Re: JH-7/JH-7A Thread
Look at the Russian example; they have canard fighters in their Su-30 line, but they ultimately opted to use LEVCONs in their PAK-FA design.
That says completely nothing. The counter example is that China produced J-10 which has canards, and moved on to J-20 which also has canards.
Your fundamental statement is flawed, then;
There is absolutely nothing wrong with my statement. China designed planes with canards, continues to design planes with canards, have planes that have canards serving in the air force, will have more planes that have canards serving in the future. These are facts, how are they flawed? And canards themselves can be deflected to provide additional lift at low speed as seen in J-20 flight test photos, and additional lift at low speed is one advantage touted in levcon designs. In other words, canards already gave China the advantages offered by levcon, so China doesn't need levcon. This is a fact, so how is it flawed? With differential canards, China can already controlled vortices going over the wings of the aircraft, something which supposedly differential levcons offer to do. This again, shows that canards gave China another advantages offered by levcons, and again shows that China doesn't need levcon.
if the Russians can design canards, why would they have gone to Levcons?
Perhaps they want to avoid dealing with complex interactions that take place between canards and the wings? Perhaps it's worst -- they can't deal with the complex interactions at all, because Su-33 and Mig1.44 were designed before Soviet disintegrated? You imply Russian gave up canards assuming they think canards are no good, when there are whole lot of other possibilities. Again, the counter-example is China, which has designed planes with canards and is still designing planes with canards. If canards are not good, China wouldn't pursue it.
As far as drag goes, canards by virtue of being in front of the wing, create additional drag compared to a tail. They may provide additional lift in comparison to a tail, but it's not a free trade-off.
As far as drag does, wings by virtue being in front of the tail, create additional drag compared to canards. This drag disadvantage you have presented for canards is equally apparent in a traditional configuration.
As far as RCS goes, the F-22 is dbsm -37 or environs. If you actually look at the paper that was posted, the canards on the J-20 are likely to be dbsm -30 (we had the post on THIS forum when we were discussing the effects of canards on J-20 RCS), even when made out of radar transparent and radar absorbent materials. It doesn't mean that the aircraft is totally unstealthy, but it results in limitations to its minimum RCS, putting it around the range of an F-35, not an F-22.
And we have posts on this forum pointing out that the notion of canards being detrimental in stealth is b.s.
But this thread is about JH-7. If you want to argue about J-20 aerodynamics, feel free to continue it in the J-20 aerodynamics thread.
