antiterror13
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Here you go and now in 2022, likely J-20 numbers already surpassed F-22
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
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Here you go and now in 2022, likely J-20 numbers already surpassed F-22
You may want to refrain from the joys a little bit. About 15 years ago I had seen similar excitement about J10 production rate. If those calculations were true, we should see 1200-1500 J10s by now.
Not a great comparison.
15 years ago the scale of J-11B likely wouldn't have been expected, and certainly J-16 wasn't a thing back then.
And for the PLA, excessively large scale procurement of the smaller J-10 likely would not have been a very good idea.
In fact, we combine the number of domestically produced 4+ and 4.5 gen fighters overall (J-10 variants and SAC Flanker variants) from 15 years ago to now, you'd probably get to about the number of J-10s that would've been projected from back then.
That said, it's very possible that J-20 production rates may sustain at the current projected rate for too many years.
However, your comparison is flawed because the excitement about J-10 production rates from 15 years ago was made on the basis of simply "producing a domestic fighter" (of which only J-10 was available at the time), rather than "producing the best mixture of domestic fighters that will be available in the near future" (which they understandably wouldn't have been able to foresee back then).
The difference of course is that J-20 is a proper heavyweight fighter with the kind of range and persistence that the PLA actually needs in large numbers as a mainstay fighter, and while the J-10 is an excellent fighter and offers greater affordability and lower logistics and maintenance needs, it is notably far smaller compared to its Flanker equivalents with correspondingly greater range.
this kind of bring us to the question of whether a land based J31 is still going to be produced.
1st possibility is PLAAF will just keep producing J20 at current or higher rate and skip J31, which in the end will result in over 1000 J20 by 2030, combined with ～700 J11b/J16, PLAAF will have close to 2000 dual engine heavy fightets(!), plus the 300 J10b/c, total 2300 gen4.5/gen5. The composition is heavily tilted towards long range fighters.
Second is the current dramatic ramp up in J20 is an emergency respond to the geo politic situation. They could continue to produce at cuurent rate for several years but ramp down earlier, J31 production will kick in at later in the decade, which will result in a more balanced fleet.
3rd one is gen6 fighter will kick in earlier than 2030, which will natrually result in J20 production to ramp down in 2030 and J31 skpipped. What Yang Wei mentioned during the airshow few days ago could refer to that but we never know.
IMHO, first is more likely as J31 is too late to the game and PLA planner now dont have the luxary to wait for it
1st possibility is PLAAF will just keep producing J20 at current or higher rate and skip J31, which in the end will result in over 1000 J20 by 2030, combined with ～700 J11b/J16, PLAAF will have close to 2000 dual engine heavy fightets(!), plus the 300 J10b/c, total 2300 gen4.5/gen5. The composition is heavily tilted towards long range fighters.
Second is the current dramatic ramp up in J20 is an emergency respond to the geo politic situation. They could continue to produce at cuurent rate for several years but ramp down earlier, J31 production will kick in at later in the decade, which will result in a more balanced fleet.
3rd one is gen6 fighter will kick in earlier than 2030, which will natrually result in J20 production to ramp down in 2030 and J31 skpipped. What Yang Wei mentioned during the airshow few days ago could refer to that but we never know.
IMHO, first is more likely as J31 is too late to the game and PLA planner now dont have the luxary to wait for it
So, this becomes a much bigger question than J-20 itself, and if this discussion continues then it will have to be moved elsewhere.
I agree that it's possible 1000 J-20s may be produced by 2030 or early 2030s, and that production at that point would aim to be transitioned to 6th gen as well.
However, I am not sure if 1000 J-20s would be a sufficient number of 5th generation fighters while 6th gen kicks into gear.
By 2030, many of the older Flankers and even J-11Bs would likely need replacement.
Not to mention all of the PLA's 3rd gen fighters and JH-7As, and likely many of the J-10 variants before J-10C may be due for retirement or even not worth sustaining at that point.
All of which is to say, there may well be another good 800-1000 land based fighter aircraft that need replacement from 2025 to mid/late 2030s, on top of the demand for 1000 J-20s.
A land based J-XY/35 (I call it that instead of "J-31" or "FC-31" for now), could begin production around 2025-2027 alongside the standard carrier based J-XY/35, and continue production through to the mid or even late 2030s.
Or putting it a different way, in terms of active in production land based manned fighter aircraft types, between now and the mid/late 2030s:
2022-2025: J-20, J-16, J-10C
2025-2030: J-20, J-XY land based, cessation of J-16 and J-10C shortly after 2025(?)
