J-20... The New Generation Fighter
- Thread starter Delbert
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Ambivalent
Junior Member
There is a whole thread on FY about how F-15, F-22, F-23, and Su-27 must all be bombers since they were so "large" compared to humans.
The F-15 is indeed a superb bomber. It replaced the F-111 for the USAF. The F-22 is a bomber as well, able to carry a pair of JDAM's internally and more on wing stations if stealth is not required. The bomb load of an F-15 dwarfs that of a WWII "heavy" bomber.
I would be extremely surprised if this new fighter, if it's real, is not also a bomber. The roles of fighter and bomber are hardly mutually exclusive.
Ambivalent
Junior Member
The B-2 has no vertical tail. What does that tell you?
The F-22 must dogfight, so engineering trade offs are made. The F-22, from what I can tell, attempts to overcome some of the unstealthy features necessary to give it the necessary agility by using sophisticated active jamming techniques to make it disappear from radar screens. Of course, no one who really knows how well this method works is going to tell us.
Ambivalent
Junior Member
No, the F-22 is well and truly a dead issue. There are more reasons I can't state, but it's over for that airframe. The cost to remediate and service the existing fleet will almost break the bank. New airframes are out of the question.
Air Force depots can rebuild F-15's to like-new condition and upgrade them with the latest APG-79 radars for less than the cost of new build F-15's in the same way the A-10 inventory has been rebuilt and their airframe life extended beyond 20,000 hours. That is the plan as long as budgets hold.
The Congressional budget deficit committee is recommending new purchase F-16's in place of some of the Air Force's planned F-35A buy, and the CNO is leaning all over the Marines to buy fewer F-35B's and instead buy F/A-18E's and F's. Secretary Gates has told the Navy that their much publicized "fighter gap" ceases to exist if they reduce the CVN force from 11 ships to ten, telling the CNO they have to justify their force level to him. The Navy is doing that study right now, but to have a Secdef challenge the CNO so directly not typical and is something CNO's are not accustomed too.
Defense budgets will shrink regardless of which party controls Congress. You are in a dream land if you think otherwise.
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I get what you're saying with the B-2, the fewer surfaces the better, which is obvious, but I'll clarify, I'm just asking if the J-20 really does suffer a penalty for having canards, but no tail, compared to the F-22 which has no canards, but does have a tail.
Where it will shrink though is another matter. There might be a degree of focalism involved because this is the air defence sector, but there's no guarantee that the air defence assets will have to shoulder all or even any of that burden, especially since it alone is not at the heart of the US budget deficit.
Quickie
Colonel
I'm glad someone has come out to express the same opinion on the matter as I have. In addition to the points above, the distance between the positions of the canard and tail is way too small to have any effect on RCS. The other point of concern is the planeform but this applies to both the canard and horizontal stabilizer.
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