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J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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It is so blurry that you can’t really tell.
Anyone has an idea of what this shows? 1 engine seems to be only powered
Could be a fake. Could be the WS-15. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
this may be getting to scifi levels, but wouldn't it make sense for some sort of exoskeleton style mechanical support to be provided where some of the weight is born by the airframe?
Likely fake. Why is the engine exhaust glow off center ?
Also, we have a similar image released months ago ( with a single orange glow exhaust ) of J20 that led people to speculate bigly. There is the mystery of the single engine TVC J20 too. Are all these that same aircraft ? The images have surfaced roughly in the same timeframe.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Theoretically possible, but we are nowhere near there in term of tech yet.
The core problems are caused by just how flexible the neck is, and how to determine which movements to support.
The neck can twist and bend a lot, so it’s very hard to design any kind of support that doesn’t inhibit movement on some way while still being able to provide powered support for all movements, and that’s the easier problem to solve.
The bigger issue is how is the neck support going to know which movements it needs to assist in me which ones to resist? I think that is going to be nearly impossible to do accurately and seamlessly without some sort of neural link.
Once you get all of that working, you then need to miniaturist it enough it can be worn around the neck; make it able to withstand 9Gs; and also ensure it doesn’t rip the pilot’s head off during ejections. And even if you can do all that, how much is this neck support going to cost?
I don’t see anything like that being operationally ready for decades to come, if ever.
Much better to make lighter HMD instead, and that’s the direction everyone seems to going, and I think it will only be a matter of time before HMDs are make light enough as to be no different to conventional flight helmets.
The key differences seems to be that China is being realistic and practical in limiting its use until that time, while the US has over promised and under delivered without a fallback options so pilots are suffering.
broadsword
Brigadier
A better sci-fi method would do away with the HMD. Sensors will read the brainwaves without physically touching the head and the display will follow the head movement as well.
That sounds like something that needs a few decades. Gen 7 or 8 maybe?
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