J-35A fighter (PLAAF) + FC-31 thread
- Thread starter ACuriousPLAFan
- Start date
Air Force variant might have a very short LRIP phase given how much upfront investments seem to have been made in its production.
Kaan’s engines are American. US can kill the program just like the F-35 buy.
You might want to familiarize yourself with North Korea's mutual defence treaty with both China and Russia, and unlike NATO Article 5 the assistance China and Russia agreed to provide isn't optional nor scope limited, which means SK can literally bomb China or Russia separately and not suffer as much as bombing NK...Dude, I already said that i didn't want to derail the topic any further!
They can simply wage that war with KF-16s, FA-50s and F-15Ks since there's nothing the North can bring against them. Yes, an indigenous high performing aircraft is a net positive but unless they're planning to take on China or Japan; they're not in a life or death situation as Turkey is due to being encircled by a circle of war and threat. Turkey has Ukraine & Russia to the North and East Med and the friggin Middle East to the South-Southwest. Every country surrounding Turkey is arming like crazy while Turkey decreases its investments and becomes a "prototype heaven".
Turkey is not in NATO to get protection against others, Turkey is in NATO to not get attacked or divided by them. They don't do jack sh.t for Turkey's interests; to the point when they rarely don't do something against Turkey, in a frenzy Turkish politicians and think-tankers alike all want to realign with the West again as if they've changed! (As if they were an abusing boyfriend/girlfriend - I can change him/her!)
As long as the South Koreans keep their cool and don't do something crazy to receive legit threats from their other neighbours, they can bomb the f out of the North (in this case, the only legitimate threats from the North are obviously the nukes and those huge artillery barrages against heavily populated areas within 50 kms of the border - you don't need advanced 4++ gen jets with decreased-RCS (not LO or VLO!) for this purpose...). They also have American bases and boots on the ground to deter anyone from doing anything crazy.
According to Yankeesama J-20 pilots think even side bays are essentially dead weight in fifth gen combat supported by force multipliers. They probably won’t hold the gun in high regards.
Newbies pilots.
It is interesting that J35a sports a HUD while F35 eschew it altogether. My guess is that F35 uses the HMD for almost everything visual including HUD functions, whereas we seldom see j20 pilots wearing HMD, so HUD still needed. I wonder what reasons China has to go the traditional route for pilot plane visual interface instead of relying on advanced HMDS
There is no indication to think that. The F-35's large weapons bay are distinctive externally which is visible from having a bulbous ventral fuselage while the J-35/A has a continuous smooth fuselage.
More importantly, we've had rumours over the years that J-35/A has a weapons bay that is nearly identical, if not identical, in dimensions to that of J-20's ventral bay.
A better question is to ask whether having a HMD only, versus having a HUD + HMD when needed, is better.
Considering some of the ways in which the F-35's HMD has proven troublesome in developmental terms, and the ability to put in higher resolution images in a HUD than a HMD simply due to sizing, I have a feeling that possessing a dedicated HUD as well as having the ability to augment with HMD when needed is more useful.
How often we "seldom see" J-20s wearing HMDs is not useful, because the images/videos we see cannot be used as a way to ascertain how much in reality they actually fly with HMDs.
We don't need to go over this again.
Air combat trends are going towards greater distances and BVR in networked environments, it's not a surprise to hear that pilots would recognize WVR weapons have less viability in modern air warfare.
Unless you're saying that "newbie pilots" would value WVR capability more, in which case I agree with you.
Experienced pilots with good command of modern air warfare trends should recognize that the emphasis of WVR capability is reducing further and further.
It’s probably the other way around: why does the F-35 choose to ditch a perfectly fine and effective system (the HUD) and decide to rely solely on a new and relatively high-risk piece of technology to function? While not an all-ending flaw over the years we have certainly seen the HMD system on the F-35 cause a bunch of problems. Weight, cost, technological hurdles such as its image resolution & delay, just to name a few.
One can certainly argue that going all in with the HMD has its share of benefits and I agree, however it’s a risky design choice that probably will take its toll in time, costs as well as time to become fully combat-ready. The US might have an argument for being able to withstand these drawbacks with the JSF program since they had a period of absolute military superiority with essentially no threat of high-intensity war during which the JSF was developed. China on the other hand has much more pressing national defense needs and as such it makes a lot more sense for them to retain tried and true technology (the hud in this case) while dipping their toes in the water, so to speak, with new tech in order to gradually introduce them and familiarize themselves with them without hindering their combat effectiveness.