J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

bsdnf

New Member
Registered Member
It always boggles me whenever people claims that the J-20's unit cost is ~100 million USD, but somehow is okay with the 054A FFG's price tag figure being 350+ million USD and that of the 052D/DG's price tag of 550-600 million USD.

Like, really? Should we really be expecting that one 4000-ton FFG is worth about 3.5x 5th-gen heavyweight fighters, and that one 052D/DG is worth about 5.5-6x 5th-gen heavyweight fighters?
The ratio is right.There are less space, weight, power, and heat constraints on ships, as a result, engines, radar, electronics on ships don't require the same harsh design as on fighter planes, and don't require the use of a lot of expensive materials
 

Steven D

New Member
Registered Member
It always boggles me whenever people claims that the J-20's unit cost is ~100 million USD, but somehow is okay with the 054A FFG's price tag figure being 350+ million USD and that of the 052D/DG's price tag of 550-600 million USD.

Like, really? Should we really be expecting that one 4000-ton FFG is worth about 3.5x 5th-gen heavyweight fighters, and that one 052D/DG is worth about 5.5-6x 5th-gen heavyweight fighters?
At least according to ayi, that is the case.

"99AG is about 30m cny, z20 is 100m cny, J16 500m cny, J20 1 billion cny, 052D 5 billion cny and 055 10 billion cny"
 

Attachments

  • 长图_1734564978163.jpeg
    长图_1734564978163.jpeg
    456.4 KB · Views: 85

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
At least according to ayi, that is the case.

"99AG is about 30m cny, z20 is 100m cny, J16 500m cny, J20 1 billion cny, 052D 5 billion cny and 055 10 billion cny"
I'm not sure when he got those figures, but given where industrialization is at CAC with J-20 recently, that seems like nonsense.

J-20 could very well have been > $120m per unit when they were making 15 of them a year, but when you ramp production up from 15 a year to > 100/year, the cost goes down 50%.

If they are buying 100 J-20s a year for 2024 at $120m per year, that would be 12B per year

Back in 2019, they would've been spending just 30 * $45 (for J-10s) + 40 * $65 (for flankers) + 10 * $150 (for J-20s) = $1.35B + $2.6B + $1.5B ~ $5B

I hate to break it to people, but their fighter jet procurement cost is unlikely to have gone up 140% in 5 years.

By the way, I passed my estimate by someone who would have a pretty good idea of these things and he didn't raise any issue about them. Which told me my guesstimate of $75 million per J-20 at 70+/year was pretty reasonable.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
It'd be better if you don't guess so wildly

We know that J-10C export to PAF goes for $50 million each and it was sold with minimal profit, so a domestic copy in my calculation costed about $45 million when production run is at 30 to at most 40 per year (production rate for it in the last couple of year of its production for PLAAF)

J-16 with 2 engines and larger airframe would still have 1 radar, 1 set of power management system and such. A reasonable estimate would be 40-50% higher unit cost than J-10C when production run is at 40 to 50 per year -> that would put it's cost at around $65m

Now, if J-20 was produced at same rate as J-16, it would like be more expensive. But considering that they are both using the same engines and similar generation/size of radar and size. Just how much more can J-20 cost? I would say 50% more would be the very top end. As we've seen with F-35 vs F-15EX cost, the 5th generation aircraft that's smaller and produced at scale is cheaper than the 4th generation aircraft.

So, J-20 at 40 to 50 per year would be around $90 to 100m per year. However, J-20 is now produced at 100 per year and possibly even higher.

General rule of manufacturing is doubling of production leads to close to 20% in reduction in unit cost. So since the production more than doubled with J-20, we'd need to take 20% discount on its production cost. And that would lower it to $75m/aircraft at most. This could be lowered probably even further to $60-70 million per aircraft as scaling increases to up to 120 and then 150 per year, dependent on the production rate, mature supply chain and additional efficiency gained along the way.

Remember, the cost of composite material, radar component, computation power, titanium and RAM (meta material) have dropped at pretty rapid pace in China over the past few years.

it is unlikely you can go from procuring 30 J-10s, 40 flankers and 10 J-20s per year to over 100 J-20s + 15-20 flankers per year over a period of 5 years when military budget is only going up by 40% in the same period unless cost of J-20 has dropped to close to the cost of flanker production

@Stealthflanker

Yeah, I got $70-80 Mn for a J-20, and possibly another $10 Mn reduction in the next 4 years.

Previous post below which uses the F-35 cost curve and superimposes it onto the J-20.


I'd go with a cost range of $70-86 Mn for a J-20, with a 70% confidence level.

The F-35A cost is $86 Mn (including engine) and has reached a floor.
My best guess is that the J-20 (including engine) costs $70-80 Mn.
However, there is a possibility that the J-20 is almost as expensive as an F-35A

And in another 4 years, the J-20 would drop another $10 Mn, as per the F-35 experience, because the Chinese are at an earlier stage of the production learning curve.

Methodology and all the assumptions below.

---

We could use the F-35 as a reference, and specifically the Air Force airframe (excluding engines) as it is the most comparable to the J-20.

For 3 years from LRIP 5-7, the F-35 was at 35 per year. The cost dropped from $111 Mn to $98 Mn
Then it took another 4 years to ramp up to full rate production of 141 per year. The cost further dropped to about $80? Mn
After another 5 years to today, the cost has dropped to $70 Mn, and has reached a floor.
And the F-35 engine in 2023 costs another $16 Mn

---

Back in 2018 (Chinese LRIP 3?), the J-20 cost was supposed to be $100-110 Mn.
And my guess is that we're near the end of the J-20 ramp to 100-120? per year.

If we go by the F-35 experience, that would imply the J-20 costs $70-80 Mn

So yes, the J-20 is a bigger aircraft with 2 engines rather than 1.
But there are lower overall costs in China, plus the Chinese are starting further behind, so there are more (and easier) opportunities to improve.

NB. This assumes engines are included in the J-20 costs.
But even if they aren't, the AL-31 (WS-10 equivalent) was $4Mn each back in 2013.
Even with inflation, you wouldn't expect 2 such engines to exceed the single F-35 engine cost of $16 Mn

The other caveat is that the final WS-15 engine still has to be put into mass production, and will presumably increase costs.
 

by78

General
Some nice photos for the weekend.

54216560379_ec6853ba8a_k.jpg

54216553718_ecbeb18f7f_k.jpg
54216559994_c3ff85e82a_k.jpg

54216553703_125e96c294_k.jpg

54216559979_ba6447d907_k.jpg
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Just a maybe stupid question ... allegedly today. 14 years ago the first blurry image of the J-20 "2001" was seen!

But I found other sites claiming it first appeared on 23rd December 2010! What is correct?

J-20 very first image - 2010122x - 人畜无害遥感星.jpg
 

ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
Just a maybe stupid question ... allegedly today. 14 years ago the first blurry image of the J-20 "2001" was seen!

But I found other sites claiming it first appeared on 23rd December 2010! What is correct?

View attachment 141305

I don't remember exactly what date was the above photograph taken, but it is indeed true that the J-20 is already undergoing taxiing trials in December 2010 (which is the same month the above photograph was taken).
 

defenceman

Junior Member
Registered Member
Hi,
so it’s like 14 years since it’s first flight, so what’s the actual timeline
J20 took to fully operational around 9/10 years
thank you
 
Top