J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

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ZeEa5KPul

ZeEa5KPul

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tphuang said:
The J-20 two seater should have the most advanced layout. We should not expect J-20II to have the same. We know J-20II did have some interior changes, since that's what CAC said. However, they did start testing it in 2017. A lot of subsystems available when J-20 two seater was being developed were probably not available when J-20II design was frozen.
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I see. Do you expect further improvements to the J-20II immediately or will that be frozen until a J-20III with WS-15s?
 
tphuang

tphuang

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ZeEa5KPul said:
I see. Do you expect further improvements to the J-20II immediately or will that be frozen until a J-20III with WS-15s?
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It looks like j20iii is already flying. So I would assume they have frozen the design at this point.

It really doesn't make sense to make any layout changes to j20iii after this point. At some point, maybe they will have another major redesign, but it won't be for another 4 or 5 years. I don't know if there will be enough new technology appearing that will warrant such a change. Keep in mind they can keep upgrading subsystems to newer versions.

At this point, the most important part of engineering for CAC is to continue to improve its production process. Large aerospace companies like Airbus and Boeing spend a lot of R&D every year with the goal of just improving the quality, lowering the cost and increasing the output of their production lines. With J-10 production handed off to Guizhou, now CAC can optimize its entire factory to more efficiently produce J-20s. Production quality is so important in keeping up the stealth part of 5th generation aircraft.
 
Blitzo

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tphuang said:
The J-20 two seater should have the most advanced layout. We should not expect J-20II to have the same. We know J-20II did have some interior changes, since that's what CAC said. However, they did start testing it in 2017. A lot of subsystems available when J-20 two seater was being developed were probably not available when J-20II design was frozen.
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While I expect the J-20S to have the requisite modifications to support and enable the second seat in the cockpit, in terms of avionics systems (i.e.: including the actual physical hardware but also the software, everything from mission computers, to sensors, to datalinks), I would personally be surprised if there was any meaningful difference from J-20S to current in production J-20As.
J-20S would certainly have the tweaks to allow the second copilot/mission controller to use those same sensors and mission computers on its display consoles, but beyond that "duplication of key functions" I can't see why the systems would be different.


After all, looking from the outside the size of the various sensor apertures (and indeed the overall aircraft) looks identical between J-20A and J-20S save for one or two relocations likely related to the space rearrangement for the larger cockpit.

But any new advancement in avionics hardware or software should very easily be as useful for J-20A as for J-20S, and should fit in the same physical footprint as well.
 
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