"The new Chinese-made J-20 fifth-generation stealth fighter" Topic

"The J-20, China's first fifth-generation stealth fighter designed by Chengdu Aerospace Corporation, may enter production on a small scale in 2017, after the completion of the aircraft's test flights, according to the Wuhan-based Hubei Daily.

The Chengdu J-20 is a stealth, twin-engine fifth-generation fighter aircraft prototype being developed by Chengdu Aerospace Corporation for the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The J-20 made its first flight on 11 January 2011.

Citing the test flight of the fourth prototype of the J-20 with the serial number 2012 earlier this month, the Hubei Daily said that the development of Chinese stealth fighters has become more mature. It took a year for the second prototype of the J-20 to complete its test flight after the first one, however, it took the 2012 prototype only four months to complete this procedure after the third aircraft–bearing the serial number 2011–completed a test flight…"

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Amicalement
Armand

And I will be impressed when there are more than 4 prototypes flying.

I will be really impressed when Chinese-made engines last more than 30 hours flight time. Even the Russian ones make it 400 hours, and Americans complain about engine life of less than 1500 hours!

I bet it never goes into production, this is little more than keeping up with the Jones-es.

Interesting… No engine vectoring. You'd think the Chinese would give a shot.

coastal2, I suspect that the additional engineering work- on basically disposable engines, no less- really isn't worth the fairly limited performance gain. I'd take SA over nose-pointing any day of the week.

Except that the Russians showed a really slick way to use the normal 'turkey feathers' to get thrust vectoring: instead of using a solid, fixed mounting point for the inboard end of the actuators, they attach the actuators to a floating ring that is then attached to 3 larger hydraulic actuators, anchored farther up the engine.

If your stealth is good enough that radar-guided BVR missiles basically don't work, I sure as heck want some unholy maneuverability to spring on someone who gets vectored within sidewinder range by land-based radars. Land-based radars can easily handle the long wavelengths that modern stealth doesn't handle too well, but that require too big an antenna to work well in an aircraft.

And I will be impressed when there are more than 4 prototypes flying.

I will be really impressed when Chinese-made engines last more than 30 hours flight time. Even the Russian ones make it 400 hours, and Americans complain about engine life of less than 1500 hours!

Do you have any evidence about this?

You do realise most Chinese engines are licenced production of Russian as well as English designed Spey and various French designed Turbomeca turboshafts for helos? They actually offer an upgrade kit for Russian designed RD93.

They can always shove a Saturn AL31 into it anyhow. But that probably would just prove to you how useless and incompetent the Chinese are, even though the Swedes, South Koreans, Italians, Taiwanese and even Indians use American engines on their military jet aircraft.

Also if you have so little faith in China's aerospace industry, I recommend you never fly in a Boeing again as they have large amounts of Chinese built components. Indeed by 2007 China's was the largest non-US contributor to Boeing. This includes avionics and structural components.

The engine designs are fine, it's their manufacturing QC that gets them in trouble. And the Boeing example doesn't hold water since Boeing enforces their own QC standards. And their Chinese partners hit that standard or lose the contract.

The engine designs are fine, it's their manufacturing QC that gets them in trouble. And the Boeing example doesn't hold water since Boeing enforces their own QC standards. And their Chinese partners hit that standard or lose the contract.

Yup and I doubt the PLA has loose standards either. From what is known, the first batch of licence produced J-11 Flankers was rejected due to quality issues. And there's plenty of examples of cancelled projects in PLA or aircraft being cancelled or heavily modified after small production runs.

I'm not saying Chinese aviation is perfect. They are lagging in a number of critical areas in terms of design and capability (and indeed engines are one, especially when compared to Western designs). Avionics are another.

But they're not some sort of sad cliched useless imbeciles which is what a lot of Westerners like to think they are.