US F/A-XX and F-X 6th Gen Aircraft News Thread

[Jura The idiot]

and to be honest you could make a case that 10 Su-57's or 20 J-20's really are NOT operationally significant?? I mean if you flew a hawk into the "chicken coop", whats gonna come up and fight?? it seems that there are complications? or at least a lack of real engagement, kind of like some of those Army projects you are talking about, it doesn't just happen... it takes a hell of a lot of money and hard work, and it takes even more to go around to all the "needy" programs...

and in the meantime, they got to:

During a series of tests at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, on 23 April, the AFRL's DLWS (pictured), acting as a ground-based surrogate for the SHiELD system, engaged and shot down several air-launched missiles. (USAF)

(source:

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yet another game-changer, LOL

 

[Brumby]

even somebody from the target group (kids who like to read and fanbois) might ask how a laser would work through clouds against "very long range air-to-air capability"

Clouds are subject to attitude and weather conditions.



By the time the Chinese or Russians actually have long range stand off threats, the USAF can adopt plenty of disposable decoys like Britecloud on those tankers/AWACS.


Considering that an F-16 can easily accommodate 12 of these, a tanker/AWACs probably can accommodate a few dozen of these to counter a few long range missiles which historical has zero Pk success rate. .

 

[anzha]

and to be honest you could make a case that 10 Su-57's or 20 J-20's really are NOT operationally significant??

You probably could. However, do any of us doubt the Chinese have stopped at 20? That number was reported a year ago and I cannot imagine the PLAAF suddenly deciding to stop production. We're probably talking about 30 or more J-20s now. Given the readiness rates of the F-22 and the lack of F-35s in the area, I would call that significant.

 

[Jura The idiot]

^^^

What I've been saying a couple of posts back on the Huawei thread.

 

[Brumby]

You probably could. However, do any of us doubt the Chinese have stopped at 20? That number was reported a year ago and I cannot imagine the PLAAF suddenly deciding to stop production. We're probably talking about 30 or more J-20s now. Given the readiness rates of the F-22 and the lack of F-35s in the area, I would call that significant.

We don't know whether the Chinese have temporarily stopped J-20 production or not. No new pictures have surfaced for some time. This is not normal given the PR value associated with it. It is plausible if they ran into some serious issues. The recent Pentagon report did indicate that they ran into difficulty with the radar. The J-20 will have the same readiness issues as any 5th gen platform i.e. around 50 %. We don't know whether the J-20 is even ready for combat.

 

[gelgoog]

I have heard higher numbers of J-20s than that in other sources.

I think the major priority right now for the PLAAF is J-16 production because of the issues with the JH-7.
Still those should be different production facilities no?

 

[siegecrossbow]

We don't know whether the Chinese have temporarily stopped J-20 production or not. No new pictures have surfaced for some time. This is not normal given the PR value associated with it. It is plausible if they ran into some serious issues. The recent Pentagon report did indicate that they ran into difficulty with the radar. The J-20 will have the same readiness issues as any 5th gen platform i.e. around 50 %. We don't know whether the J-20 is even ready for combat.

To be fair we've seen many of the usual sources on Chinese military images/news shut down in the past few months. FYJS is shutdown permanently and CJDBY was closed for two weeks and only back in a limited capacity. There is a paucity of photos and news even after the latter was brought back online. I wonder if this is the beginning of a new era of crackdowns on military leaks.

 

[Air Force Brat]

You probably could. However, do any of us doubt the Chinese have stopped at 20? That number was reported a year ago and I cannot imagine the PLAAF suddenly deciding to stop production. We're probably talking about 30 or more J-20s now. Given the readiness rates of the F-22 and the lack of F-35s in the area, I would call that significant.

I never stated or even intended to imply that they were stopping production at 20 birds, but Chengdu is right in the middle of town, and we really haven't seen more than 5 J-20's together at any one time, and that my friend is odd, given all the satellite photo's floating around, I'm going out on a limb and stating that there should at least be anecdotal evidence had production continued apace, were we were seeing 4 new J-20's added to the fleet each year??

 

[Air Force Brat]

To be fair we've seen many of the usual sources on Chinese military images/news shut down in the past few months. FYJS is shutdown permanently and CJDBY was closed for two weeks and only back in a limited capacity. There is a paucity of photos and news even after the latter was brought back online. I wonder if this is the beginning of a new era of crackdowns on military leaks.

Siege there's no doubt there has been a significant lock down on information, but even if there are no photo's people do talk. I'm inclined to believe that the Chinese, like the US, like the Russians may very well be having issues with their only 5gen, remember, this bird is a stand alone project, its number one, and its not only possible, its more than very likely they have encountered issues as everyone else has attempting to bring their 5Gen bird online??

 

[anzha]

My apologies for the lack of posting on the thread. It's not a stomp off from losing an argument. I had my laptop stolen out my hands while I was on BART in the SF Bay area. sigh. I was tired and knew better, but...well, it'd been a long day. I have another now. sigh.

That said, I was told there was an amendment to the USAF request specifically for the NGAD. The AOA is apparently done and they are doing a reset. The budget request for 2020 was slashed in half to $500M from $1B. Assuming this is true, the PCA or whatever NGAD will become has been pushed back at least a couple years, assuming they haven't just scaled back a more ambitious aircraft program. As soon as a link emerges, I'll post.