engine bay most likely
J-35 carrier fighter (PLAN) thread
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
kwaigonegin
Colonel
Apologies if this has been asked before but since the J35 comes with a HUD, does that mean that the Chinese JHMCS is still not mature enough?
No, it just means that they prefer having a HUD as well as a HMD.
Contemporary HMD technology is excellent, but a HUD still offers some advantages being a it can be heavier than a HMD as it is not mounted on a pilot's head, thus when the same level of technology is used, the HUD will have a higher resolution.
There's been some F-35 pilots who have remarked on the preference of having an HUD in the cockpit in addition to HMD, like so:
So it may well be that the PLA prefers to have the higher resolution of a dedicated HUD as well as the capabilities of a HMD, whereas Lockheed Martin and the US and its partners feel like the HMD is good enough. That said we don't know what the capabilities and requirements of each party is anyhow, but at any rate there definitely is a use case for having both a HUD and a modern SOTA HMD.
In a way, yes. Like in an ideal world you need no redundancy, one light&reliable HMS is enough.
In a more mundane world, the only fighter to dispose with HUD is f-35, and it's widely seen as a big downside. It's HMS will 'maybe' reach what was originally desired by the late 2020s, in block 4.
Folded wing J-XY in carrier aviation training base
How do we know that isn't a mock-up like that blurred out J-35 in the promo recruitment video?
We can't unfortunately.
Worth noting we've had older satellite photos from the last year of this already, and they are almost definitely mockups.
With F-35A/B/C, the canopy opens forward to make space for the lift fan in the F-35B STOVL variant, but that this creates issues for the ejection seat. IE. they need explosives to blow the canopy in an ejection. Interesting that the J-35 also sees the canopy fold forwards as well.