I think if they’re exhibiting the J-20 to Russia this is more a down payment to help establish some baseline for any future interest in interoperability both countries might choose to adopt with each other. If some higher degree of defense cooperation between the countries is expected in the future not everything about their most advanced weapons platforms will stay secret for very long anyways.
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
- Start date
- Status
That's not what I meant. Flankers like the J-11B and J-16 are entirely Chinese and built in China, by definition they can't do anything funny like record radar for later retrieval by a foreign technician. I'm not sure about how often the J-20 flew against the Su-35, but I think China has enough technical expertise that any of the obvious tricks would be disabled beforehand. That's the security risk I believe @Bltizo was worried about.
It's less about what specific aircraft type they're exercising with and more about how much they trust the partner nation that they are training with.
If they really are involving J-20s in this exercise with Russia to a meaningful degree, then it would have to be built on quite a significant degree of trust.
Politically, I think it's gotten to that point. After all, Russia is reported to be helping China build the early warning radars for its missile defence system; it would be pretty unusual if China didn't trust Russia at least as much as America trusted India.
Yeah and China in general is also much more cautious.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it would be a rather significant development if it's true, and should be noted as such.
Unrelated, but has the US actually ever flown F-22s with Indian aircraft before? The iaf has exercised with US aircraft on multiple occasions in the past, but save for one picture (of a MKI and a F-22 that I'm pretty sure it's doctored), I do not know if any occasion where the US has flown a 5th Gen fighter of any type with India.
They’re using integrated command and control system for this exercise.
Never. The only flanker that has flown against the F-22/F-35 are owned by private contract firms within the U.S. that operate 2nd hand flankers from Ukraine.
Last edited:
To be honest, I might be misremembering. I have in mind that video where the USAF guy was cautioning against the overuse of thrust vectoring. I "remember" him talking about the Red Flag exercises, and I believe India participated in those so I might have just merged those two distinct facts into a story.
That was an exercise involving MKIs and F-15s from memory, with the remarks made by F-15 pilots in relation to how they used past experience with F-22s in DACT to fly better against the MKIs (the similarity being the F-22s and MKIs both used TVC in some manners that could be exploited).
The MKIs in that instance only flew against F-15s.
Anyhow, the idea of the US allowing their 5th Gen fighters to do exercises with IAF fighters just seems a bit odd at this stage and imo doesn't pass the smell test.
I say this only partly tongue-in-cheek, but I don't think the smell test applies to the US. If it did, the Zumwalt wouldn't have survived the first design meeting.
Anyway, I see what you're getting at that this requires a significant degree of trust. I think that trust is there between China and Russia and will remain so for the foreseeable future (for at least as long as the J-20 remains sensitive technology and probably long after it's become obsolete). I would also agree that even given that trust the PLAAF would still want to hold its cards close to its chest, except for one thing: I think it also wants to show off. In fact, I think it's dying to do it.
Think about it, since 1949 until the Sino-Soviet split, the USSR was the richer, bigger, stronger, and better-looking older brother. Even after the split, Russia remained the dominant power in the Communist bloc - the admiration (or envy) was still there, it's just that added to it there was now acrimony.
Decades later and fortunes have changed. China is now the one, as the kids say, ballin'. You bet it wants to invite Russia over to the new house to get a look at all the new toys and drive the Lambo around! This kind of flex is a dream come true for all the old-timer generals in the PLA. That's why we hear reports of Russian soldiers getting up close and personal with all the new gear and the J-20 participating.
I actually am hoping for simulated air combats between the J-20 and Su-30SM. Since the Su-30SM is pretty much a MKI we’ll be able to figure out whether BS Dhanoa’s “several kilometers away” claim is factual
.p.s. Who am I kidding. A J-20 flown by a kid with less than 100 hours on the plane has a 17:0 kill ratio against a flanker.
- Status