caught up by the time it was flown to make it unnecessary.
The notion that J-20 is better than F-22 or F-35 (or vice versa) is something that only mentally unstable keyboard warriors in places like SDF or others like to harp about because that's somehow better than seeing a psychotherapist or getting medication. It's not.
J-20 is not better and it is not worse. It does what it needs to do as part of a very complex system as every other fighter plane. If it wasn't a VLO fighter it would matter. But as long as it falls within 0.01m2 RCS all the things that online experts tend to get excited about don't matter. And the same thing applies to F-35 or F-22. The only hard number that matters is range and availability. If you don't have something new to say about either of those then you don't have anything to say at all. Why are you talking then?
And that's why the relevant part is about E-7s. Anyway. What am I even doing here? I feel like Biden all of a sudden. I shouldn't be here. See ya.
