J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

Tiberium said:

I actually have some issues with this 100-year show. 18 J-20s----which is at least one third or even half of PLAAF entire J-20 fleet, doing nothing in 2 months, just trained to fly in perfectly big formation in low speed/altitude.
I don't think it's the best practice or putting good use for these precious 5-gens.
I mean, I am not against the 100-year show, just I don't think wasting 2 months on something meaningless in combat is a good thing, considering the time we live. If PLAAF have 600 J-20s, then it's nothing. Or just do some practice in 2-weeks period, it's also OK. I'm against the usual chinese thinking to make political decision above everything else.

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Bltizo said:

How many hours are actually being allocated to the flyover?
So far they've only had two flyover rehearsals AFAIK.

Two flyovers, each of less than an hour in the air per aircraft (if that!), and maybe some briefings for the pilots before hand.


Seems to me like the amount of preparation for the flyover should be very short and brief and easily slotted in between the rest of their normal training syllabus.

Unless you think they are literally using every hour of every day for the last two months preparing for a simple flyover.

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Richard Santos said:

Sometimes you show your hand because you want your opponent to know he is outmatched, or at least he doesn’t have a clear advantage. The goal is to ensure he doesn’t start something he can’t win but which would still do a great deal of damage to you.

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davidau said:

Historically and culturally, China never ever boasts, it weighs rather on the conservative side.

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siegecrossbow said:

They’ve had more than two flyover rehearsals, but assumption that J-20 pilots participating in the parades just take off and land after formation landing is incorrect. I recall an interview in 2019 about how fighter jets participating in the national parade immediately participated in aerial combat exercise post parade. It takes a lot of money for each aircraft sortie. The assumption that they waste fuel money/air frame maintenance on just formation flying is absurd.

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Richard Santos said:

In the 1950s the Soviets painted a few prototype Miasaschev bombers in operational colors and flew them over Moscow during holidays to imply there must be many more in service for them to be able to pull operational nuclear deterrence bombers from service to grace parades. In the 1930s the Germans drove the same few tanks around and around so they pass in front of the review stand many times to imply here were many tanks were in the parade, and Germany thus had far more tanks than she actually did. There are many other examples where parades were used to imply the forces putting on the show were much stronger than it actually was. So most observers are wise to the possibility and generally believe a military parade implied nothing more than exactly what is on show.

If China really wants to let everyone know she had many operational J-20s, she could remove any shadow of doubt by selecting a day and parking most of the operational J-20 outside so the satellites can see them.

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Volpler11 said:

Based on the number of units that are upgraded to j20 (4 flight groups) i would estimate china have between 60 (2x24 combat flight group +2x6 training unit) to 100 (4x24). This is inline with various estimate i can find including 33 at 2018, 50 at 2019. That would mean 15 j20 would represent between 15% and 25% of available j20.

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