Hopefully the rate of overall J-20 production remains largely constant throughout the (gradual) transition from J-20 production to J-20A production at Chengdu AC.
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Hopefully the rate of overall J-20 production remains largely constant throughout the (gradual) transition from J-20 production to J-20A production at Chengdu AC.
The thread is getting off topic with F-35 and "westpac conflict scenario" discussions. Let's get back on topic.
Further discussions will see further posts deleted, and if needed previous posts will be deleted too.
Edit: I've moved F-35 related posts to the F-35 thread
Further discussions will see further posts deleted, and if needed previous posts will be deleted too.
Edit: I've moved F-35 related posts to the F-35 thread
Last edited:
Flying buddies
The J-20 and stealth aircraft and missile production in China is going to be higher than anyone has estimated so far.
I took a look at the financial and production numbers of the top meta material supplier to China's aerospace program and it looks this way.
From revenues here, you can see that's it's revenue in 2022 was 1.168B RMB, which jumped to 1.494B in 2023 and estimates to hit 2.257B this year and 4.758B in 2026.
You can see the R&D is also ramping up dramatically.
From a few years ago
I took a look at the financial and production numbers of the top meta material supplier to China's aerospace program and it looks this way.
From revenues here, you can see that's it's revenue in 2022 was 1.168B RMB, which jumped to 1.494B in 2023 and estimates to hit 2.257B this year and 4.758B in 2026.
so in the first half of the 2024, they made 850m RMB, up 24% YoY. That's their Meta material division making 99.8% of their total revenue. They are basically dependent on the military contract to grow.
You can see the R&D is also ramping up dramatically.
From a few years ago
back then, Kuang-chi's stealth material tested 640,000 lines over 136000 hours. That's really extensive testing
claims that the Metamaterial here can cover 1-18GHz band. I'm assuming they have tested this extensively against UHF radar.
So why do I say this is definitely going up dramatically? Well, their production capacity is on some kind of exponential growth.
I took a look at their financials for 2023
1.247B out of 1.494B in revenue came from meta materials production. That was up more than 50% from 2022.
Their other divisions saw revenue drops
Looks like the largest customer by far here was 67% of their sales. Likely, that is CAC or the Air Force. Probably followed by SAC.
Back in 2020, they said they were going to produce 6000 to 8000 kg that year. And if I remember correctly, they were producing about 15-20 J-20s at that time?
All of this was produced in their Shenzhen base where they were expanding production to 8t per year. They had just 162m RMB in order at the time. They were building their new production base Shunde, which would add 40t in production per year
at the time, they thought it would take 2 years to be able to produce 48t per year (so by 2023).
I took a look at their financials for 2023
1.247B out of 1.494B in revenue came from meta materials production. That was up more than 50% from 2022.
Their other divisions saw revenue drops
Looks like the largest customer by far here was 67% of their sales. Likely, that is CAC or the Air Force. Probably followed by SAC.
where are they technologically?
They are developing 5th generation. Again, material science really matters.
More revenue -> more R&D -> faster progression on product.
again, from their 2023 full year report
So they have the 4th generation material now. Which is a huge improvement over the 3rd generation. The 4th-generation metamaterial is almost entirely made of microelectronic microstructures, and at the same time it is lighter, cheaper and more efficient.
They are developing 5th generation. Again, material science really matters.
More revenue -> more R&D -> faster progression on product.
again, from their 2023 full year report
looks like their first generation came out in 2017. Every 24 months, you enter a new generation of meta-material. They are on 4th generation right now being used in leading edge equipment.
The production ramp up is purely based on demand from national security/strategy apparatus.
6x17.5=105 so that is similar to the much quoted 100 J-20 a year production rate?
so just exactly where they are in current and future production?
The Shunde base is looking to raise production from 40 to 60t to satisfy customer requirement for future production.
And phase 2 base has started construction with designed capacity of 100t per year.
They are aggressively adding to production base and new base construction!
So, let's see. 48t of production capacity is sufficient for them to reach 70 J-20s a year + a little bit for J-16s, J-35s and UCAVs.
If they actually add in phase 2 over the next couple of years and get to 150t per year.
That would be enough for them to produce 200 J-20/J-35s + whatever is needed for UCAVs.
And this would seem to correspond with the CAC factory expansions and SAC factory expansions.
I would think at this point, getting to 200 J-20/35 per year by 2026/2027 timeframe is entirely possible.
My one theory is that they are actually not looking to buy like 250 J-20/35 a year. They want the factory capacity to be there, so that if a conflict breaks out, they can crank things up to 1 aircraft a day or something like that.
50% capacity during peace time is a price that China is willing to pay. Excessive unused industrial capacity in aerospace and material science sector is something they want to have.
Looks like they received 2B RMB in large order from "mysterious customer" in early 2023.
The Shunde base is looking to raise production from 40 to 60t to satisfy customer requirement for future production.
And phase 2 base has started construction with designed capacity of 100t per year.
Looks like they have started to test equipment in September at the phase 2 production base. Shunde base's phase 2 production will gradually increase until it reaches full production capacity that is 2.5x of phase 1.
They are aggressively adding to production base and new base construction!
So, let's see. 48t of production capacity is sufficient for them to reach 70 J-20s a year + a little bit for J-16s, J-35s and UCAVs.
If they actually add in phase 2 over the next couple of years and get to 150t per year.
That would be enough for them to produce 200 J-20/J-35s + whatever is needed for UCAVs.
And this would seem to correspond with the CAC factory expansions and SAC factory expansions.
I would think at this point, getting to 200 J-20/35 per year by 2026/2027 timeframe is entirely possible.
My one theory is that they are actually not looking to buy like 250 J-20/35 a year. They want the factory capacity to be there, so that if a conflict breaks out, they can crank things up to 1 aircraft a day or something like that.
50% capacity during peace time is a price that China is willing to pay. Excessive unused industrial capacity in aerospace and material science sector is something they want to have.
So it’s just worth keeping in mind that increased RAM production may not necessarily be a sign of expanded stealth fighter production. It might also be a sign of higher employment per airframe, or expanded drone production too. Lots and lots of different platforms are going to need a lot more of this stuff going forth.
sure, but we have yet to see large drones going into service that would move the needle here. That's why I mentioned UCAVs in there also.
Also, it's kind of unlikely the weight of meta material per aircraft is going to increase significantly when Kuang-chi itself says 4th gen is going to be lighter than 3rd gen. So even if you increase it's application, it's probably not to the degree where the weight of the material will increase 50 to 100%.
I do think that when we go from WS-10C to WS-15 with J-20A, we will see more surface area meta-material applied, but I don't know what that will be. For weight reasons, you are not going to apply RAM everywhere, but just critical areas that will result in the more deflections.