J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

Josh Luo said:

Plus the J-20 as of now could literally jump almost any adversarial fighter planes with the exception of F-22 and F-35. Neither Taiwan nor India have F-35 or F-22. Also, I think the J-20 and F-35 - given their stealth characters - would not detect each other until they are near dogfight ranges. Without the F-22's TVC, the F-35 should be at roughly the same level as the J-20 in terms of maneuverability during dogfights. The only aircraft that could ruin a J-20's day would be the F-22.

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crash8pilot said:

F-22 struggles with range though - Unless they're based out in India or if the One-China policy is disregarded and the USAF stages Raptors in Taiwan, all the J-20s need to do is to take out USAF tankers and they'd cripple their Raptors in the process. The Raptor is better suited in the European theater rather than the Pacific.

While TVC would be a major breakthrough for the J-20, I'm skeptical about the practical advantage it'd give in a dogfight. TVC maneuvering looks cool in airshows, but the pilot only has one opportunity to use TVC before bleeding off airspeed and becoming a sitting duck if he/she fails to kill the opposition the first time round (a heavy J-20 would struggle to recover speed in that case too). Rather TVC would reduce the deflection of flight controls when the J-20 maneuvers, which in turn further reduces the RCS of the J-20. More importantly, I think supercruise is something undervalued in the BVR game. If the J-20 is able to sit at 40,000ft doing Mach 2 without afterburner (reducing it's IR signature) firing off PL-15/future PL-XX (missile comes off the rail and further accelerates when fired, making it damn near impossible for the enemy to evade), it will make it invincible at BVR.

Based on theoretical figures of AL-31 equipped J-20s, it technically should have the thrust-to-weight advantage over F-35s (1.12 for the J-20 compared to 1.07 for the F-35, both at loaded weight with 50% fuel). Although western media constantly poop on the J-20's canards, the reduced wing loading provided by the canards might give it the edge on sustained turning performance. The delta-wing design should also give it high AoA performance, so in essence giving the J-20 good nose authority. Basically what I'm saying is that the J-20 has the tools to succeed both in the rate or radius fight should it ever enter the visual merge with the opposition. So while the J-20 might be a heavy beast, I'd like to think it sneakily has a lot going for it should it ever come up against American fifth-generation platforms in the visual range fight.

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crash8pilot said:

TVC maneuvering looks cool in airshows, but the pilot only has one opportunity to use TVC before bleeding off airspeed and becoming a sitting duck if he/she fails to kill the opposition the first time round

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silentlurker said:

That's because TVC in airshows only do wacky weird unintuitive high AOA stuff. It's not very interesting watching a plane turn in a circle faster...

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crash8pilot said:

What I'm saying is that TVC isn't a force-multiplier or something that gives an overwhelming advantage. With right tactics and strategy, TVC fighters can be beat regardless if you're offensive, defensive or high aspect - that's how the Brits, Germans, and French have managed to hold their own against the Raptor in training.

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latenlazy said:

“Manage to hold their own” doesn’t suggest that TVC doesn’t give the Raptor substantial advantages, just that those advantages aren’t absolute. I agree that TVC isn’t an absolute advantage, but a significant advantage is still a significant advantage. TVC is still a major tactical plus, because at the end of the day it’s giving you wider range of kinematic options, which then translated to a far wider range of tactical options, which means much more ways to find success in combat. Arguing that TVC can be beat is not the same thing as arguing that TVC is not incredibly valuable.

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While TVC would be a major breakthrough for the J-20, I'm skeptical about the practical advantage it'd give in a dogfight. TVC maneuvering looks cool in airshows, but the pilot only has one opportunity to use TVC before bleeding off airspeed and becoming a sitting duck if he/she fails to kill the opposition the first time round (a heavy J-20 would struggle to recover speed in that case too). Rather TVC would reduce the deflection of flight controls when the J-20 maneuvers, which in turn further reduces the RCS of the J-20. More importantly, I think supercruise is something undervalued in the BVR game. If the J-20 is able to sit at 40,000ft doing Mach 2 without afterburner (reducing it's IR signature) firing off PL-15/future PL-XX (missile comes off the rail and further accelerates when fired, making it damn near impossible for the enemy to evade), it will make it invincible at BVR.

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crash8pilot said:

Read again - I'm arguing that the ability to supercruise would be a more valuable attribute to look forward to once the WS-15 is installed onto the J-20, both to get to the battlefield quickly and more importantly to increase it's lethality at the BVR fight, as compared to the advantage TVC might give to the J-20's dogfighting ability.

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latenlazy said:

TVC isn’t just for dogfighting. I think your idea of what TVC is used for is much narrower than the range of its actual capabilities.

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crash8pilot said:

My response about TVC is in response/context to the Josh's posts about how TVC and maneuverability during dogfighting

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While TVC would be a major breakthrough for the J-20, I'm skeptical about the practical advantage it'd give in a dogfight. TVC maneuvering looks cool in airshows, but the pilot only has one opportunity to use TVC before bleeding off airspeed and becoming a sitting duck if he/she fails to kill the opposition the first time round (a heavy J-20 would struggle to recover speed in that case too).

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Hendrik_2000 said:

With situation awareness compromise it is much easieer for J 20 to kill F-22 with much longer reach PL15.

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