PLA next/6th generation fighter thread

[enroger]

What does 6th gen really entails? IMO 6th gen needs to have overwhelming advantage against 5th gen, yet so far we're looking at marginally improved all aspect stealth, marginally improved aerodynamic efficiency with tailless arrangement, loyal wingman capabilities that can be easily integrated in current 5th gen anyway...etc.

Personally I don't see a huge urgency with 6th gen for PLA, US OTOH does need NGAD asap because F-35 does not fit their tactical requirement so well in westpac, they need a long range high speed air superiority platform similar to J-20.

UCAV or loyal wingman is way more impactful than 6th gen, whoever first field practical systems will have a huge advantage over the opponent.

 

[gelgoog]

Focusing your entire strategy on UCAVs or loyal wingmen is premature. Need I remind you of such supposed "game changing" efforts by the US like the LCS or the Zumwalt ships?

The variable cycle engine technology is supposed to lead to a vast improvement in range. And that will help with power projection over the Pacific. For China this could mean having an aircraft that would not just be able to reach the First Island Chain, but the Second Island Chain as well.

 

[enroger]

Focusing your entire strategy on UCAVs or loyal wingmen is premature. Need I remind you of such supposed "game changing" efforts by the US like the LCS or the Zumwalt ships?

It's not an "either or" situation, of course nations will pursue 6th gen in parallel with UCAV. Also I don't think it is premature at all, I believe the tech is very much imminent

 

[tphuang]

My view is a bit more concrete than that -- I think "why not both" isn't a matter of "could be/maybe" but rather it should be the default assumption and the null hypothesis we are working off. That is to say, we would need quite strong indicators to make us change the baseline working assumption that they are pursuing advanced J-20 variants as well as a 6th gen/next gen fighter (both in conjunction with CCAs).

We can speculate about the rationale of whether they may want to slow down development of J-XD a little bit or not, or to wait for certain technologies or subsystems to be ready, if the USAF is actually seriously intending to slow down NGAD a bit (again, assuming that what they're saying publicly is actually a reflection of their own internal planning), but we can just as easily and more logically speculate that it makes sense for the PLA to take the opportunity to close the gap even more (to overtake while around the corner, as has been said in the past on occasion). As we've also seen with J-20, pursuing early variants even with interim subsystems still helps the service learn and iterate and develop new TTPs earlier and faster.

For us, in the general public, I don't think the news of the USAF potentially looking at slowing down NGAD a bit should change our baseline working assumptions for J-XD until such a point that there are sufficient indicators from the grapevine to suggest it is actually happening.

Because any argument that "if NGAD is slowing down, PLA can afford to slow down" can just be countered by "if NGAD is slowing down, PLA should use the opportunity to overtake".

I think the gap bw 4th and 5th gen aircraft vs 5th to 6th gen is much larger. So it did make sense for them to go into production with J-20 even if it used sub optimal engines. Having a LO aircraft to train with is a huge game changer for your air force. Whereas, I'm not sure the need to get a smaller number of "6th gen" into service asap is as importance.

Obviously, I have no insights into how PLAAF thinks about this, since I barely follow PLA these days. So, this to me is just an opportunity for PLAAF to think whether or not taking a little longer makes sense.

When it comes to J-20 vs F-35, one advantage PLAAF got from coming later is just having a larger aircraft which gives it far more space to installing game changing electronics. There is nothing US military can do for the next 20 years to account for the smaller interior space of F-35 vs J-20.

Similarly, we have the same dynamics with MK-41 vs PLAN's U-VLS. Nothing USN can do to change U-VLS's inherent size advantages for deploying hypersonic missiles and longer ranged ABM.

PLA won't have that "same advantage" with 6th gen, since they are both at dark about design choices of each other. So it's critical that their basic design gives them advantage 30 to 40 years from now.

