You can’t upgrade them easily.
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
All the issues comes from the engines. Baseline J20 cannot be expected to be able to mount WS15 without cost-ineffective ridiculous modifications. Similar issues troubles the Su57 which also struggles to accommodate AL51F in its current form. And without the power generation and cooling capability the new engines bring, electronical upgrades will have a barrier similar to what F35 is facing. Thankfully, WS10C2 being a heavily modified WS10 can greatly alleviate this issue while still fitting to the baseline airframe. If it is determined to be a fitting interim engine for J20A in its first year of mass production, it will certainly be able to solve the majority if not all of the problems the baseline aircraft have.
Eh not so fast. As mentioned before a super early initial introduction does not necessarily mean equally quick move towards mass adoption. I’d add also that the J-36 doesn’t necessarily fill the same roles or mission profiles as the J-20. We should consider the possibility that at least for the near term past IOC the J-36 might be treated as additive rather than substitutive for the mainstay air fleet. The real substitute for the J-20 (and J-35) insofar as mainstay fleet production is concerned is probably going to be the J-50 and we don’t have any updates on how quickly that program is moving to my best knowledge.
Is it anticipated that UADFs will eventually replace majority of 5th gens for the air superiority role?
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Supplement, not replace. Not in the foreseeable future in any case. It could well be that in the not too distant future, CCAs will become the majority of the force structure, but that will be more a case of adding more assets as opposed to it being a 1-1 replacement of manned fighters.
It’s similar to me not throwing out my old manual vacuum cleaning just because I bought a couple of robot vacuum cleaners. The original is already bought and paid for, throwing it away when it’s still perfectly serviceable just makes no sense, especially since I sometimes still need to use it to supplement the robots.