J-20... The New Generation Fighter

Re: New Generation Fighter

I still think that introducing a fighter as good as the F-22 in only ten years would be very very difficult. Remember that no country in the world other than the US even has a fifth generation fighter; not Europe, not even Russia. It would be extremely impressive if China could leapfrog over them in an instant by being the second country to build a 5th generation fighter, but I think it will take longer than 10 years to exceed them.

Re: New Generation Fighter

Mcsweeney said:

I still think that introducing a fighter as good as the F-22 in only ten years would be very very difficult. Remember that no country in the world other than the US even has a fifth generation fighter; not Europe, not even Russia. It would be extremely impressive if China could leapfrog over them in an instant by being the second country to build a 5th generation fighter, but I think it will take longer than 10 years to exceed them.

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I agree. I'm not doubting the skills or intelligence of the Chinese designers, but designing all-aspect LO aircraft is as much art as science. I wouldn't be surprised to see their next aircraft be in the F-35 class of LO. They could then apply the lessons learned from that design to their next fighter. Alas, only time will tell.

Re: New Generation Fighter

I wish people would read what has actually been written before making a comment.

The 10 years is how long it is expected to take from first flight to having a regiment or two formed up. Thats a pretty reasonable time frame for that step. At this point we can only guess at how long the design and prototype stages took, but its likely to be many many years, possibly as long as a decade or more.

Re: New Generation Fighter

i dont see much problem with the time frame either. consider that the project prolly started 10 years ago, another 10 years would be quite reasonable.

Re: New Generation Fighter

Mcsweeney said:

I still think that introducing a fighter as good as the F-22 in only ten years would be very very difficult. Remember that no country in the world other than the US even has a fifth generation fighter; not Europe, not even Russia. It would be extremely impressive if China could leapfrog over them in an instant by being the second country to build a 5th generation fighter, but I think it will take longer than 10 years to exceed them.

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You can have your opinion. Just look at the time frame... 20 years ago the Chinese were building reasonable 60 era mig19 copies and have tough time in getting Mig21F versions airborn. Now they are moving away from A5, J6, J7 era and jump into J10a/b, FC1 and surely some more... You can have stories like they bought, stole or are making just bad copies... F22 is nice but not top. It has it weaknesses. You do know the bugs in its outdated computer or the fun problem of not understanding some timeshifts when traveling to Japan? I can tell you that FC1 has more modern computers in it. And I predict that China is moving faster then what you think (10 years till X).

Re: New Generation Fighter

carandol said:

I agree. I'm not doubting the skills or intelligence of the Chinese designers, but designing all-aspect LO aircraft is as much art as science. I wouldn't be surprised to see their next aircraft be in the F-35 class of LO. They could then apply the lessons learned from that design to their next fighter. Alas, only time will tell.

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The general said that first-flight will be soon and that the aircraft will be in service (I assume that means IOC) in about 8 years. Assuming the general was indeed referring to a F-22 class fighter, then the design is already done.

As for Chinese version of F-35, they are looking at it, too.

Re: New Generation Fighter

Hui Tong has added a new image in his J-20 Entry : (Scroll down to the bottom of the page)

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It was speculated that 601 Institute was working on a "tri-plane" design based on canard/conventional layout/V-shape tailfin
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New Tri-Plane Image -

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Re: New Generation Fighter

that idea has been abandoned, tri-plane is good for maneuverability but its way too complex

Re: New Generation Fighter

pla101prc said:

that idea has been abandoned, tri-plane is good for maneuverability but its way too complex

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Yes...the tri-plane config from SAC-601 was eliminated early from what I heard. I wonder whether the the tri-plane was disadvantageous for RCS reduction too? The second SAC-601 design, conventional F-22 layout was also eliminated.

CAC-611 said to have won the contest. Hope we can get a sneak-peak of a CAC wind-tunnel model...

Re: New Generation Fighter

Huitong is saying the latest rumours are that CAC has built a full scale model, anybody have anymore info?