 

[Blitzo]

I think the gap bw 4th and 5th gen aircraft vs 5th to 6th gen is much larger. So it did make sense for them to go into production with J-20 even if it used sub optimal engines. Having a LO aircraft to train with is a huge game changer for your air force. Whereas, I'm not sure the need to get a smaller number of "6th gen" into service asap is as importance.

Obviously, I have no insights into how PLAAF thinks about this, since I barely follow PLA these days. So, this to me is just an opportunity for PLAAF to think whether or not taking a little longer makes sense.

When it comes to J-20 vs F-35, one advantage PLAAF got from coming later is just having a larger aircraft which gives it far more space to installing game changing electronics. There is nothing US military can do for the next 20 years to account for the smaller interior space of F-35 vs J-20.

Similarly, we have the same dynamics with MK-41 vs PLAN's U-VLS. Nothing USN can do to change U-VLS's inherent size advantages for deploying hypersonic missiles and longer ranged ABM.

PLA won't have that "same advantage" with 6th gen, since they are both at dark about design choices of each other. So it's critical that their basic design gives them advantage 30 to 40 years from now.

I agree that the gap between 4th gen and 5th gen is likely to be bigger than 5th gen and 6th gen, and my views regarding J-XD are all with that being understood.

I think they should be at a sufficiently late stage of development for J-XD that the basic design and characteristics should be fairly settled, and I can't imagine any voluntary delay would be particularly in pursuit of refining a basic design and basic requirements as opposed to waiting for subsystem maturity.

However introducing a J-XD with even interim subsystems will still offer benefits to introducing the service to the new aircraft type, starting off the logistics/support system, and testing the initial production/industry side of things.



Ultimately, this discussion about "should they delay J-XD if the USAF is delaying NGAD" comes down to a question of how ambitious they really want to be, assuming that they aren't experiencing any major financial, technological or doctrinal delays of their own. If they aren't facing such delays and if everything is in the green, I cannot see why they would not seize the moment to aim to come out with their own next generation product as planned so they can also start the iterative/new variant cycle for J-XD sooner as well, relative to NGAD.

 

[tphuang]

I agree that the gap between 4th gen and 5th gen is likely to be bigger than 5th gen and 6th gen, and my views regarding J-XD are all with that being understood.

I think they should be at a sufficiently late stage of development for J-XD that the basic design and characteristics should be fairly settled, and I can't imagine any voluntary delay would be particularly in pursuit of refining a basic design and basic requirements as opposed to waiting for subsystem maturity.

However introducing a J-XD with even interim subsystems will still offer benefits to introducing the service to the new aircraft type, starting off the logistics/support system, and testing the initial production/industry side of things.



Ultimately, this discussion about "should they delay J-XD if the USAF is delaying NGAD" comes down to a question of how ambitious they really want to be, assuming that they aren't experiencing any major financial, technological or doctrinal delays of their own. If they aren't facing such delays and if everything is in the green, I cannot see why they would not seize the moment to aim to come out with their own next generation product as planned so they can also start the iterative/new variant cycle for J-XD sooner as well, relative to NGAD.

That's fair. Just a thought I had since i looked over the NGAD issues yesterday.

My feeling is that PLAAF already has a major advantage in J-20 over F-35.

It seems to me that 6th gen will need to be really large

Here is a question, if the next gen engine has a 20% higher thrust than WS-15, would we expect 6th gen to be 20% heavier than J-20 or do we think the sizes will be about the same (or slightly larger) and T/W ratio will be significantly better?

 

[jerometa]

What does 6th gen really entails? IMO 6th gen needs to have overwhelming advantage against 5th gen, yet so far we're looking at marginally improved all aspect stealth, marginally improved aerodynamic efficiency with tailless arrangement, loyal wingman capabilities that can be easily integrated in current 5th gen anyway...etc.

Personally I don't see a huge urgency with 6th gen for PLA, US OTOH does need NGAD asap because F-35 does not fit their tactical requirement so well in westpac, they need a long range high speed air superiority platform similar to J-20.

UCAV or loyal wingman is way more impactful than 6th gen, whoever first field practical systems will have a huge advantage over the opponent.

