J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

Centrist said:

It is not a tech demonstrator, that is proven through and through. The J-20 is a prototype.

The YF-22 tech demonstrator flew in 1990. That is not the J-20 equivalent. Rather, the J-20 is comparable to the first F-22 prototype which flew in 1997.

The YF-22 demonstrator was only built because the US government couldn't decide which design to go with (the F-23 or F-22).

The J-20 is the final design, it is already chosen, there is no competitor. It is a prototype.

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Well said.

EDIATH said:

By the way a weapon is designed with specific purposes on designers' minds. J20's lack of all-direction stealthy capability may suggest they don't intend to use it for penetrative missions at all. So is Russia's PAK FA (they are more like defensive weapons comparing with F-22, are they designed to neutralize threats from F-22 in the first place?). To evaluate fighters without referring to their specific mission environments is awfully silly I reckon.

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The only real problem on the J-20s all aspect stealth is the round engine nozzles -- almost everything else is as good as you can expect. The rear/underside is flat and smooth, there are serrations -- including on the round engine nozzles!! I see no reason why the J-20, or even the PAK FA and F-35 can't perform penetrative missions into air defense systems.

And I don't understand what you're trying to say in that post... because the J-20 and PAK FA both have great potential to be offensive weapons and obviously look so, just from their sheer size.

I don't want to get into a pointless arguement with that Hendrik guy. By saying the chip was not made in China, I meant Loongson, which is manufactured by STM or just ST. They don't have any fabs in China, so it is impossible that it's manufactured there. Tianhe doesn't even use Loongson at the moment, it uses another chip, and IT IS designed by the National Defense University. It is called "飞腾". Do you research before instantly accusing someone of making false claims.

Asymptote is pretty biased and ignorant when talking about China. He went from thinking that all Chinese are short to Chinese are dumber than Americans, to nothing is good about China.

As for J-20, when I said that J-20 is not on par with F-22, I meant the overall ability might not meet those of F-22. But this does not that it is not in the same class as F-22. A Mclaren on the F1 track might not be as good as a Ferrari (from quick view of last 20 years, not exact, just rough estimation), it is still just almost as good, and they are in the same tier. Whereas Sauber, can never dream of winning a championship, or in most cases, even a race.

What makes Ferrari that little bit better is its experience and history, spanning the whole history of modern F1. Mclarens is a little bit shorter. A lot of times, the Ferrari engineers are able to make better decisions and initiate better race strategies, even when their cars were inferior to Mclaren's at certain stages.

The same applies to F-22. The American air force went through countless wars since WWII. This gave them the experience in prioritizing the most important features on a jet, whereas the Chinese only fought one war against Vietnam, which its air force barely did much. Again going back to the city boy vs country boy analogy, the country boy would live in the jungle better simply because he has more experience.

But to asymptote, US does have a stronger technological foundation, but Chinese value education much more than Westerners do. The Chinese culture and the society are based on education, especially the Confucius ideologies. In Chinese culture, education is much more important than wealth, and the traditional belief is that a man would rather be poor than being uneducated. If it wasn't because of the chaos happening over the last 150 years, China would be far far better off than it is now. America was going uphill for the last century and half, China was going downhill.

So asymptote, before commenting on Chinese affairs, you should do what the Chinese prioritize over money. Like Sun Tzu once said, 'know your enemy like yourself'. One must know the stuff before he talks, or else he just makes an ass of himself.

To centrist

Guess I was carried away by the impression on how the first J10 back in 1998 evolved into the 2004 production model. Anyways I used the phrase "early prototype" as there is still the engine issue to address for J20's designers.

I still don't see the point of comparing the bird with F-22 at the moment, or any other fighters in service. People can't even agree on the size if it! Let alone any other important technical aspects.

The only I'm pretty sure about is it's designed to take on F-22 & F-35 once entering service in PLAAF, just intuition.

EDIATH said:

to asymptote:

Supercruise has nothing to do with dog fight mate, because one does not "cruise" during dog fight & going too fast will simply lose your target. It's all up to aerodynamic agility, aam as well as pilots' ability to lock on & fire fast. Stealth is completely useless during dog fights, which is within visual range in case you don't know, considering the sensitivity of modern ir seekers. With the same weapon & electronic suite F-22 would hardly fare better against F-15 etc.

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I highly doubt that. In several exercises, the F-22 was shown to have 30:1 kill ratio to F-15s and the only reason why F-22 was shot down is because it ran out of bullets.




From the article:
"No U.S. airplane--or any other in the world--can match the F-22 in a dogfight during combat training. To get experience in realistic battle conditions, Raptor pilots--always the Blue Team-- are training with U.S. pilots who serve as adversaries, or "Red Teams." Last week, Raptor pilots finished training against Navy F-15s and F/A-18 Super Hornets in Japan. From February through April, Nellis hosts F-22s at the 2009 Red Flag wargames, a six-week, multinational training exercise held at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska and at Nellis.

