The World's 4th, 4.5 & 5th Generation Fighters

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Don't think that's happening any time soon the USAF F22 fleet was pretty much rendered nonexistent with the stop of production and the F35 is lagging and not a Air too air fighter Eagles will be flying for sometime.

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noname said:

Theres little reason to build more of them,,,neither China or Russia have any thing that is a threat to the planes the USA has at the present time or does it seem like they are going to have any thing in the future.

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siegecrossbow said:

I recall seeing an F-22 ad where boeing and Lockheed Martin proudly announced that "one word has guaranteed U.S. Air Supremacy for the next 30 years - 5th Generation".

Anyhow the assessment isn't entirely correct (but mostly) since the Russians have already successfully test-flighted the T-50. Deployment, however, won't occur in a couple of years and it will take a while for them to build up a significant fleet of 5th generation fighters. Given the current financial situation the U.S. must cut on military spendings (F-22 has to go since it has not proved its worth in either Iraq or Afghanistan). Advanced variants of the F-22 will probably appear when either China or Russia starts fielding large numbers of 5th-gen fighters.

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noname said:

I have my doubts that Russia with an economy about ten percent of the USA is going to have the resources to develope any thing close to the F22.
The F22 did not have any thing to prove in Iraq or Afghanistan, the F22 is almost strictly an air superiority aircraft.

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getready said:

my first thought was the guy is prolly an anti-china troll

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I think everyone is too optimistic about China's capability in making aircraft. First, the most crucial part of an aircraft is its engine and China still have problem with WS-10A. It is not even mounted on an aircraft flying around (integrated with airframe and other systems) to find out exactly what shortcomings it has, under aerial/real flying condition.

Secondly, in my humble opinion, China only finished digesting the lessons learned in 3rd Generation fighters. The last REAL Chinese designed aircraft is the
Shenyang J-8. And I am pretty sure CAC is still digesting the lesson learned in J-10, which will take atleast a decade or more. It will then be able to do more variants of 4th Generation class fighters (similar to American's F-16, F-15, F-18) with updated improvement in tech, but I think it is still too far of a reach for China to even start 5th Generation Fighters (maybe not until 2025 or later). Seriously, it took the most high tech country in the world, the USA almost 25 YEARS to finally fielded the F-22; the Russians took similar time frame (including several failed attempts - Mikoyan Project 1.44, LFI, MFI, etc) before it finally had its first maiden flight today. And Russian made NUMEROUS 4th/4.5 generation test beds (Mig-35, Su-30, Su-35, Su-37, Su-47) and prototypes before its tech mature enough to develop this 5th gen fighter.

So, my guess is, China will continue to make variants and update of J-10 for the next 20-25 years (like the J-7 with its 48 variants), and it will finally have the techno-infrastructure and knowledge base to develop its own 5th gen fighter. Even if for some miracle that CAC push out a "5th gen" fighter for test flight in the next few years, I would probably expect it to fail miserably (Much like the MFI/Mig 1.44).

I will just quote what I say before, which I believe is what the current Chinese Aviation industry is heading, and capable of.

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From what I have read so far, China does not have the capability to develop 5th generation fighter. It is still busy digesting the lessons learned in 3rd generation (eg. J-7, J-8, and HAIG L-15) and 4th generation (J-10) fighter design. It is still upgrading and improving the J-8 and touting it because that's what it is most capable of currently. The next 10 years will probably see a lot of improvments to the J-10 (J-10 II, J-10 III?? like the J-8 naming series?) as it start to learn and work out all the flaws and discover new ideas for it, it is until then, that China will finally be able to get on with J-XX series of fighter. A look at other aviation development like the American with F-14, F15, F16, F18 series can tell you it took american decades for them to digest and learn and work out various flaws in the design (various incremental improvments eg. F-14 A~D, F-16 A~D (various blocks), .....F-15 A~E, F-18 A-F... etc etc), and finally matured and move on to the next generation fighters (with ground work on various experimental design, and bombers like F-117, B-2). Same can be said with the Russians, with their Su-30 Series (Su-30, Su-33, Su-35, Su-37) and Mig-29 Series (Mig-29, Mig-35... etc), although Russian started design of next generation fighter a decade ago (Mikoyan Project 1.44), but it was premature effort in my opinion, it did not have the knowledge base and technological infrastructure, and finance to do it. But right now, I think Russian finally can move on, there isn't anything much to improve on the Su-30 or Mig-29 series, unless they move on to a new airframe or powerplant.

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Asymptote said:

Was my assessment wrong ??

Let's review my assessment :

Now, what kind of aircrafts are China developing and producing today??

The latest focus is still improving J-8, a 2nd/3rd generation fighter that's 40+ years old (and 50+ years old from western standard).

The latest export to Pakistan the JF-17 / FC-1 is at best a 4th generation fighter in the same class as F-16, but more likely 3rd generation fighter in the same class as Northrop F-5...

And China is still developing the J-11B!!

It is plenty obvious to every logical/sensible observer to come to the conclusion - China is still technologically/infrastructurally/institutionally far behind the west and Russia by atleast 30+ YEARS in aviation (in the space arena? 50+ years).


I will say it again, at the most optimistic projection - China will have 5th generation fighter by 2030 or later. The AVIC will continue its development at a snail pace - "polishing" and SUPERFICIALLY IMPROVING the J-10, J-11B (probably putting DSI and other superficial crap that actually decrease the performance) until its finally "on par" with the original design they were cloning/"inspired" from (J-10 : F-16/IAI Lavi/Eurofighter Typhoon; J-11B: Su-27/Su-30/Su-35/Su-37).


I am willing to bet AVIC doesn't even have a blueprint of "5th generation" fighter on their table even right now - and it won't until 2020 or later. It will have to wait until it digested the lesson from 3rd/4th generation, and learn from video and abroad the Russian/American 5th generation before it can even try to attempt on its own.

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rhino123 said:

I am very interested in the following,

1) What was your assessment based on? Do you actually have insider info into Chinese aerospace industries?
2) What is your basis for J-10 being clone/inspired of or whatever you chose to call for F16/IAI lavi/Eurofighter?
3) I am not seeing any reference in your post, just alot of your own assessment, and unless you are a credible source yourself, whatever you say is just wishful thinking.
4) and base on what did you say that everything put on the existing aircraft are crap and would decrease the performance of the aircraft?

Is it because it is just China that is doing those things and so it must be lousy?

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Lezt said:

What the F22 proved is that it is not able or economically feasible to adapt to the changing requirements of the air force.

Thing is, you don't need something equal to the F22, anything which can sufficiently threaten a F22 is good enough. Anything which can credibly penetrate an air superiority fighter screen and destroy strike aircraft is sufficient put a significant dent in American strike power.

If you can locate and deny fuel dumps and ammo depots, a F22 without fuel is not much of a threat. this is where ballistic missiles come in and special forces come in. hence, there is no need to match the F22 toe to toe; just like the American revolutionary army did not have to match the British army man for man in a pitch battle, they just need to be sufficient to deny freedom of action - where the irregulars will do the rest.

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Lezt said:

just like the American revolutionary army did not have to match the British army man for man in a pitch battle, they just need to be sufficient to deny freedom of action - where the irregulars will do the rest.

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