J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Also if it was jettisoned during an op, you want a way to return normal radar visibility when returning to base to aid ATC especially when flying through civilian airspace.
how would the us address this issue considering their lunebergs are a groundside modification?
They don't, obviously. They just assume that the decision to fly with/without LL will be made before takeoff. Which is not terribly unreasonable, mind you, just a bit less flexible.
I'm indeed trying to update this assessment based on my own list - which maybe is not as complete like @Blitzo's - but if you take a timeline and mark the respective dates, when a first rumour about a new unit surfaced and when it was confirmed, you'll at least get a rough estimated timeframe for each unit, which, while knowingly incorrect in terms of exact dates, since we're always lagging behind, at least provides a list on the "safe side."
And based on what i see right now, I think we can assume quite safely there was actually a decline in regular J-20 production - also evident from fewer rumours and confirmations - which I would maybe explain by the change in production from J-20 to J-20A/AS.
But I need some more time ...
Imo the important question is not whether the number of vanilla J-20 production has changed, but rather if the total number of J-20 family production has changed (inclusive of J-20 J-20A, J-20S).
These days, when people talk about "J-20 production rates" I assume they mean J-20 family rather than only the vanilla J-20 itself.
Agreed and at least my impression at the moment is, it indeed dropped a bit. My theory therefore is, CAC shut down one production line and changes it to J-20A/AS after another ... and therefore at least a minor drop in overall output seems likely.
On the other side the for me most important question is: Has production of the vanilla J-20 even ended and is CAC producing already only J-20A/AS?
This is the photo that I was waiting for to prove/verify what I talked about the special aspect of the new paint of J-20A/S. It's optical reflectiveness is more selective/sesitive of viewing angle and angle of incoming light than any other paints we have seen. We have seen the top side being very bright in other photos, but in this one the top is as dark as underside even though the light coming from top like other photos. The vertical stablizers also demonstrate this. It is as if the paint is polarized.
It is paint on the frame. Here is J-20S prototype in primer. The yellow primer would be painted to darker gray. The gray (composite) will remain unpainted becoming the lighter area in final shape.
In the red circle at the back side you can see a thin yellow strip of primer. That is what your suggested "gap".
On another note, the shape of gray area of the DSI has changed from the prototype, indicating that the structure under the bump is changed.
Did CAC even need a different production line for the A and S variants? Why could't they just modify the existing lines? These production lines are supposed to be flexible nowadays. The airframes of A and S are not that different from the vanilla one. Differences in avionics and engines should have been sorted out by the corresponding component suppliers. CAC most likely did production line upgrades before even just for the vanilla variant which has had engine upgrades at least.