J-20... The New Generation Fighter

Re: New Generation Fighter

Inst said:

Re: PAK-FA, the current PAK-FA in testing is equivalent to the Super Hornets or the Eurofighter when it comes to stealthiness, so it's not really in the F-35 range. The F-35 is 50 times as stealthy regarding its frontal RCS, or 2.7 times as stealthy when using logarithms. Perhaps the PAK-FA will approach the F-35 level in order to sell to international clients, who knows?

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Where'd you get the 50 times more stealthy from... Are you saying a Eurofighter and Superhornet is as stealthy as the PAK FA?? Just look at their pictures. The PAK FAs surface is far cleaner, it has edge alignment, internal weapon bays... It'd be as stealthy as the F-22 imho if it had more serrated edges and flat nozzles, I really don't know where the EF-2000 or F-18E comparison is justified from.

It is VERY stealthy, and flat in most aspects, few bulbous areas unlike the production JSF.


@ Rhino123 ; J-14/J-15? I believe the J-15 is the chinese naval flanker - I didn't understand taht the "Chinese JSF" under development has been given a J-** designation yet... even the J-XX hasn't been confirmed to be J-20 or whatever.

Re: New Generation Fighter

Bltizo said:

-_-
Where'd you get the 50 times more stealthy from... Are you saying a Eurofighter and Superhornet is as stealthy as the PAK FA?? Just look at their pictures. The PAK FAs surface is far cleaner, it has edge alignment, internal weapon bays... It'd be as stealthy as the F-22 imho if it had more serrated edges and flat nozzles, I really don't know where the EF-2000 or F-18E comparison is justified from.

It is VERY stealthy, and flat in most aspects, few bulbous areas unlike the production JSF.


@ Rhino123 ; J-14/J-15? I believe the J-15 is the chinese naval flanker - I didn't understand taht the "Chinese JSF" under development has been given a J-** designation yet... even the J-XX hasn't been confirmed to be J-20 or whatever.

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If I recall correctly, don't the PAF-FA's intakes have a pretty direct line to the engine? That gives radar waves a pretty nice surface to bounce off of.

Re: New Generation Fighter

rhino123 said:

As to use the PAK FA as a decoy to lure enemy's stealth fighter... This is an overly expensive tactics don't you think so? The job can be done by just about any type of fighters in China's inventory, there really has no need for such a move.

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Now while I fully agree with you, I think there is some merit for PAK FA to be in China's inventory. The PAK FA probably has a larger weapons carriage than J-XX, and will be useful in carrying larger missiles and bombs in its weapons bay, and act as a strike fighter. Maybe 24 of them, similar to the amount of MK2s China purchased...
And of course they would be invaluable in being "Blue force", they could act as enemy F-22's or Indian/Russian PAK FAs'... (of course it'd be ideal that J-XX would have strike capabilities, but perhaps that's a bit much to ask. Maybe CAC could come up with a FB-22 version of the J-XX... hmm.. ahead of myself again)

But all this is speculation of course - it is still interesting to wonder whether the Russians will sell the PAK FA as extensively as they marketed their flankers. Because PAK FA is very well the pinnacle of their technology; even a dumbed down version would be a massive leap over current Su-35's and the like, espicially in radar evading methods.

Re: New Generation Fighter

dingyibvs said:

If I recall correctly, don't the PAF-FA's intakes have a pretty direct line to the engine? That gives radar waves a pretty nice surface to bounce off of.

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I believe you're right - but do F-18E and EF-2000 have a direct line to engines as well?

And the radar/engine scattering problem could be overcome by S intakes or DSI no? I'm way out of my depth here, but how hard would it be to insert S intakes into a direct line engine intake without compromising performance? Also I read on a different forum that the PAK FA had these bumps in the engine intake which partially hid the engine blades... either way the F-18 and typhoon comparison is unjustified.

Re: New Generation Fighter

I just noticed, but my source was in reference to the Indian derivative, however.



“It is an amazing looking aircraft. It has a Radar Cross Section (RCS) of just 0.5 square metre as compared to the Su-30MKI’s RCS of about 20 square metres.”

Re: Rhino; the PAK-FAs wouldn't be serving purely as decoys; they're also fully capable 4.5/5 generation aircraft with high maneuverability and a reasonable weapons load. The point is that the PAK-FAs would excel in short-range fighting while the J-XXs should be superior in BVR.

Re: New Generation Fighter

About the russian Pak-fa:

OK, lets put the political correctness mask a bit:

Let me tell you something about how Chinese really think about Pak-Fa:

1) After the maiden flight of pak-fa, there is article of Pak-Fa, written by a professor from one of the two best aircraft-engineering graduate school, besides the holiday words, he mentioned:

The problem with Pak-Fa is (1) poor steath design, borderline steath at the best (2) the airframe, especially the tail part is poor, the design will significantly increase the air-drag of the thing during supersonic phase, and therefore, reducing supercruise performance.(3) The wing load of the fighter is quite high, thus maneuverability will be limited.(4) The arragement of its internal weapon bar is problematic, it will be very dangerous and difficult to launch weapons when the figher is doing some maneuverablity.

According to him, the Pak-Fa's only merit is the design is aiming at longer range, just like Su-27, thanks to its high lifting ratio during subsonic speed.

All in all, his conclusion is: Pak-Fa is designed based on 3rd generation fighter's design approaches, the airframe is not fully-integralled, not developed in according with a real 4th generation fighter's design approach, the stealth characters are poor due to this.