Future development of 6th gen fighters will be paired with UAV, lethal autonomous weapon systems, and hypersonic missiles. The developers are aggressively trying to integrate the select AI system and technologies into their arsenal to have a comparative advantage over their rivals. Another input to 6th gen design will be to develop their own adaptive feature to be fed on NGAP engines.

 

[jerometa]

That's fair. Just a thought I had since i looked over the NGAD issues yesterday.

My feeling is that PLAAF already has a major advantage in J-20 over F-35.

It seems to me that 6th gen will need to be really large

Here is a question, if the next gen engine has a 20% higher thrust than WS-15, would we expect 6th gen to be 20% heavier than J-20 or do we think the sizes will be about the same (or slightly larger) and T/W ratio will be significantly better?

What are your thoughts on 6th gen engine? Will the propulsion systems be sized appropriately to meet thrust, weight, and other integration requirements? Besides propulsion and air frame, the next developed technologies like advanced materials and composites, ceramic matrix materials, thermal management improvements, and additive (3-D) manufacturing which collectively will deliver the increased capabilities of the fighter.

 

[ougoah]

So far with Chinese conference leaks and semi-official indications it appears that Chinese 6th gen prototypes explore some combinations variable cycle engines, variable geometry (not sweep wing), and vertical stabilisers being removed. Other aspects seem to be confined to the "software" side of things.

These seem to be similar to how the US hints are approaching 6th gen. NGAD and the naval FA-xx were/are intended to be much larger platforms to further range and payload. Chinese efforts to counter next generation US frontline fighters need to undermine the primary threat of positioning. By somehow being able to shut down and restrain regional US bases while A2ADing US carriers (much harder task than defeating US regional bases), next gen US fighter forces and the rest of their force projection is inhibited.

This means China's 6th gen fighter program appears to be a more symmetrical program. If not, a combined longer ranged supersonic JH-x performing CCA and related counter air/sea/launch platform missions and frontline UCAVs would work much better at performing deterrence. Especially if you add very cheap and quickly made attritable assets that are designed to soak up US A2A missiles. These can only be effective with fast and stealthy launch platforms but we should remember that it costs the US 25x as much money and 5x as much energy to deliver an A2A missile to westpac compared to the cost to China doing the same. It is therefore very much worth pursuing an attritable UAV weapon/platform that demands the US expend a missile to shoot down unless they want it penetrating and eroding their networks.

All these platforms - 6th gen fighter, strategic bomber, CCA, supersonic multirole JH-x, UCAV, UAV and so on are concurrent and rarely overlap in capability and purpose. The issue is time and resources and how to extract the greatest effectiveness knowing how the US is developing its strategy and tactics + platforms in real time. This obviously influences how PLA approaches their own development and procurement programs.

From the last few years it seems China has test flown some interesting hypersonic craft of various dissimilar kinds (read mission profiles) and next generation aircraft. We have grainy photos and foreign intel leaks suggesting a broad range of platforms and how these pieces of the puzzle fit will become more apparent in coming years/decade. Secrecy of course is important which explains the very gradual release of information, sometimes unintended. What I mean is, the strategic thinking is changing and adapting constantly on both sides. With how relatively slow these programs move anyway, the only risk to either is a revolutionary paradigm shift technology that can be quickly applied to MIC. Otherwise, China has every luxury of time in the military space to put up assymetric and symmetric efforts to match and surpass the US in every domain and every new domain.

 

[Ironhide]

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I can't access the two articles on 05-29-2024 from the journal due to restrictions, but there does seem to be two published that day in that journal. If anyone can get access, I'd also like to read the paper.

Here is the complete Paper

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"Design analysis of flight control laws of combined aircraft and test flight experiments"
"Finally, verification fight test of the combined aircraft is carried out. During the fight, the carrier aircraft and the child aircraft are separated safely, and the attitude is controllable throughout the fight. This further verifies the reliability of the robust servo fight control law proposed in this paper"