2030-2035: cessation of J-20 shortly after 2030(?), J-XY land based, 6th gen
2035-2040: 6th gen, cessation of J-XY after mid to late 2030s (?)
That said, the above is also all very dependent on:
- when 6th gen is ready
- how will MUMT/loyal wingman UAVs/UCAVs influence manned fighter procurement
- just what the actual production rate of J-20 and when the readiness of J-XY/35 and its land based variant will be
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my opinion is J10 had higher chances of going into 100+ pa production rate than J20 has now. E.g., J10 had a matching engine from the beginning, whereas J20’s proper engine is still not ready yet. In the end , J10 as a light fighter never exceeded 60 pa. For J20 to go over than 60, I find it very hard to believe, unless China is truely preparing a final show down within next 5 years.
In my view, J20 still has 12-15 years of production run, 40-60 pa rate is more likely.
In my view, J20 still has 12-15 years of production run, 40-60 pa rate is more likely.
I think I observed something cool about the J-20 video in this video:
You can see there is a very subtle jitter whenever J-20 starts to pull more AoA and vortex starts to form, and then very soon the motion smoothed out. My guess is that at the start of vortex formation there is a lot of turbulence that flight control fight a little to control, and then vortex flow stabilize and lift is dominated by vortex flow.
If true it is a testament of how much a "vortex fighter" J-20 is, it almost feels like the vortex is sucking the plane upwards...
I suspect the J-20 will be replaced by a 6th gen sooner rather than later. Once the WS-15 engine enters production if it has TVC I do not think the current airframe design with the canards and closely coupled engines will be that optimal anymore. The J-20 production line might then be switched over to build some twin-seater J-20 variant to replace the J-16.
I think you partly have the factors mixed up. I think that both engine availability, and size, should favour J-20 to be produced in larger numbers, and it also explains why J-10 was produced in smaller numbers.
In terms of engine availability, the J-10 was arguably much more limited in terms of expanding production rate (even if they wanted to) due to engines, given they had to use imported engines until WS-10 was ready for mass production J-10s by the late 2010s.
OTOH, for J-20, it has been using WS-10C since the late 2010s, and by all indications while it is not as capable as WS-15 will be, its performance is already sufficient for J-20 to be considered very capable for its intended mission set, due to the fact that the strengths of J-20 will not greatly change when it adopts a more capable engine in context of priorities of modern aerial warfare.
Meanwhile, WS-10C appears to be able to be produced at a rate that is able to match J-20 airframe production.
In terms of size, the smaller size of J-10 means that it has smaller payload, but more importantly smaller combat radius and persistence. By the mid to late 2000s it should have become very obvious that the PLA's future air warfighting needs will have to be significantly carried out at long ranges -- potentially thousands of kilometers outside of Chinese territorial airspace. That means you need a fighter with as much combat radius as possible. That's why since the mid/late 2000s, the PLA has bought as many J-11B family and J-16 fighters as they did J-10 variant fighters. In fact, depending on how one counts it, the PLA has bought more domestic Flankers in that time than they did J-10 variant fighters, and that is in addition to the imported fleets of Su-27SK/J-11A/Su-30MKK/MK2 and Su-35s.
In other words -- the PLA's current fleet of "heavyweight long range" fighters (aka Flankers) is quite a bit larger than their fleet of J-10 family fighters, and that is by design.
J-20, as a heavyweight fighter, is able to actually reach out and persist at long distances for what the PLA actually needs for contemporary high end conflict. It would make quite a lot of sense to procure large numbers of it.
Certainly, the idea of J-20 annual production rate outstripping J-10 annual production rate in terms of engine availability and desirability from perspective of size, shouldn't be too surprising.
No matter how we look at it, the PLA's demand for J-20s is likely far, far higher than what it ever was for J-10.
The only question is whether they can scale it up and how quickly they can do so.
J-16 doesn't necessarily need a twin seater J-20S to replace it wholesale.
J-16's advancement over pre-existing single seat Flankers (like J-11B, even upgraded J-11BG) rests largely in its overhauled avionics system and networking capabilities. The second pilot and greater structural enhancement for payload and internal fuel are all very useful, but are less decisive.
Continued iterative single seat J-20 production (with iterative improvements like WS-15 powered, newer production methods and iterative new subsystems and software) alongside twin seat J-20 production (with similar iterative improvements) would be perfectly fine to continue overhauling the heavyweight fighter fleet by then.
The time in which the 6th gen fighter can replace J-20 in production entirely depends on when the 6th gen fighter itself is ready, rather than when WS-15 is ready.
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