J-20... The New Generation Fighter III

Thanks Engineer, and again let me say that I greatly admire the J-20, I can see the obvious size difference between the J-11, and I also noted on the films of J-20 take-off roll it rotates and gets off the ground right smartly. I realize that they are not combat loaded, so I certainly expect them to perform well, I was merely commenting on the PLAAF role for the J-20, which I would guess is long range interdiction of an opposing force and that forces stand off assets, tankers and Awacs, etc. I absolutely agree with your assesment of the F-35, it appears lacking in the turn and burn dept. It is overweight and highly wing loaded, it does appear that the powerplant is good, but again only one. The J-20 appears to be doing well, they are flying it a lot, which is good, perhaps in the next several years we will see an official flight demo, and some questions will be answered. Brat

Engineer said:

Estimate of J-20's length is between 20m to 21m. Compare to Su-30's length of 21.94m and Su-34's length of 23.35m, the J-20 is clearly shorter. In addition, J-20's span-to-length ratio is smaller than Su-30. So while J-20 is big, it is not as big as Su-30 or Su-34.

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The Su-27 family has a very long tail, I'd say it's at least 1m longer than the nozzle which is considered the end of an aircraft. Furthermore, the Su-27 family also has a longer nose. So, I think you can't compare the length of the two aircraft this way.

SteelBird said:

The Su-27 family has a very long tail, I'd say it's at least 1m longer than the nozzle which is considered the end of an aircraft. Furthermore, the Su-27 family also has a longer nose. So, I think you can't compare the length of the two aircraft this way.

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If you look at those satellite photographs that I posted, you would see that J-20 is still shorter even when we disregard J-11's tail cone.

Thank you Scratch for that as well, I'm not sure about the other supersonic canard equiped aircraft. As I think back to the XB-70 I recall that it had an aft delta main wing and a forward canard. Steelbird that is a very good point, and the Su-34 has a very long stinger in particular, but engineer is accurate and wiki lists J-20 max takeoff at 80,000 and Su34 at 100,000 lbs. At Maks 2011 the Su-34 and the Pak-Fa both put on flight displays, and the Su-34 was exercised aggressively, but obviously Pak Fa is far more agile. Everyone is making very good points which has led me to a much greater understanding of the capabilities of J-20 rather than a my dogs bigger than your dog. The four fifth gen fighters and I absolutely concur with you engineer that the J-20 is a fighter are so similar because the objectives of all the designers/engineers is similar. They are all very pretty, very capable aircraft, that we can all be proud of and admire their differences and appreciate what they say about us as people. I hope that we are able to respect one another as much as we're able to appreciate our "toys"! Now, I'm still looking for a wind tunnel smoke video to get my old analog brain around the canard!

Scratch said:

Regarding the change in center of pressure with speed thing, I'm quite positive that the eurofighter, for example, becomes aerodynamicly stable when going supersonic because of the center of pressure moving aft. Also the cabards are locked in place above that speed, so maneuvering is purely done by wing mounted controll surfaces. I don't know about the other canard deltas, though.

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The J-20's two all moving canted tail stabilizers also function as elevators besides of functioning as rudders. This together with the canards provide more flexibilty in terms of interaction between the control surfaces. This is unlike the Typhoon, J-10, Rafale having only the rudder fucntion with their fixed vertical stabilisers.

Quickie said:

The J-20's two all moving canted tail stabilizers also function as elevators besides of functioning as rudders. This together with the canards provide more flexibilty in terms of interaction between the control surfaces. This is unlike the Typhoon, J-10, Rafale having only the rudder fucntion with their fixed vertical stabilisers.

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It is quite amazing to see the changes that have come to fighters in my lifetime. I can recall the F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104, F-105, while those are all "real airplanes", they were also dangerous on both ends. The Hun and the Starfighter in particular were bad girls, the Hun giving birth to the "Sabre Dance", the 104 branded a widow maker. Think about operating these birds in bad weather or ice, kinda gives you goose bumps, add night over water, those guys earned their wings, they were almost super men. Today's fighters with a flight control computer are a testament to engineering and design, I've been priveledged to be up close and personal at airshow with lots of 4th gen aircraft, but the raptor is a completely different animal. Watching it crawl down the flight line at 85 Knots, standing on its tail, or doing a tailslide, and the almost effortless manner in which it manuevers. Pak Fa and J-20 have a hard act to follow, I look forward to seeing more video of these two fighters coming up to speed, and a sense of their personalities, and trust me they all have a personality.

paintgun said:

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Wow, completely smooth, better stealth.

paintgun said:

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Both are sexy girls baring their bottoms