J-20 Mighty Dragon Air Dominance Stealth Fighter
J-20 banks left and looks for prey.
[Note: Thank you to HouShanghai and Feiyang 彬彬有礼 for the picture.]
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J-20 Mighty Dragon eats non-supercruise fighters for lunch
J-20 Mighty Dragon can supercruise and easily catch non-supercruise fighters. If a non-supercruise fighter tries to escape by using its afterburner, it becomes vulnerable to heat-seeking missiles. Either way, the non-supercruise fighter will be terminated.
[Note: Thank you to Greyboy2 for the picture.]
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Why are canards better than horizontal tailplanes for supermaneuverability?
[video=youtube;PkvI39nImhY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkvI39nImhY[/video]
This is a fantastic video. The J-20 Mighty Dragon shows off its super-maneuverability and the advantage of a canard-based (instead of F-22 horizontal tailplane-based) stealth fighter design.
Canards and horizontal tailplanes are both horizontal stabilizers that provide stability and control for an airplane. However, a canard enables superior maneuverability.
"The theory behind canards as the sole elevator surface is that no elevator configuration aft of the wings is truly satisfactory for maneuvering purposes; the airflow over the wings creates turbulence, however small, and thus affects elevators placed directly behind the wings."
[Note: Thank you to HouShanghai for the video.]
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J-20 Mighty Dragon and F-22 Raptor have the best planform alignment
Definitions and Terminologies:
"Planform alignment is also often used in stealth designs.
Planform alignment involves using a small number of surface orientations in the shape of the structure. For example, on the F-22A Raptor, the leading edges of the wing and the tail surfaces are set at the same angle. Careful inspection shows that many small structures, such as the air intake bypass doors and the air refueling aperture, also use the same angles.
The effect of planform alignment is to return a radar signal in a very specific direction away from the radar emitter rather than returning a diffuse signal detectable at many angles."
"Jul 7, 2011 –
The leading and trailing edges of the wing and tail have identical sweep angles (a design technique called planform alignment)."
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Let's examine the planform alignment for the Chinese J-20 Mighty Dragon, U.S. F-22 Raptor, and Russian Pak Fa/T-50. The comparison will focus on the main wings and the winglets (e.g. canards for J-20 and tailplanes for the F-22 and T-50).
The J-20 Mighty Dragon edge alignment for its main wings and canards has only five different sweep angles (e.g. red, green, orange, yellow, and blue).
The F-22 matches the J-20 in edge-alignment design for its main wings and rear horizontal tailplanes. The F-22 also has a total of only five different sweep angles (e.g. red, green, orange, yellow, and blue).
The Pak Fa/T-50 has the worst edge-alignment design for its main wings and rear horizontal tailplanes. The Pak Fa/T-50 has a massive total of 11 different sweep angles (e.g. addition of pink, light blue, purple, dark red, black, and white).
In conclusion, the Pak Fa/T-50 cannot match the stealthiness of the planform alignment design of the main wings and winglets for the J-20 and F-22. With an extra six different sweep angles, the Pak Fa/T-50 is clearly more detectable by radar in many more directions.
[Note: I want to credit "Phaid" (post on 10/3/2010 8:03:28 AM) with noticing the inferior planform alignment of the Pak Fa/T-50. Though he did not perform the detailed analysis that I just did, I want to credit him with the earlier insight.]