F-22s dominate at Red Flag as well. Red Teams flying F-16s and F-15s take them on. Those who train to be the adversaries at Red Flag belong to the 64th and 65th Aggressor squadrons. These seasoned Red Team veterans find it frustrating to fight what they can't see. "Aggressor pilots are not typical Air Force line units. They tend to have much more experience," says Mike Estrada, a spokesman at the air base. "And I can tell you that our Aggressor pilots are getting very tired of always getting shot down by the F-22."

The reputation of the Raptor is evident in the pride that some take in downing one in simulated combat. A photo surfaced on an aviation website that recently caused a stir when the unnamed pilot of a surveillance aircraft said the silhouette of a warplane he painted on his fuselage was an F-22 that he helped locate and shoot down during an exercise. "Some Navy pilots like to brag if they even lock on to a Raptor," says one Air Force officer."




That means, in dog fights, stealth still matters. All 4th generation fighter aircrafts have difficulty to even lock on to F-22 during dogfight.

Super cruise still matters - higher acceleration and flying speed without using after burner means F-22 can fly away while the opponent needs to engage the afterburner just to give chase which means they will run out of fuel sooner.

The plane we call J20 is no more than a techno. demonstrator or early prototype, the same as YF-22 over 20 years ago. The only thing we know for sure is the final product will not be what we witness today. Without knowing the engine, sensor or weapons on board J20, your argument hasn't got a leg to stand on.

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Well, a lot of people say J-20 is NOT a tech demonstrator, its almost a finishing product (Not my word, a lot of people say it in the forum).

While I hold the opinion that J-20 is still a experimental design in progress. I am sure they will have to work out all the problem eventually.

EDIATH said:

By the way a weapon is designed with specific purposes on designers' minds. J20's lack of all-direction stealthy capability may suggest they don't intend to use it for penetrative missions at all. So is Russia's PAK FA (they are more like defensive weapons comparing with F-22, are they designed to neutralize threats from F-22 in the first place?). To evaluate fighters without referring to their specific mission environments is awfully silly I reckon.

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So what do you think the J-20's mission profile is? A fighter bomber? Sea interdiction?
If CAC doesn't fix its rear stealth management, the only conclusion we can come to is that its a kamikaze suicide fighter then. I am joking I am joking... It probably use the tactic of "shoots than scoots" for anti-shipping (which majority of the analysts believe that is the mission profile of J-20).

Bltizo said:

Well said.



The only real problem on the J-20s all aspect stealth is the round engine nozzles -- almost everything else is as good as you can expect. The rear/underside is flat and smooth, there are serrations -- including on the round engine nozzles!! I see no reason why the J-20, or even the PAK FA and F-35 can't perform penetrative missions into air defense systems.

And I don't understand what you're trying to say in that post... because the J-20 and PAK FA both have great potential to be offensive weapons and obviously look so, just from their sheer size.

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Matter of perspective I suppose, judging from the massive space between engine bays on PAK FA, it's probably only capable enough (by itself) to penetrate into Georgia's air defense system, yet that's how much stealthy Russian engineers want it to be. F-22 is on the other end of spectron for this matter, it's supposed to survived even the highest level of air defense (e.g. Cold war soviet territory). I reckon demands for J20 lie somewhere in the middle, not flying over another major country without being detected yet being able to counter the challenge posed by other stealthy fighter from China's neighborhood head on. The bottom line is, J20 doesn't need to be highly stealthy from behind, because the entire system (particular from ground) will make sure there wouldn't be any threat from behind.

Asymptote said:

So what do you think the J-20's mission profile is? A fighter bomber? Sea interdiction?
If CAC doesn't fix its rear stealth management, the only conclusion we can come to is that its a kamikaze suicide fighter then. I am joking I am joking... It probably use the tactic of "shoots than scoots" for anti-shipping (which majority of the analysts believe that is the mission profile of J-20).

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Very simple, primarily air-defense against other stealthy fighters invading from the neighbouring area, in such a mission environment J20 will enjoy support from the whole air denfence system in China. Secondly, to secure air control/superiority within certain range from the chinese border, which would again be supported by the system on Chinese ground. F-22 type of deep penetration missions would only be performed under very specific circumstance e.g. threat from enemy's air defence is immaterial...India? Just kidding

EDIATH said:

I admit the comment about F-22 not faring better against F-15 etc. is over the top. However, I would not attribute the difficulty of locking on F-22 during dog fight to its stealthiness. Back in Vietnam war even F-4 pilots experienced difficulty locking on MiG-19s during dog fights. It's agility of the fighter offers such advantage. The aerodynamic design of F-22 was imbued with thrust vectoring to achieve "super maneuverability" in the first place, plus the one-generation-ahead F119 engine, it's not surprising at all that F-22 dominates close-in combats.

