Mystery aircraft 4th August 2025: CCA vs other

GTI

GTI

Junior Member
Registered Member
Tomboy said:
Crackpot theory, what if this is the JH-XX? It was a known real project at some point in time before most people dismissed it as cancelled due to not being that relevant anymore but what if development continued after new breakthroughs allowing longer range and better stealth making it more relevant today? Triple/dual bogie landing gear if true suggests an extremely heavy aircraft.
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Would we be able to use one of the little blurry blobs that are its landing gear wheels, to approximate the size?

We could do a couple of approximations based on the wheel sizes on H-6s, Y-20s, fighters (CTOL and CATOBAR).

Because I don’t want to publicly admit what I may be starting to think… so the most important thing to me right now, is to confirm that it’s not as massive as it seems (and looking at pictures of J-36 with wheels down for comparison is not helping, it’s making it worse).

Who wants to be the first one to suggest moving this to a dedicated thread for this aircraft… but not a new thread, one that’s been around for, a while…?
 
G

Geo29

Just Hatched
Registered Member
Tomboy said:
Crackpot theory, what if this is the JH-XX? It was a known real project at some point in time before most people dismissed it as cancelled due to not being that relevant anymore but what if development continued after new breakthroughs allowing longer range and better stealth making it more relevant today? Triple/dual bogie landing gear if true suggests an extremely heavy aircraft.
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By crack you mean me? ;-)
 
M

mack8

Junior Member
GTI said:
Would we be able to use one of the little blurry blobs that are its landing gear wheels, to approximate the size?

We could do a couple of approximations based on the wheel sizes on H-6s, Y-20s, fighters (CTOL and CATOBAR).

Because I don’t want to publicly admit what I may be starting to think… so the most important thing to me right now, is to confirm that it’s not as massive as it seems (and looking at pictures of J-36 with wheels down for comparison is not helping, it’s making it worse).

Who wants to be the first one to suggest moving this to a dedicated thread for this aircraft… but not a new thread, one that’s been around for, a while…?
Click to expand...
Supersonic H-20 or maybe supersonic partner of H-20?
 
A

Atomicfrog

Major
Registered Member
Tomboy said:
Crackpot theory, what if this is the JH-XX? It was a known real project at some point in time before most people dismissed it as cancelled due to not being that relevant anymore but what if development continued after new breakthroughs allowing longer range and better stealth making it more relevant today? Triple/dual bogie landing gear if true suggests an extremely heavy aircraft.
Click to expand...
In a way a J-36 with less control surfaces and different trailing edge more optimized for stealth, with two higher bypass engines and bigger internal volume could make sense for a JH-XX. You use most structural internal parts with the same front fuselage and most of the wings and his landing gears.

Still maybe just a clever psed. The small one with straight wings that we have seen on video is CCA. The J-36 looking one would be better discussed in the J-36 thread.
 
E

enroger

Senior Member
Registered Member
Neurosmith said:
The NWU paper indicates that its design is a variable-sweep-wing aircraft. I'm not going to speculate on its impact on its supposed all-aspect stealth, but it would at least partially explain why recent photos of this mysterious aircraft/CCA seems to have different wing configurations.

The paper diagram:
View attachment 157392

The recent sightings of this airframe:
View attachment 157393View attachment 157394View attachment 157395

The possibility of PS notwithstanding, it is possible that the aircraft in these images look "different" because its wings might be at different sweep angles. Compare the first and middle photographs for example. The rightmost image - assuming that it's the same aircraft - likely shows its wings at a minimum sweep while the leftmost image shows wings at their maximum sweep.

Again, this is just a semi-serious guess. And this all banks on the aircraft being real and not PSed in any way and the NWU paper being related to this airframe.
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Very interesting guess. Though I'm wondering if it makes aero-center shift a lot, in the third picture it seems aero-center would be way aft of the COM
 
A

ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
GTI said:
C) If, as someone said above, this is supposedly the only real picture of “[G]J-XD3”, it would make sense because it clearly looks different to those PSed J-36 ones, like (A), that did the rounds yesterday (with the clear image quality on the trailing edges and undersides).

Am I the only one that thinks this thing looks big? I see a slight bulge that makes me think a cockpit is more likely than not (of course, could be satcom) — but mostly because judging by the front gear, the undercarriage is either comically tiny, or the aircraft is big… and what looks to be at least 2, but maybe 3 wheels in the main landing gear bogie.
View attachment 157410
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So if this photo is indeed the only real one out of all the photos out there, isn't this one basically just the J-36? Also considering the purported location where this photo is taken (i.e. Chengdu).
 
GTI

GTI

Junior Member
Registered Member
ACuriousPLAFan said:
So if this photo is indeed the only real one out of all the photos out there, isn't this one basically just the J-36? Also considering the purported location where this photo is taken (i.e. Chengdu).
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J-36’s wings have forward swept trailing edges, this one doesn’t.

Then go look at pictures of the J-36 with undercarriage down. Look at the distance between front and main landing gear, using another part of the J-36 for reference (e.g. leading edge of wing). Let me know what differences you see in the distance between landing gear on J-36 vs. the picture of “G/J-XD3”.

And isn’t there anyone who’s willing to try approximate the size using one of the blurry wheels please?
 
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