2) There is another Professor of micro-wave engineering from another top defense-tech graduate school in China, claimed to his students, the Pak-Fa, at best, has the same RCS comparing to a F/A-18E/F without payload, the primary source of RCS of Pak-Fa is generated during to its poor arrangement of their engines (this is the reason why Su-27 get so huge a RCS, yet the Pak-Fa seems dont want to change that).

3)The Project director of J-XX, Yang Wei, 3 years before Pak-Fa's maiden flight, openly claimed he is not impressed about the Russian's deisgn, and since that time, most of people inside the circle hint Pak-Fa would be a "super" Su-27.

4)The vice project director of J-XX, Zhang Jigao, during the recent National Congress, claimed J-XX is not a counter to Pak-Fa, rather it is designed to handle F-22, so we get vast different requirements.

5)There is another, convential layout twin-engine heavy J-XX developed in 601th (partly self-funded), as a backup (and a painkiller to the loser side of the J-XX competition) under R&D, the design team is also think not very high about Pak-Fa.

The development of J-XX is about to finalish, at this stage, I seriously doubt the Chinese would be interested in accquiring any Pak-Fa to be honest.

Re: New Generation Fighter

Couldn't resist to post my input. China buying T-50 is pretty much just talk in the water (meaning won't happen), the T-50 platform itself isn't impressive. And up to this point I'm skeptical as to the claims of the Russians, as they always overstate their products. Saying the T-50 is 5th generation, means its a 5th generation, cause they say so? I'm starting to think that they produce a fighter platform for the sake of "keeping up with the USA" saying we have a 5th generation platform too, we are just as strong and on par with the Americans. Basically a mini flame war of Cold War, Arms Race.

The saying you can't judge a book by its cover, is true to certain degree, in this case it doesn't apply. You can clearly see from multiple views that their are some violations to cross section, surface area and radar reflection in the T-50. Not to mention the lack in heat signature cover up of the engines protruding out of the airframe. If anything its like a RCS lowered F-15, RCS lowered Su-27

By the way its starting to get off topic and sounds like flaming in the near future.

Another issue I want to cover up was the argument of having a Hi-Lo mix of J-XX and T-50 using T-50 as bait for the J-XX. One word "absurd" if you want to use fighter as bait why not use cheaper alternative just as capable J-10/J-11? Though the tactic isn't good in the first place.

Last issue is acquiring the T-50 for parts, acquiring it only for the engine? So your willing to pay for a batch of expensive fighters just for the engine? Why not better negotiate with Russians for batch purchase or license production of the engine? Last alternative most likely won't happen.

China the only thing lacking in fighter technology with Russians, is engine nothing else. Though the Russian engines aren't top notch in the first place, its that its the only thing China can get its hands on to power their fighters.

Re: New Generation Fighter

dingyibvs said:

If I recall correctly, don't the PAF-FA's intakes have a pretty direct line to the engine? That gives radar waves a pretty nice surface to bounce off of.

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Right now yes..... It seems the engine used in the T-50-1 is not suitable for a compressor blocker. But from the 3rd or 4th prototype it'll have the blocker which will shield the engine face completely. It is different from the F/A-18E/F & EF-Typhoon blocker and more inline with the X-32 blocker. It completely shields the engine but increases complexity and adds another possible point of mechanical failure.

Re: New Generation Fighter

Hyperwarp said:

Right now yes..... It seems the engine used in the T-50-1 is not suitable for a compressor blocker. But from the 3rd or 4th prototype it'll have the blocker which will shield the engine face completely. It is different from the F/A-18E/F & EF-Typhoon blocker and more inline with the X-32 blocker. It completely shields the engine but increases complexity and adds another possible point of mechanical failure.

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Such blockers usually considerably reduce the engine thrust, and even with the blocker is still not as steathy.

Wonder why X-32 failed?

Re: New Generation Fighter

HKSDU said:

Couldn't resist to post my input. China buying T-50 is pretty much just talk in the water (meaning won't happen), the T-50 platform itself isn't impressive. And up to this point I'm skeptical as to the claims of the Russians, as they always overstate their products. Saying the T-50 is 5th generation, means its a 5th generation, cause they say so? I'm starting to think that they produce a fighter platform for the sake of "keeping up with the USA" saying we have a 5th generation platform too, we are just as strong and on par with the Americans. Basically a mini flame war of Cold War, Arms Race.

The saying you can't judge a book by its cover, is true to certain degree, in this case it doesn't apply. You can clearly see from multiple views that their are some violations to cross section, surface area and radar reflection in the T-50. Not to mention the lack in heat signature cover up of the engines protruding out of the airframe. If anything its like a RCS lowered F-15, RCS lowered Su-27

By the way its starting to get off topic and sounds like flaming in the near future.

Another issue I want to cover up was the argument of having a Hi-Lo mix of J-XX and T-50 using T-50 as bait for the J-XX. One word "absurd" if you want to use fighter as bait why not use cheaper alternative just as capable J-10/J-11? Though the tactic isn't good in the first place.

Last issue is acquiring the T-50 for parts, acquiring it only for the engine? So your willing to pay for a batch of expensive fighters just for the engine? Why not better negotiate with Russians for batch purchase or license production of the engine? Last alternative most likely won't happen.

China the only thing lacking in fighter technology with Russians, is engine nothing else. Though the Russian engines aren't top notch in the first place, its that its the only thing China can get its hands on to power their fighters.

Click to expand...

With the maturity of WS-10 and the good progress of WS-15, I dont think we need russian engines for this thing either.

In the worst case scenario, we just equip the first few batches of J-XX with WS-10s, laterly when WS-15 become ready, replace them then.

This is not unusually for fighters, for instance the first few batches of Mig-23 using a engine 30% less powerful than the later batch of Mig-23 produced just 2-3 years later.