I share the same thoughts....im not buying the whole drag performance improvisation with a back hump ROFL. Both F35 and J35 did it mainly because for extended combat radius, and they need to maximize all the internal fuel storage capacity to achieve that.
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
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Can’t speak for F35 but J-35’s spine change is at least in a large part due to aerodynamic gains. Last summer there was a paper that talked about the aerodynamic changes on the J35 in some detail, and regarding the spine it did say that drag reduction by filling up low-pressure areas is the main cause for the design change.
Check here (J-XY - maybe J-35 - next generation carrier-borne fighter) for the paper in question, part 3.1 is about the canopy redesign.
It's possible the artist just jumped the gun a little and talking about the future "aspirations".
With these sort of fast paced developments there will always be contradictory information before clear images come out, and we probably won't have the full timeline sorted out until a couple days after the fact, if that.
Well, the picture released by @飞舞的摩羯 today is a J-20 with modified shape and 2 WS-10C, and @Oneninety said that 2012 was equipped with another type of engine. The commenter asked if he had installed two WS-15, and he replied that one WS-15 was installed.
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I think so. Saw some message records of a guy claiming that there has been high quality photos of this for a few days. He also said that the prototype is NOT powered by ws15 and pinpointed the areas with modifications to canopy&back, side sensors and dsi bumps. Don’t know how credible this person is, but what he said somewhat correlates with what we’ve seen so far.
Personally, I’m dying to see this high-quality photo.
Me too ... by the way, one of my contacts agreed, that the rear section behind the cockpit received some refinements similar to the J-35's different spine and he noted, that this particular aircraft is prototype number "2051" ... but what's then 2041 since the twin-seater is 2031/2032?
well if this modified J-20 variant powered by WS-10C, it means WS-10C is capable of surpercruiser or just that prototype ⟨modified variant⟩ is for testing for future WS-15 engine.
Also seen people saying that the new hump has similar design origins (so to speak) as the J-35, but I’ve yet to see any evidence other than superficial visual similarities. As for 2041 it’s anybody’s guess at this point… personally I have no idea other than possibly a TVC testbed (but CAC seems to have been using older prototypes as engine testbeds, so building a new one and specifically naming it 2041 makes very little sence)
p.s. here’s the chat record I mentioned. It’s in Chinese but essentially what I said before.
well if this modified J-20 variant powered by WS-10C, it means WS-10C is capable of surpercruiser or just that prototype ⟨modified variant⟩ is for testing for future WS-15 engine.
If this J-20 is powered by WS-10C as they're saying, it doesn't say anything about whether it can sueprcruise or not.
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