J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

Three cool images for the weekend.

Excellent footage from Zhuhai.

Upclose photos of J-20 two seater vs the J-20 that was at Zhuhai airshow. He says that J-20S here is showing better workmanship with smaller rivets, gaps and less unevenness. I do think the single seater is more zoomed in and have been in service for a while, so not 100% convinced this is the case. The rivets does seem smaller and surface does seem to be more even from my very bad eyes.

tphuang said:

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Upclose photos of J-20 two seater vs the J-20 that was at Zhuhai airshow. He says that J-20S here is showing better workmanship with smaller rivets, gaps and less unevenness. I do think the single seater is more zoomed in and have been in service for a while, so not 100% convinced this is the case. The rivets does seem smaller and surface does seem to be more even from my very bad eyes.

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Could just be a function of lower resolution photos. I think people are doing too much pixel peeping.

Two more.

tphuang said:

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Upclose photos of J-20 two seater vs the J-20 that was at Zhuhai airshow. He says that J-20S here is showing better workmanship with smaller rivets, gaps and less unevenness. I do think the single seater is more zoomed in and have been in service for a while, so not 100% convinced this is the case. The rivets does seem smaller and surface does seem to be more even from my very bad eyes.

Click to expand...

j20 airframes with primer on has basically always been of that build quality, using one airframe with only primer on and another with additional RAM coatings is borderline bullshit from the original poster on Weibo imo

I don't think the rivets are smaller, just that the coating stops short of directly covering the rivets. So you are comparing a circle around a point and a point. It's possible that the rivets are the same size and the "roughness" in workmanship is just the result of an extra RAM layer on top.

TK3600 said:

There is always possibility USAF cannibalize existing JSDF air base to put high hundreds of F-35 and NGAD to counter J-20. I think sufficient J-20 to utterly overwhelm Japan and keep up pressure elsewhere in 2030s needs to be in thousand range.

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Yeah, and I'm sure china already has all the coordinates for every single one of Japan's military bases and big runways near air/military bases, with missiles all pre aimed and zeroed on those bases.

Too early to speculate. China should just keep building up to at least like 6-700 in like 5-10 years time and then see how good drones and ai can get. Also while continuing to build j-11, j-16, j-31/j-35 and j10c and later variants. Keep upgrading and building all of them. Variety is good, just one plane is putting all your eggs in one basket and will make you easier to counter. Even usa knows it can't just mass f35's, since they are too expensive to use and maintain for normal daily regular use. It's like going to local shop down the street in your Ferrari.

Maybe china can develop an even stealthier design that works purely as a command and control center for drones. And is a missile truck that can shoot long range missiles using drones networked targeting info. Ie chinas long range stealth bomber. Those would probably be better if you wanna bomb Japan.

I don't think cruise missile can make Japanese airbase magically disappear. It could paralyse them in the opening salvo but they can be repaired for cheap. At some point you either need to suppress them normally with bombers and J-20 escort or take them on land. This is why I still think J-20 in thousand range is crucial.

tphuang said:

View attachment 102169View attachment 102170
Upclose photos of J-20 two seater vs the J-20 that was at Zhuhai airshow. He says that J-20S here is showing better workmanship with smaller rivets, gaps and less unevenness. I do think the single seater is more zoomed in and have been in service for a while, so not 100% convinced this is the case. The rivets does seem smaller and surface does seem to be more even from my very bad eyes.

Click to expand...

Unless there are glaring issues with the manufacturing process, can you actually tell build quality from photos? Like I could understand if some screws were missing and you had like one inch panel gaps or something along those lines, but how much can really be learned from this type of photo analysis?