Yes and it's considered a "large" aircraft, with a MOTW ~200 tons, no?
Therefore it should have similar technologies to commercial aircraft, no?
Kind of hard to define sophistication for transport planes...
Crew safety features, defensive features, radar, avionics, engines.... etc etc etc.
Asymptote, let me ask this. If you think the chinese aerospace industry is so infantile, then why didn't they ask for (significant) help from the Russians for the J-20?
Its political reason. Contrary to popular belief, in my opinion, Russian never invited China to participated in the 5th generation fighter design. Russian has much deep rooted fear about China due to misguided historical reason. So Russian instead cooperated with India. I think this really piss off China in some way, and you can see all the projects Russian help China on are not that strategically critical (I think that heavy lift helicopter project is the only thing left now?) - while the projects Russian cooperated with India all are at the forefront of the technologies with significant strategic importance - PAK FA, BrahMos, MTA (Multirole Transport Aircraft), GLONASS, T-90S, INS Vikramaditya, Akula-II, Tu-22M3...etc). Essentially, China is been left out, Russian is given China the cold shoulder and the Chinese leadership recognize this - you might retort and say the latest "cooperations" between Russia and China have been very close in past few years, but that's just posturing. There is little substance to these posturing. All those "friendship Pact" or "Bilateral Understanding" have very little substance in geostrategic term. China essentially has shifted from cooperating with Russia to cooperating with Ukraine because Russia is practically stopping all cooperation with China. All critical systems and designs are now coming from Ukraine - a country that is "at odd" (or sort of cold war) with Russia right now.
Let me pre empt you here and say that you will say something along the lines of "Well I don't think J-20 is that advanced and isn't in the class with F-22 and PAK FA", etc, in reply.
My subsequent reply would be to assume J-20, in its final operational configuratio will be in the class of the F-22, from VLO to sensor fusion and aesa, to supercruise (the final configuration probably won't be too different, anyway. They've stated how they wanted to match the F-22 over and over)...
I like to believe J-20 will be as advance, or even
MORE advance than F-22. But I think that would be just wishful thinking for now. Its one thing to "wish" for something unattainable, its another to make it attainable. Look at the abandon J-9 project - China wish for a super sonic interceptor in the same class as Mig-31, but China was just too far behind the technology curve at the time it simply didn't even know where to start to make it reality.
J-20 might look like its flying now, but we have absolutely
NO IDEA of its capabilities and sophistication at this point. It could just be a flying airframe for all we know. The real war fighting capabilities is not something we can deduce from just looking you know. Sensor suites, radar, engines, BVR missiles etc etc these are the things that really matter too.
So why didn't they get more external help, but are asking for ventures with foreign companies for commercial jets? Because they're commercial jets, and they're expected to sell to not only domestic customers duh. And we all know how powerful brand name is. If the whole aircraft was "made in china" then there'd prolly be a few less buyers than there already is.
That is a valid reason too - brand name and brand image.
But more than anything else, I think Chinese aviation industries is just lacking behind generally, but in term of developmental organizational structures, China is seriously lacking - and I think that's why China wants to partner with the west - to learn about the procedures, and organizational / system thinking like in the west.
China has to shift from "centrally planned" research funding paradigm to a privatized competition based paradigm. Most of the most critical researches are still coming out from government funded research labs and universities. While same can be said it is the same in the west and developed countries, but the percentage is not the same, as many western conglomerates are fully capable of funding its own research independently. It is organic vs planned. So when it comes to defence industries, Let's put it this way, American/EU can source from wide ranging technologies and products from the "eco-system" they created - from avionics, missiles, radars, software, stealth materials, robotic maintenance tech etc etc, while China has to rely on its government funded "research institutes". There are very few (there are beginning to have some now, but most of them are in relative low sophiscation)
private defense conglomerates in China that Chinese military can source its technologies to solve its problem from. American on the other hand have so many privatized "help" the government can source from, the whole country is practically moving towards total privatization - from private military contractors (PMC - Blackwater/Xe) to private strategic think tanks.
Lion already mentioned something about US parts may give the aircraft a bigger chance in the US and Europe etc as well... It's also ridiculous to assume every single AVIC company is at the same level. There are players from all over the field, and it's ridiculous to assume every company as the same level of sophistication as CAC, SAC or XAC. It's also a bit stupid to think that AVIC would contribute companies like those which I named to develop civilian aircraft when they're so much more valuable as military contractors, and other smaller companies could use the foreign expertise which the big players don't need.
Basically I'm saying if you wanted a vanity commercial aircraft that's wholly "made in china" you can get CAC, SAC and XAC together and they can come up with something, but it'll take time which they could spend doing something else.
Besides having smaller, up and starting companies work with foreign ones give them more experience and know how, which will in turn foster greater competition in local manufacturers in the medium to long term.
Again, this is what I am getting at....with so many aircraft companies - for some reason China just cannot get upto the same level of sophistication and resources as western companies. All of CAC, SAC, XAC..etc etc combine will divert the focus from more critical defense project (even you agree) - means AVIC / Chinese aviation industries as whole lacks design talents, manpower, and breadths of research. This is a inherent organizational problem at systemic level. Compare to the west, where Boeing / Airbus / Lockheed can take on
multiple highly sophisticated, high risk projects on its own, and source from wide ranging affiliated partners and subsidiaries.... China simply just can't do that. Yet.
Let me give you an example. The ballistic missile / rocket program for example, are sourced from hundreds of companies, even every "
stage" of the rocket is made by a different company drawing from its own specialization and research/patents - eg. Boeing maybe for 3rd stage, Martin Marietta for 2nd stage, TRW for 1st etc..etc.. I think
ALL the chinese rockets are manufactured by CALT.
The stealth fighter projects is the same - its a high risk, highly sophiscated project. The original F-22 wasn't just made by Lockheed. Lockheed
LED the project. There were hundreds of companies under guidance of Lockheed and provided products, technologies, solutions to the project that led to the eventual success of Lockheed winning the project. Oh yeh, and Lockheed wasn't the ONLY ONE in the competition too.... Lockheed Martin was in competition with Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrop, and McDonnell Douglas. American aviation industries has so many talents they can actually create multiple teams to compete with each other! That's what it means to have a huge talent pool. I heard a lot forum posters deriding me for saying "China don't need to have competitive bidding system like American". I think that's just short sighted to think that way.
ATF (F-22) competition airframe designs from various companies / proposals
And it's not like all of AVIC are pouring their guts into every individual program, whether it's military or commercial, either... It's like saying the makers of the J-20 is AVIC.
I know it sounds stupid when I imply that,
but CAC is part of AVIC. It shares the same resources with all the other companies in this group. Do you think Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing share their own technologies/patents with each other? They don't even share their own private laboratories!
Let me give you another example. The J-20's WS-15 engine - is going to be sourced from SAC. SAC! The same company CAC is in supposedly in direct competition with! Since engine is critical component that's linked to so many other sub-systems and design of the aircrafts (power output to the radar/avionics/FBW/sensors/FADEC, aerodynamics), both SAC and CAC practically have to work together intimately to be able to make WS-15 fit in J-20. So is it far fetch to say they are all just part of each other?
