No reason why they can’t use it when J-35A has retractable ones. Also, I am not convinced that the nozzles are completely different other than maybe material/coloration.
J-35 carrier fighter (PLAN) thread
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
No reason why they can’t use it when J-35A has retractable ones. Also, I am not convinced that the nozzles are completely different other than maybe material/coloration.
Naval version are alway heavier than the land version if they can be de-navalized. That is because of the re-inforced landing gear and frame to withstand the shock of carrier landing. Then there is the wing-folding mechanism which adds more weight. In the J-35's case, it has more wing area for landing.
They'll be at sea most of the time so maybe they just don't see the need for it. Land based ones OTOH will almost always need it at some point of their flight.
Retractable luneburg provides operational flexibility. Want to change from routine peacetime interception into wartime stealth mode? You can do it at the flip of a switch.
The conditions at sea on a carrier are very different from those on land (a movable part like this in a highly humid and salty environment), and carrier based operations differ from land based ones (the state of being under surveillance from take-off). Naturally the considerations will be different too.
I would still think it would be quite painful to remove such lenses while deployed. Especially if suddenly responding to an unexpected act of aggression. Is the PLAN expectation that they will know of any activities of war ahead of time, so that they may leisurely remove the lenses in the hangar deck?
I took boat ride out in the sea for diving every year. The ship is always "greasy" whereever I touch especially the metal handrail and door nobes because of the , even though the boat owner wash the boat every day with fresh water. That is to say salt can quickly accumulate on metal and fill thin gaps leading delicate moving part jamed or leaving gaps conpromising stealth. If I were the designer I would not use a retractable luneburg lense on a naval aircraft unless absolutely necessary.
The Luneburg lens should likely be able to be ejected in flight if needed, pylon inclusive, similar to external fuel tanks for stealthy aircraft (J-20, F-22).
I could see the benefit of a "non-retractable" Luneberg lens for carrierborne aircraft in the sense that in a naval environment it is probably preferable to have a more mechanically simple way of "removing" a deployed Luneberg lens (i.e.: simply eject it), versus a retractable Luneberg lens (with corrosion and naval environment there may be a higher risk of failure to retract).
The ability to eject a Luneberg lens is really just for peacetime environments if an aircraft mid-sortie needs to change to stealth-mode. During wartime, the aircraft would simply not be installed regularly as part of its fitout.
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I think it's the opposite. They put it on when they are ready to fly for peacetime operations.
