SamuraiBlue
Captain
Here is an article that some may agree.
It's not about the quality but the ability to make them in quantity.
It's not about the quality but the ability to make them in quantity.
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Why shall anyone agree? Its again SCMP even if I'm surprised that not again from Minnie Chan.
Anyway that report refers to "This type of five-plane formation was seen for the first time in the video to mark Lunar New Year." which is plain wrong, since we've seen exactly the same video already some time (I think more than a year) ago and also it points towards "problems with the jets' engines delayed production plans" ... which were not mentioned anywhere else.
So in my opinion it is nothing more than once again a report headed by a sensational headline, pasted together from a few rumours and guesswork and the rest is either wrong or unfounded.
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In theory the J-20 production shouldn't be that difficult; in the worst case scenario you can just have multiple assembly lines. But in practice, we have below 100 confirmed J-20s despite the J-20 being roughly locked since 2017.
The controlling factor is likely that the PLAAF is not yet satisfied with the beta versions and would rather mass produce a relatively mature fighter than something that needs to be expensively upgraded.
well, one other thing people may overlook is that CAC is located pretty close to the city center of Chendu, a city with 15M+ people, so they don't have space to build more factories for more assembly lines, that's why they were building a new factory outside city these days.
So here we have two nonsensical points my friend:
#1 In theory the J-20 production shouldn't that difficult? now what kind of statement is that, 5th generation aircraft require precision far beyond what most countries in the world are capable of, really "shouldn't be that difficult"??
#2 We have below 100 confirmed J-20's despite the J-20 being roughly locked since 2017??? in truth, we have 18 confirmed serialed production birds at present, there could indeed be more, being conservative say 1/2 dozen?? well below 100 units, yes some people love to tell us there are many, many more, but lets stick to confirmed serials... no one here is suggesting there are 900 or 1000 F-35's flying about??? are they??? so lets stick to reality...
The J-20 is an extremely complex aircraft, the FCS alone should give you nightmares? yet they've managed very well, but the large quantities of intricate systems and precise construction are exactly the reason that no one in Europe has flown a single production 5th Gen that is Eurocentric???
The Chinese are in fact doing very well with a very difficult project...
Put another way, China can already build at least 1 J-20. This project can be scaled up repeatedly with assembly lines and so on. As I've said before, China has roughly a need for 400-600 J-20s (at least) to counter regional F-35s. The faster the F-35s come out, the faster J-20s need to come out and the F-35 is already in full-scale production with between 150 and 200 built per year.
Consider the statement below.
Arguably as useful would be:
1. land-based missiles with a range of less than 2000km
2. GJ-11 stealth attack aircraft
China probably won't hit FRP until they are satisfied that they can field a formidable fighter, which makes logical sense given how meticulous they are at planning. They also don't want to rock the boat. If they started mass producing J-20s, it would give the US MIC exactly what they need to push forward anti-China national security initiatives.
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