That's a potential Sputnik moment. Other potential names include "How Xi Ruined Biden's Last Big Party".
PLA next/6th generation fighter thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Just before APEC summit?
I was thinking more he will throw one last party for Christmas as president.
People use to argue weather or not J-20 is 5th gen or not but these days the matter is more or less settled with everyone agreeing both J-20 and J-35 are 5th gen. People still arguing about Su-57 these days.
Whoever makes public a 6th gen with clear capability improvement over 5th gen will get to define the 6th gen concept. Suppose the PLA's 6th gen come out and years later NGAD comes out. The debate will be "does NGAD count as 6th gen if it doesn't have this capability but has this instead."
China is just not that into bragging and doesn't care so much about selling. A very bragging culture (not gonna name specific examples) could probably
market J-20 and J-35 as 5.5 gen.
Not saying that it's a desirable argument, but that the capability/arguments and potential for marketing is there, if China had wanted to lean into it. But they didn't.
Right now just hoping J-XD comes out soon.
Didn't see such hints by Cute Orca or any Yankee & Co.-affiliated sites today or in the past couple days. Somewhere else?
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The model once again making appearance at Zhuhai. Doesn't seem to have anything new with it. Posted by @angadow on Weibo.
Hence mountain of salt.
Tbh even if it was credible, it doesn't add anything to what was already conveyed a week or two ago -- i.e. that we should expect it to emerge within "tens of days". It naturally would lend oneself to think anywhere up to and below 100 days or approximately the end of the year or very early next year.
Everything else becomes just window dressing imo, and the next estimate set we should expect, would be when we see something like "it is emerging next week" or even "it is emerging tomorrow"
All I am saying is that if they do end up doing it on Christmas Eve then people in charge have a sense of humor.
To be fair, when compared to f-22(as the defining 5th gen aircraft), I personally think that all 4(f-35/j-20/su-57/j-35) actually qualify.
It isn't a matter of bragging, but rather of substance underneath.