J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

[plawolf]

The pilot watched the person filming nearly the whole time as they were rounding the bend - surely thinking "should I say something to security?"

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Thats not a pilot, but a ground crew member. For moving planes around on the ground, it’s ground crew who gets in the cockpit as there is no need to waste a pilots time with that.

Pilots would not be sitting in their plane without a helmet and full flight gear.

 

[taxiya]

I doubt J-20A has substantial structural change such as this, when J-20 already has mature manufacturing lines and cost ameliorating well, retooling all of that just for marginal improvements on structural weight doesn't seems worth it

FC-31/J-35 was only one year later/newer than J-20. F-31 dared to use 3D printing meant that 3D printing was reliable well before 2012 because nobody would put a pilot in the air without stress testing the 3D printed structure for thousands of hours. This is to say J-20 is probably built on 3D printing from the begining, PLAAF just didn't asvertise it. FC-31 was meant to attract foreign buyers, so they made 3D printing public.

J-20A has a big structure change from J-20, the hump and the new engines. If we assume that J-20 uses forging+welding, increasing the size of the mid-body bulkheads (plural) due to the hump, then many forging heads will have to change, that alone is already a big cost that has to be paid. Then there is the WS-15 not being the same size as WS-10, again the holes on many bulkheads are changed, the air intakes and their holes in the fuselage etc.

 

[antiterror13]

FC-31/J-35 was only one year later/newer than J-20. F-31 dared to use 3D printing meant that 3D printing was reliable well before 2012 because nobody would put a pilot in the air without stress testing the 3D printed structure for thousands of hours. This is to say J-20 is built on 3D printing from the begining, PLAAF just didn't asvertise it. FC-31 was meant to attract foreign buyers, so they made 3D printing public.

J-20A has a big structure change from J-20, the hump and the new engines. If we assume that J-20 uses forging+welding, increasing the size of the mid-body bulkheads (plural) due to the hump, then many forging heads will have to change, that alone is already a big cost that has to be paid. Then there is the WS-15 not being the same size as WS-10, again the holes on many bulkheads are changed, the air intakes and their holes in the fuselage etc.

I thought J-20 was designed with WS-15 in mind, AL-31x and WS10x series are temporary, waiting until WS-15 is ready. I'd imagine there won't be any major structural change for WS-15

 

[taxiya]

I thought J-20 was designed with WS-15 in mind, AL-31x and WS10x series are temporary, waiting until WS-15 is ready. I'd imagine there won't be any major structural change for WS-15

J-20's final spec is designed around WS-15 performace such as thrust, but WS-15's dimension and inlet airflow is likely different from WS10, therefor the fuselage change. It is not like they stuffed an over-sized fuselage with undersized engines.