J-20... The New Generation Fighter III

Yes, it looks like those protrusions are hollow, and with the MLG retracted, a bit of the wheel may just stick out if the doors were made flush with the rest of the fuselage, so they put in those bumps to avoid having to sacrifice a lot of internal volume sucking the MLG in enough to make the entire wheels fit.

I do wonder if they could maybe have designed the MLGs so that the hinges are at the top. If they were willing to allow a small bump there anyways, maybe they could have fitted the motors there instead.

If the J20 is in the region of 20-21m, sure it's a big bird, but she could still easily work off a carrier. But there is no way those downward opening doors will work with carrier landings. The J15 is a solid aircraft design and all, but with pretty much all of the other navies getting F35s for their carriers with maybe the exception of the Russians (any rumors of a carrier capable version of the PAK-FA?), the J15 is going to struggle to hold it's own against the F35. So unless the PLAN is really going to get a 5th gen as well, it would make sense to have a carrier capable J20.

Maybe they will change it around on the production version, or they will swop it around if they really do decided the future PLAN carriers need a stealth fighter. It should be an easy enough adjustment to make considering how much work would be needed anyways to make the J20 carrier capable.

^ There's talk that a new carrier 5th gen competition is underway/will start soon. If the SAC 5th gen J-19(?) is all it's hyped up to be it might be a better candidate than J-20, given it's supposed to be more of a striker and the F-22/PAK FA configuration might be better than J-20's long delta canard.

Bltizo said:

^ There's talk that a new carrier 5th gen competition is underway/will start soon. If the SAC 5th gen J-19(?) is all it's hyped up to be it might be a better candidate than J-20, given it's supposed to be more of a striker and the F-22/PAK FA configuration might be better than J-20's long delta canard.

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huzhigeng is suffering a bit of a back lash on CJDBY right now cause the SAC jet hadn't shown up yet. Perhaps it won't be out until later next year? Either way it is really tough for wall climbers at the SAC cause it is so effing cold right now.

Bltizo said:

^ There's talk that a new carrier 5th gen competition is underway/will start soon. If the SAC 5th gen J-19(?) is all it's hyped up to be it might be a better candidate than J-20, given it's supposed to be more of a striker and the F-22/PAK FA configuration might be better than J-20's long delta canard.

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Yes, I have heard of the rumors, but I am yet to decide if I trust them yet.

Even if the Navy also has a contract out for a 5th gen, it would make no sense for CAC to rule themselves out of the competition.

With all the other things CAC is working on, like the JF17, J10B and various UAV projects, I really cannot see them being in any position to also work up a competitive bid for another 5th gen design.

If there was another contract, it would actually make it more likely that CAC would at the very least keep the possibility of a naval J20 in the back of their minds when making design decisions.

Also, I cannot see how a conventional layout would be inherently better than a delta canard design, since the delta canard would be better high alpha and low speed handing, making it easier to land on a carrier.

The J20 is also large enough that I do not see there being too much of a problem if they wanted to sacrifice some range and agility to put in a deeper weapon weapons bay able to house new generation small AShMs in the same size class as anything the F35 can carry internally.

Is there STOVL stealth version on the works by either SAC or CAC?

anyone seen Pinko lately? SAC next gen plane news have dried up.....

i thought the guy with inside info who posted here on the j-20 said the new sac stealth plane will appear late this year or early next year, hopefully we get to see it soon.

Equation said:

Is there STOVL stealth version on the works by either SAC or CAC?

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The short answer is No. It would need two things: a need for a STOVL version: Use it from which ship? And a superior engine, which is not yet available to China.

plawolf said:

Yes, I have heard of the rumors, but I am yet to decide if I trust them yet.

Even if the Navy also has a contract out for a 5th gen, it would make no sense for CAC to rule themselves out of the competition.

With all the other things CAC is working on, like the JF17, J10B and various UAV projects, I really cannot see them being in any position to also work up a competitive bid for another 5th gen design.

If there was another contract, it would actually make it more likely that CAC would at the very least keep the possibility of a naval J20 in the back of their minds when making design decisions.

Also, I cannot see how a conventional layout would be inherently better than a delta canard design, since the delta canard would be better high alpha and low speed handing, making it easier to land on a carrier.

The J20 is also large enough that I do not see there being too much of a problem if they wanted to sacrifice some range and agility to put in a deeper weapon weapons bay able to house new generation small AShMs in the same size class as anything the F35 can carry internally.

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A naval J-20 would need to be stressed for carrier landing, i.e. a vertical landing velocity twice that for the land based version and the corresponding redesign of landing gear and of the structure supporting the landing gear and stressing the aircraft for trapping after touch down as well as stressing for catapult take off. Much better to start from, not any more a clean sheet of paper, but at least a new pre-design in the computer to take account of the lessons learned with J-20 as well as J-15.

delft said:

The short answer is No. It would need two things: a need for a STOVL version: Use it from which ship? And a superior engine, which is not yet available to China.

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They could use it for their future larger deck size LHD ships or LHS amphibious carrier.