yes, but price wise, I don't think it will make a significant different for PLAAF to create another supply chain and logistic system for entire new aircraft, also the reason for F-35 to be cheaper than F-22 is F-22 has only produce 187 units, and F-35 has already produced more than 700 units and likely another 3000 units to go, whereas J-20 in china would have an expected of 500+ or even 1000, and FC-31, well, 2 or 300?
canards reduce RCS is an old busted myth, there has been multiple occasions and papers from CAC said during the cruise, the J-20 canards could be locked, so that the RCS reduction could be neglectable
general heat detector on missle are normally more sensitive to temperature change rather than the size of the frame, if a infred detector can see WS-10 from km, I would expect it can see all the other exhaust from 50km as well (may be not F-22)
hi, this is contridict to what you mention later, that:
now we have a naval version with small airframe, to have an addition cannon, and addition side weapon bay, and dual seat means the entire airframe need be much larger, so dilemma A, how would you expect the development timeframe could be achieved with in 3 years (for a fighter we haven't saw yet)???
dilemma B, once the airframe get larger, the small engine WS-13/19 will be too small to use, to back to WS-15, which makes you smaller IR and visual amd price hypopthsis gone, and also from a logitics point of view, I'm not sure if PLAAF is happy with that.
so here you have it, to close the capacity gap of J-20, FC-31 need a larger bodyframe to cop with additonal equipment and therefore longer time to development,
otherwise, it leaves a capacity gap between J-20 and FC-31, and have only a cheap unit cost (maybe not, given the number of FC-31 production) alternative to be produce in late 20s or even early 30s, you should have a better argument than China want to save money, cause you have mentioned before that
if it's not a game changer, like F-15 to F-4 or F-22 to F-15, than it's not a 6th gen
sorry man, if you have any idea of manufacture or industry or production line, you won't say anything like that, in reality, the US way of produce YF-22/23 and XF-32/35 is the most inefficient and uneconomical way to R&D a product. cost more than double, recieve only half, if US defence department is a company, it will be bankrupt for a long time
