J-20... The New Generation Fighter III

Nope. J-10 also uses a chute to brake, but for exploration of the flight envelope the aircraft carries a dedicated spin chute.


Chutes use for braking are most likely only rated to operate at touch down airspeed. They also have an outline of "+" while spin chute is circular, thus the two are different designs.

The J-20 engineers already built a scale model to test if a spin is recoverable, so they are pretty confident that the current design is safe before they went ahead and made prototypes. I am not sure if they are willing to risk the pilot and the plane to test spin recovery again.

Engineer said:

Nope. J-10 also uses a chute to brake, but for exploration of the flight envelope the aircraft carries a dedicated spin chute.

Chutes use for braking are most likely only rated to operate at touch down airspeed. They also have an outline of "+" while spin chute is circular, thus the two are different designs.

The J-20 engineers already built a scale model to test if a spin is recoverable, so they are pretty confident that the current design is safe before they went ahead and made prototypes. I am not sure if they are willing to risk the pilot and the plane to test spin recovery again.

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Thanks, I had been wondering about that, and you are probably right about being carefull with the two prototypes, they are quite valuable aircraft, and I was a little surprised to see 01 doing the rolls, but it must be fairly straitforward as to flight characteristics. Thats a great shot of the J-10 and shows the rear under body strakes that are designed to contribute to longitudenal stability. The venerable Beechcraft Bonanza, with the V tail was retrofitted with simular strakes to combat a tail wagging tendency in turbulence, that was suspected of leading to the loss of several aircraft in severe turbulence associated with thunderstorms. I had'nt realized what a pretty airplane the J-10 is, but thanks for this picture which clearly shows the spin chute on the J-10, I better be carefull, I'm starting to feel my aft mounted delta prejudice beginning to subside, I might even end up a fan? Oh NO! thats my new desktop wallpaper?

Anything New?



Is This A Big Deal?



J-20 2001 Last Day Image In Chengfei

The way the spin chute is attached to the aft of the J-10 is very different from its brake chute. If you look at the J-10 picture, the spin chute is attached to four different anchors.

Quickie said:

The way the spin chute is attached to the aft of the J-10 is very different from its brake chute. If you look at the J-10 picture, the spin chute is attached to four different anchors.

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Yes, thats definetely a more substantial structure than the landing drag chutes on the J-20, I wonder if 01 will be equipped with a spin chute for the low speed flight regime testing, it would be interesting and might give us a clue as to when they begin this testing?

Air Force Brat said:

Quickie, its not top secret when the first flight is during the visit of Sec Def Gates, sorry, but it just isn't, and with the F-60 riding around on the back of a flatbed, well somebody is trying to sell airplanes. I wonder how 01 is doing, it seems that things have slowed down on testing/production of further prototypes, I have to wonder if flight tests in the high alpha regime are going well, time will tell I suppose but it would be nice to have a little bit of insight in the process?

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I'm afraid it'll be very difficult to judge 2001's progress now, from what I've heard security is extremely tight near Yanliang, with local residents being encouraged to notify authority if they observed any suspicious activities around the airfield. And none of the Chinese military forums are dare to host images from Yanliang.

hmmwv said:

I'm afraid it'll be very difficult to judge 2001's progress now, from what I've heard security is extremely tight near Yanliang, with local residents being encouraged to notify authority if they observed any suspicious activities around the airfield. And none of the Chinese military forums are dare to host images from Yanliang.

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Stay alert, be aware and speak up, Sounds like PATH.

So there is now 3 prototypes? So that's 6 engines, which means we have a Chinese built high performance 5th generation engine installed on at least one aircraft

I guess we may eventually see half a dozen aircraft for the testing phase before 2015 and small batch production some time after that, before full scale production start

Within 5 years we could start seeing maybe a dozen J20 in operation (SBP and prototypes in total)

asif iqbal said:

So there is now 3 prototypes? So that's 6 engines, which means we have a Chinese built high performance 5th generation engine installed on at least one aircraft

I guess we may eventually see half a dozen aircraft for the testing phase before 2015 and small batch production some time after that, before full scale production start

Within 5 years we could start seeing maybe a dozen J20 in operation (SBP and prototypes in total)

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Not necessarily, they could be using a variant of WS-10.

asif iqbal said:

So there is now 3 prototypes? So that's 6 engines, which means we have a Chinese built high performance 5th generation engine installed on at least one aircraft

I guess we may eventually see half a dozen aircraft for the testing phase before 2015 and small batch production some time after that, before full scale production start

Within 5 years we could start seeing maybe a dozen J20 in operation (SBP and prototypes in total)

Click to expand...

Asif, I'm not sure if there are more than two prototypes, as you know, we actually had quite a bit of warning about 2002 and even some grainy photos, it wouldn't surprise me if we had a third bird, but I wouldn't put anything in the bank when it comes to this whole setup. I think the J-20 has been "rolled back" with the end of Raptor production, it prolly affirms both the Chinese and Russian suspicion that BHO is really a paper tiger, and by default the whole US military. I would say the PLAN and Varyag are the priority right now and that is building Chinas defense posture in the region far more effectively than any stealth fighter ever would or could. There is definetly less cash floating around than even six months ago, and I'm fairly certain that the T-50 is also on the back burner, just for lack of news. I think that is one reason the price keeps going up on the Russian resto projects. I think the J-10s "superiority" to the Flankers is more reason to ramp back the J-20. The US has "ramped back" to the F-35, not due to any serious problem with the f-22, but simply because aircraft at this level are so stinkin "pricey" for the perceived benefit, and as the Russians and Chinese have found out, "it ain't that easy".


So life in the manned fighter dept is gettin tougher all over, especially with the US navy trying to trot out the X-47b to trump the USAF, and get more "O'bama Bucks", the USAF has gotten all "touchy feely, feminized", between that and defense sequestration, we will shortly be ramping our whole set up back to 30s levels? BHO has triggered a global slowdown in everyones economy, and if reelected, by this time next year, we may not have enough defense news to fill a teacup?