The usefulness of supercruise in disengaging (or engaging) enemy doesn't say much about its usefulness during the dog fight, which lasts by seconds. No fighter can outrun an AAM during close-in combat (out-manoeuvre it is a possibility in theory). It's the interaction among various & conflicting factors concerning the status of your flight including altitude, speed, turning performance etc. offers you the edge to secure a score. That's not to say supercruise is not important, on the contrary, it offers great advantage in BVR, in which ever increasing scenarios of air combats occur.

Again, nobody can say much about J20's stealthiness or supercruise ability without knowing what materials are used to build it or its engine performance and so on. Let's just sit tight and wait for more info. on this.

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In my opinion, I think supercruise would offer HUGE ADVANTAGE in dogfight. Most 4th generation fighters without supercruise fly at Mach 1, while F-22 being able to fly at Mach 1.82, would mean it can maneuver at that speed without engaging afterburner. That's almost twice the speed of 4th generation fighter, it means, F-22 CAN FLY CIRCLES AROUND F-15 while F-15 has to engage afterburner just to break off from the chasing F-22. This is liken to the WWII era P-51 Mustang vs Mitsubishi Zero, which Mustang ran circle around it due to almost doubling the flight speed. The Zeros looked like its standing still to the Mustangs and were practically sitting ducks to them.


If you ever played any flight sim you will understand, if two aircrafts are equal in maneuverability (F-22 vs F-15, which it is not), the one with twice the flying speed would always trump the one with lower flying speed. Because the one slower will never be able to catch up when it is in most critical point of dogfighting/maneuvering, the one faster can climb faster and dive faster, and it can also choose to break away. And the slower one will never be able to break away when the faster one give chase.

Asymptote said:

In my opinion, I think supercruise would offer HUGE ADVANTAGE in dogfight. Most 4th generation fighters without supercruise fly at Mach 1, while F-22 being able to fly at Mach 1.82, would mean it can maneuver at that speed without engaging after burner. That's almost twice the speed of 4th generation fighter, it means, F-22 CAN FLY CIRCLES AROUND F-15 while F-15 has to engage after burner just to break off from the chasing F-22. This is liken to the WWII era P-51 Mustang vs Mitsubishi Zero, which Mustang ran circle around it due to almost doubling the flight speed. The Zeros looked like its standing still to the Mustangs and were practically sitting ducks to them.


If you ever played any flight sim you will understand, if two aircrafts are equal in maneuverability (F-22 vs F-15, which it is not), the one with twice the flying speed would always trump the one with lower flying speed. Because the one slower will never be able to catch up when it is in most critical point of dogfighting/maneuvering, while the one faster can choose to break away. And the slower one will never be able to break away when the faster one give chase.

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I very much doubt F-22 can manoeuvre at a 1.8 mach speed, as that's what dog fight is about. no matter how fast you can fly straight or near straight, you still need to do abrupt turns and climbs to change the relative position from that of enemy aircraft (that's where thrust vectoring comes to play). The simplest flight route is also the easiest for your opponent to track then fire at you. Dog fights conducted with cannons ages ago is not indicative of how modern ones employing short range AAMs work out.

EDIATH said:

I very much doubt F-22 can manoeuvre at a 1.8 mach speed, as that's what dog fight is about. no matter how fast you can fly straight or near straight, you still need to do abrupt turns and climbs to change the relative position from that of enemy aircraft (that's where thrust vectoring comes to play). The simplest flight route is also the easiest for your opponent to track then fire at you. Dog fights conducted with cannons ages ago is not indicative of how modern ones employing short range AAMs work out.

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Well, you are assuming F-22 cannot maneuver at Mach 1.82. That's one assumption we don't know.
Also, climbing faster gives a big advantage in dogfight because you are out of the view of the chasing fighter, who cannot climb as fast as you. Also, even in this day and age, missiles still requires pilot to manually lock on - so, if you cannot even keep the F-22 in view when its climbing faster than you, there is no hope of even locking on to it. And I think that's exactly the dilemma F-15 and F-18 pilots faced when they were engaging F-22 in Red Flags.

Asymptote said:

Well, you are assuming F-22 cannot maneuver at Mach 1.82. That's one assumption we don't know.
Also, climbing faster gives a big advantage in dogfight because you are out of the view of the chasing fighter, who cannot climb as fast as you. Also, even in this day and age, missiles still requires pilot to manually lock on - so, if you cannot even keep the F-22 in view when its climbing faster than you, there is no hope of even locking on to it. And I think that's exactly the dilemma F-15 and F-18 pilots faced when they were engaging F-22 in Red Flags.

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No it's not an assumption, just laws of physics. You'll figure it out if you compare how fast you can run with how fast you can change the course of your action, the two measures are unrelated. Traditional theory of "the faster the better" had been replaced by John Boyd's energy-maneuverability theory decades ago, at least in regards to dog fights.

I won't argue faster climbing rate gives one advantage, however, it's a different measure other than supercruise, apart from relating to T/W ratio, for example, the wing configuration (in fact the the shape of fuselage too) offers different advantages to either capacities.