PLA next/6th generation fighter thread

[siegecrossbow]

Conclusion.

Projecting Potential Milestone Dates

Overall, the balance of indicators strongly suggests research and development into 6th generation fighter and air combat concepts has been ongoing for a number of years now, and Wang’s statement of a next generation fighter entering service by 2035 or earlier creates a basis to estimate when prototypes or demonstrators for such an aircraft could be expected to emerge.

For the sake of brevity, this notional PLA 6th generation fighter will be dubbed as “J-X.” Note this is not an official designation or a name used in the community.

If J-X is intended to enter service in 2035, then going by past fighter programs it suggests a maiden flight should occur at least 5 years prior. Assuming an additional 2 years of development given potential delays, a service date of 2035 implies the prototype for this aircraft would have to emerge by 2028 at the latest. For J-X to enter service in 2035 would require it to likely begin low rate production a couple of years beforehand (again, when derived from practice of recent projects like the J-20). That would project initial production of J-X to begin around 2032-33 at the latest.

Using the above hypothetical dates, some simple arithmetic allows various milestones to be calculated between J-X and the previous generation J-20:

• J-20 maiden flight in early 2011, 17 years before J-X’s projected maiden flight.
• J-20 initial production began in 2016, 16-17 years before J-X’s projected initial production.
• J-20 entered service in combat units in 2018, 17 years before J-X projected service date.

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Those above numbers can in turn be compared to the time taken between J-20 to reach those milestones compared to its previous generation J-10:

• J-10 maiden flight 1998, 13 years before J-20 maiden flight.
• J-10 initial production began in 2003, 13 years before J-20 initial production.
• J-10 entered service in combat units slightly after 2004, about 14 years before J-20 entered service.

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Therefore surprisingly, in terms of the passage of time between generations, the projected time taken between J-X and J-20 for various important milestones would actually be longer than intervening period between J-20 and J-10. Additionally, even if J-X does enter service in 2035, it is likely that advanced J-20 and/or FC-31 variants will still remain in production. After all, even as J-20 has recently entered combat service, China today continues to produce 4+ generation J-10C and J-16 fighter aircraft in the interim.

Wang’s potential 2035 service date for the next generation fighter is only 16 years away when measured from the present day in 2019. 16 years may seem quite close and it may be difficult to envision such major advancements occurring in such a short space of time. However, in 2003 it likely would have also been as difficult to comprehend the idea of the Chinese aerospace industry producing an aircraft like J-20 and commissioning it in service merely 16 years into the future. As the years pass and enter the early 2020s, it is likely that additional rumors and indicators will emerge for the Chinese 6th generation fighter just like it did for J-20 (then known as “J-XX”) during the early and mid 2000s.​

 

[siegecrossbow]

For those of you who don't know Chinese, the second to last paragraph states that the CAC has submitted 8 proposals for the sixth generation fighter and have evaluated four of the proposals in low altitude flight tests.

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[Blitzo]

For those of you who don't know Chinese, the second to last paragraph states that the CAC has submitted 8 proposals for the sixth generation fighter and have evaluated four of the proposals in low altitude flight tests.

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just posting a higher quality version of the image, with the relevant part highlighted

(and edit; lol the original thread seems to have been deleted. Seems like it's legit)

 

[flateric]

recent CARDC patent

 

[Quickie]

Any relation to the previous 2 posts? Probably not.

 

[kriss]

Wait sixth generation? Aren't stealth jet fourth gen in chinese standard which would make a next gen fifth generation?

 

[Hyperwarp]

recent CARDC patent

Variable geometry wings? Is this a fighter or fighter-bomber?

 

[Richard Santos]

Variable geometry would still make sense if a design requirement is for both very high dash speed and long loiter time. I suspect fighter design over the next decades will return to emphasis on not only super cruise, but near hypersonic dash speed, as highly supersonic cruise missiles proliferate.

 

[Inst]

Interesting proposal, and very creative. Variable geometry would actually be very useful in the sense of optimizing for both stealth, speed, and maneuverability, although at a partial sacrifice of speed and stealth due to the gaps in the variable geometry. Unfortunately, China has never done variable geometry aircraft before so it has no experience in such. It's more likely to use a canard or LEVCON stealth fighter, at least in the preliminary stages.

Perhaps China should attempt a MiG-29-type fighter first with the canard / levcon set-up, especially since the Chinese have no pure stealth-optimized light aircraft a la the F-35? Then switch to variable geometry for the heavyweight fighter?

 

[Canton_pop]

Hogwash! If China has no experience in viable geometry? what is the FL-62 and millions designed patents filed?