SinoSoldier
Colonel
Interesting how detailed design and prototyping are grouped into one stage. Any idea how long the "S" stage might take to complete for this SAC project?
Shenyang / SAC - newly announced 5th generation fighter
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
Interesting how detailed design and prototyping are grouped into one stage. Any idea how long the "S" stage might take to complete for this SAC project?
Brumby
Major
According to Western standards when someone tells me that the engineering design is locked in it means the design specifications come with it sufficient detail for those specs to be forwarded to the manufacturers for fabrication and production of the parts. In my view that would mean stage "D" is complete. The transition would then commence to prototyping (provided approval is given to proceed). However it should be understood that "prototyping" has very broad meaning in this discussions as there are many stages to it. Approval of design; approval of project to next phase; ordering of parts; manufacturing of the parts; assembly of the parts; ground test; and then actual first flight. If this is a navalized design, the real test is the carrier trials. The F-35C hit turbulence during the carrier trials and had to go back to the drawing board. IMO, I don't expect to see any flight until 2021 at the very earliest.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
That means it'll be a wait until 2021 or 2022 before the J-XY could take flight. But perhaps things might be faster since it is allegedly a development of the FC-31 airframe.
If this is indeed the case then them engineers at SAC are pretty bloody fast with the design work... that's like finishing the design in 15 months
well late next year is also possible, and if this project is indeed corollated with the carrier-borne 4th gen, then maiden flight in 2020 fits both Sun Cong's alleged quote that the new carrier fighter will show up in 2020; as well as PB19980515 (who claims to have worked on the J-15 and is historically a quite reliable source of information)'s quotes from 超级大本营. He said that the new carrier fighter will have its maiden flight either during the second half of 2019 (well that's obviously not gonna happen) or during the first half of 2020. This quote, from , is posted on 2018.03.04, quite a few months earlier than the start of the new SAC project (but maybe not before the contest between 601 and 611 for the 4th gen carrier fighter, *if a contest actually took place, that is*)
I admit that I'm kinda reaching at this point, but all of these information seems to more or less point at the same conclusion: SAC's new project is likely to be China's 4th gen carrier fighter
More info: PB19980515 not only created a post on the naval 4th gen fighter 3 months before the start-of-planning of the SAC project, he also created a post concerning the electro optical system of said aircraft on 2018.09.04 (link: ) also 3 months before the open contract from SAC for a electro optical system that "must have a degree of stealth ability" This consistency makes me wonder if he indeed has some inside information regarding the naval fighter project...
SinoSoldier
Colonel
I am aware of PB19980515's quotes and predictions, but after all conjecture is merely conjecture. He may be informed about things that we are not but there is no way he could be correct on 100% of his predictions (in fact, quite of few of his convictions have been false). The latest solid evidence of a SAC-led fighter program is from the recent article posted in the WeChat group and that suggests that it'll be quite a long time away based on the alleged status of the project. However, there are several things that work in favor of a shorter reveal time, in particular 3D-printing of certain airframe components and the fact that a lot of the subcomponents have been developed for previous fighter projects. So no one really knows for sure.
It's also funny that PB19980515 has essentially disappeared from CJDBY since January. Maybe he's been silenced by his higher-ups or maybe he's embarrassed to get so many things wrong.
By the way, do you know when Sun Cong stated that the J-XY would fly in 2020?
agreed that PB19980515 cannot be 100% correct with his perdictions, I'm merely pointing out that this is possibly in corollation with what we know from the wechat article. As to the alleged quote, Its in an interview done sometime during summer this year. The "alleged" is beacuse the original article (though published from a quite authoriative source) did not *specifically* state that this came out of the mouth of Sun Cong... Sadly I can't locate the original source right now, will post it here once I find it
SinoSoldier
Colonel
I'm curious about the Sun Cong interview because there was an interview in which he mentioned 2020 specifically, but that interview was from 2013. Not sure if this is just a re-hashed interview or a recent one.