J-20... The New Generation Fighter III

They saying it flew twice today with a new engine.

J-20 Mighty Dragon with two different engine nozzles


Looks like the "petals" of the concentric variable-area afterburner nozzles of the right engine was extended or set in the "open" position while the left one was not. It appears that the pair of engines can work independently to optimize performance. If this is true, it would say a whole lot about the integrated flight management & control system. The master computer needs to work seamlessly with the ultra complex FBW; coordinate FADEC of each engine with all the moving surfaces. It would be one hell of a super fighter when TVC is added when serial production begins. [Macau Boy's commentary]




Notice the two engine nozzles are different. [HouShanghai's comment]



[Note: Thank you to Marchpole and HouShanghai for the pictures.]

J-20 Mighty Dragon with new indigenous engine?


J-20 with new indigenous engine?

[Note: Thank you to Marchpole for the post.]

Re: J-20 Mighty Dragon with new indigenous engine?

Martian said:

J-20 with new indigenous engine?

[Note: Thank you to Marchpole for the post.]

Click to expand...

My guess it's just distortion from the heat.

Wait, nvm. It looks different in several pictures. New engine?!

can we consider this a shocking development in our quest following the J-20? I guess all the sudden with this new discover in place, we can further begin to spell the numerous variables of the J-20's supermaneuverability, since a combination of LERX, canards, TVC, its designs, and now this

It could just be a different nozzle petal of course. Perhaps they are trying different petals to test different stealth/IR properties?

Can't help but wonder when they are gonna install TVC. I am going to reserve my judgements on the nozzle until more images leak out. The recent PS pictures are making me paranoid.

If the picture is real, however, we can be sure that the engine on the right is a Taihong variant. The petals fit far closer together. It seems like the Russian Engine proponents were right about the fact that the engines used for the first flight were AL variants with white external petals.

NVMD the guy who took the pictures on CD is saying that the engines are still AL variants. It looks like heat distortion was the cause. I'll post the other picture asap.

siegecrossbow said:

If the picture is real, however, we can be sure that the engine on the right is a Taihong variant. The petals fit far closer together. It seems like the Russian Engine proponents were right about the fact that the engines used for the first flight were AL variants with white external petals.

Click to expand...

That's not necessarily the case. We saw the insides of that engine engine, and they were different from both the Al-31 and the Taihang.