by78
General
It's an old image of the J-31 demonstrator, which was manipulated to mislead us.
J-35 carrier fighter (PLAN) thread
- Thread starter Deino
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It's an old image of the J-31 demonstrator, which was manipulated to mislead us.
by78
General
It's an old image of the J-31 demonstrator, which was manipulated to mislead us.
Correction: the image shows a later prototype (airframe 03), not the original demonstrator.
Dear wallclimbers:
In the future, please incorporate a “F**k photo thieves The Drive and their moms to death, long live PLAAF” water mark in discreet, light blue coloration on your photos. Do it in Chinese so the dummies don’t know what they are posting.
Thank you!
The sheer amount of cope in that comment section is just astounding. A fucking stealth engineer that has been in the field for the last 40 years? And canards is terrible for stealth? And canards means shitty flight software?
Everyday I start to lose more faith in the collective intelligence of Western society. I mean, at least the nationalistic boosting on here has some sort of sense behind it.
Anyway
It occurred to me that in this specific image, the area that is slightly forward of the DSI bump has a lighter shade than the surrounding paint. This is uninformed speculation only, but possibly an indication of side-facing AESAs like on the
Damnit I know this is 99% just serial numbers on optical illusion but I still dream about supersize 5th gens with massive L-band bubbles to dual-role as AWACS.
I’m sorry you actually went through the comment section. Long Covid hasn’t been kind to the mental capacity of a lot of people.
Is it fair to expect the J-35 to have the ability to mount air-launched cruise missiles externally?
If so, then I'm having trouble understanding why the PLAN still needs the J-15B. I know a J-35 with external armaments wouldn't be stealthy, but neither is the J-15B. There are financial and logistical benefits to operating only one type of carrier-based aircraft instead of two. I also suspect that carriers will be able to carry more J-35 than J-15B.
If so, then I'm having trouble understanding why the PLAN still needs the J-15B. I know a J-35 with external armaments wouldn't be stealthy, but neither is the J-15B. There are financial and logistical benefits to operating only one type of carrier-based aircraft instead of two. I also suspect that carriers will be able to carry more J-35 than J-15B.
J-15 is going to have larger payload capacity, and will be a more effective platform for volume strike and EW missions. Same principle as why the PLA flies J-16s.
It could be a partnership. J-35 with low RCS could scout for enemy assets and relay the data to J-15B, which can carry more weapons payload.
This is a very good point, but on the other hand we have the US Navy which stuck with simultaniously using F-35C and super hornets, despite having the same potential issue that you described (F-35 with external ordinance can do more or less everything a super hornet can)
I think it's mainly down to 2 aspects.
1: a non-stealth platform has way less specificalities in terms of mounting and carrying various different munitions. J-35 will most likely have 2-4 external hardpoints and a weapons bay. A J-15 has ~12 external pylons. By its nature, this would mean that J-15 will have more "permutations", if you will, to mount diffent munitions, making mission planning easier. Being a physically larger jet also helps J-15 in this regard, as it would have more room for bigger and/or more munitions for whatever mission they're planning.
2: As I understand it, stealth coatings still doesn't take the highly corrosive and erosive environments of carrier-based operation well. This would likely mean that the J-35 would suffer from relatively low readiness rates compared to non-stealth jets just as the US navy has experienced with F-35C at its introduction into service. J-35 will also likely be more maintaince-heavy due to this issue. All this makes jets like J-15B and F-18E a good choice to keep in service despite them being non-stealth.
Despite J-35 being more optimized for high speed performance than the F-35, the J-15B is probably a magnitude faster. For quick and dirty interception you need something like a flanker of F-15 for this reason.