But even if that bird finally has arrived at Xi'an-Yanliang, I don't understand why they had to transfer that thing to Xi'an partially completed to do the structural tests ???
Is this impossible at SAC ??? ... and a maiden flight at SAC is surely possible too.
As such IMO the biggest question is that
WHY ?? What was so important, that it can't be done at Shenyang ??
Was it only a marketing-plot to take away the crowd from CHengdu and its J-20 (at least I hope so) ?
Deino
That's a good question, and I don't really buy the structural testing explanation, especially if this is supposed to be the new Naval carrier fighter.
SAC managed just fine with the structural testing for the J15, and if this is a naval fighter, surely the specialized equipment and expertise developed during the J15 programme would be of more direct use rather than anything Xi'an would have.
However, with the amount of time, effort and disruption (hence cost) this move has caused, you would have to assume that they did it for a very good reason and not merely as a publicity stunt. The tight security surrounding the transportation would also seem to contradict suggestions that this was all done for show.
Right now, I can only think of three explanations for why they decided to ship this bird like this half way across the country.
1) The PLAAF higher-ups have not changed their ways as much as we thought/hoped, and were quietly dismayed by the very public spectacle the J20 test flight and programme has turned into.
As such, this is a little bit of back to the old way of doing things, with them wanting the first flight to be conducted somewhere far less public than SAC's facilities where they would keep a better eye on proceedings.
2) Instead of directly competing for JHXX striker contract with XAC, SAC and XAC are teaming up to make a joint offering to better their odds of beating CAC's design.
This would make a lot of sense as CAC is red hot right now, and have some extremely talented people doing some amazing stuff, so neither SAC or XAC must fancy their chances much of being able to better whatever CAC can come up with. Especially since CAC will have the advantage of massive PLAAF funding from the J20, and a lot of the systems and technologies developed for the J20 could be directly applied to a new medium weight design much like how the JF17 benefitted massively from the J10 programme.
With rumors that SAC is funding their new fighter out of their own pocket, teaming up with XAC could also have a financial element, as developing a 5th gen fighter is pretty expensive so SAC may feel better with someone else paying part of the tab instead of them footing the whole bill alone.
However, with teaming up also comes work share and co-operation. XAC won't go along with it if it means SAC gets all the work and they just end up writing a very large cheque.
So, this could be part of the JV terms that SAC sends a prototype to XAC and they conduct flight testing at the same time (but co-ordinate their efforts of course).
The partially complete nature of the airframe would thus be explained by the remaining parts being the responsibility of XAC, and as such have been manufactured at XAC and the plane will complete it's assembly at XAC's plant.
The missing components for SAC's prototype could easily have been transported the other way, but would not have been noticed as those parts would be small enough to be easily concealable or maybe even air freighted over.
3) This is a massive smoke screen designed to focus the world's intelligence agencies' attention on this convoy so the real deal could happen somewhere else without their notice.
