Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator

zyun8288 said:

Before talking about its deployment onto 003 carrier, Do you have any evidence that only one test flight occurred in half a year?

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When J-20 prototypes were under flight test, each time when they left the ground, people saw them and took photos and posted on the internet.

An aircraft is a huge machine and make great noise in the air, it cannot hide away from the people on the ground. So the test flights, especially of a plane based in an airport in a city with 10m population, can't be done secretly.

If an aircraft had not been seen in the sky for several months, then it should have not been flown for the months passed. That's a very reasonable inference.

BTW: Why is it my burden to prove that it flew only once, but not your responsibility to prove that it flew more than once?

Why is it your burden?
Because you are the one who made the claim. It would be the same question if someone claims that J35 has done more than one flight tests. I have made no claim on whether it has made any flights or not. When I don’t have evidence, I don’t make a claim.

2nd reason is, as you have said, J20 had many photo graphs of its test flights by observers. Now based on your claim, either yourself have stationed outside of SAC for last half a year without seeing J35 flying, or you know a specific person who has done this monitoring. This is the evidence that I like to know to support your claim.

If you think there were more than one flight why don't you just post the proof? A photo, several seconds of video, or even a web page link is enough.

Would you think it possible for me to upload a 24 hous x 100 days continuous video of the airport to prove that the FC-31 never flew again in the recent several months?

iantsai said:

If you think there were more than one flight why don't you just post the proof? A photo, several seconds of video, or even a web page link is enough.

Would you think it possible for me to upload a 24 hous x 100 days continuous video of the airport to prove that the FC-31 never flew again in the recent several months?

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No, no you have it wrong.

The whole point of the last few posts is to inform you that the pictures we have received of this aircraft is entirely expected and consistent with an aircraft undergoing a flight testing and development program.

For SAC, and under current geopolitical circumstances, a new aircraft having a handful of pictures released and then having radio silence for months or even a year or so, is entirely normal.

The earlier you accept this, the easier it will be for everyone.

Bltizo said:

No, no you have it wrong.

The whole point of the last few posts is to inform you that the pictures we have received of this aircraft is entirely expected and consistent with an aircraft undergoing a flight testing and development program.

For SAC, and under current geopolitical circumstances, a new aircraft having a handful of pictures released and then having radio silence for months or even a year or so, is entirely normal.

The earlier you accept this, the easier it will be for everyone.

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completely agreed. In the past year, cdjby got shut down. This isn't back 10 years ago when Chinese government was just allowing free information to flow out. It realized that Western intelligence has really started tracking these places, so it's putting a lot more effort in preventing exact information from flowing out.

to put it another way, Chinese government wants to continue to have free flowing access to all the open source information and classified information from Western countries, while restricting Western intelligence from getting relevant information about PLA. So far, we haven't seen any close up shots of J-35. The last time I remember this level of secrecy was back in early days of J-10 and Z-10 when the wall climbers haven't become a thing yet.

iantsai said:

When J-20 prototypes were under flight test, each time when they left the ground, people saw them and took photos and posted on the internet.

An aircraft is a huge machine and make great noise in the air, it cannot hide away from the people on the ground. So the test flights, especially of a plane based in an airport in a city with 10m population, can't be done secretly.

If an aircraft had not been seen in the sky for several months, then it should have not been flown for the months passed. That's a very reasonable inference.

BTW: Why is it my burden to prove that it flew only once, but not your responsibility to prove that it flew more than once?

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That’s because CAC’s airfield is in the middle of a populated area. SAC’s airfield is not.

latenlazy said:

That’s because CAC’s airfield is in the middle of a populated area. SAC’s airfield is not.

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China is a populated country and there is no real wilderness near a 10m population city. Do you know there are 700 persons/sqkm living in Shenyang city? Not the density in the downtown but that of the vast 12980 sqkm administrational area.

Don't think it's a place like the corn belt in the US where there people have to walk one mile or more to visit their neighbors.

Bltizo said:

No, no you have it wrong.

The whole point of the last few posts is to inform you that the pictures we have received of this aircraft is entirely expected and consistent with an aircraft undergoing a flight testing and development program.

For SAC, and under current geopolitical circumstances, a new aircraft having a handful of pictures released and then having radio silence for months or even a year or so, is entirely normal.

The earlier you accept this, the easier it will be for everyone.

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As I mentioned in the last post, Shenyang is a city with a population density of 700 persons/sqkm and an area of 12980 sqkm.

Anyone insists that there were multiple FC-31 test flights would better show something as proof. Because there could not be a stealth test flight before 9 million people.

The government awareness of the leaking of the aircraft is a factor, but this did not denied the J-20 and KJ-600 from being leaked the blurry photos in the air, which are definitely in much higher priority than the FC-31.

If there had been many test flights it's very possible for the aircraft to be shot by someone's smartphone and posted in twitter or forums like SDF.

iantsai said:

China is a populated country and there is no real wilderness near a 10m population city. Do you know there are 700 persons/sqkm living in Shenyang city? Not the density in the downtown but that of the vast 12980 sqkm administrational area.

Don't think it's a place like the corn belt in the US where there people have to walk one mile or more to visit their neighbors.

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Xi Jinping lives in Beijing which has probably higher pop. density than Shenyang. Yet you don't see the locals taking photos of Mr. Xi jogging, walking, tai chi'ing every day.

iantsai said:

As I mentioned in the last post, Shenyang is a city with a population density of 700 persons/sqkm and an area of 12980 sqkm.

Anyone insists that there were multiple FC-31 test flights would better show something as proof. Because there could not be a stealth test flight before 9 million people.

The government awareness of the leaking of the aircraft is a factor, but this did not denied the J-20 and KJ-600 from being leaked the blurry photos in the air, which are definitely in much higher priority than the FC-31.

If there had been many test flights it's very possible for the aircraft to be shot by someone's smartphone and posted in twitter or forums like SDF.

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I don't think we can get definitve answer to the number of test flights based on leaked photos. I think it is safe to assume J-31 is not in a period of intense flight testing, and if they were testing it, it's not from SAC. Also, as you mentioned the current focus of J-31/J-35 program is for the navy and the PLAN's catapult testing airbase is very close, Shenyang and Dalian is not far from each other.

As far as I am aware, there were no photos leaked from that facility, but we know they did a lot of tests. Again, everything is just speculation, which makes PLA watching fun.