"Is China Sending a Stealth Fighter to Sea?" Topic

"A full-scale model of China's J-31 stealth fighter prototype has appeared on the flight deck of the Chinese navy's aircraft carrier mock-up, fueling speculation that the radar-evading jet could become part of China's carrier air wing.

If so, China would enter the race alongside the United States to be the first to deploy a stealth jet on a flattop. The U.S. Navy is struggling to develop the F-35C stealth fighter to fly from the American fleet's 10 large carriers starting no earlier than late 2018.

China often builds mock-ups of its new warships on land before constructing prototype vessels. In the spring of 2014, Chinese naval architects began assembling a model of a huge new missile cruiser on the campus of a technical institute in Wuhan…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Wot?

That's what I sad on another post! Well I said Whut but that's just a regional accent thing.

Fatman

That's what I said on another post! Well I said Whut but that's just a regional accent thing.

Fatman

So that's what it looks like when you stifle someone. I've learned something new.

Is China Sending a Stealth Fighter to Sea?

If it is advanced enough, how will we even know?!?

(Shhh. I think it's watching us now.)

No, those are the Russian ones.

C'est fou! Mauvaise journée mon ami?. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

All the stealth designing in the world won't be worth diddly-squat if your manufacturing and maintenance QA isn't up to par.

One of the F117 prototypes had just undergone maintenance before it had an RCS test, and all of a sudden it had a massively higher RCS than what it was before maintenance. Turns out that one row of screws on an access panel had been under-tightened, so the radar was picking up the screw heads.

Until the Chinese figure out how to make a high-quality part with at least a 4 sigma (0.62% chance of defects in manufacturing) level, any stealth aircraft they try to field will have a much larger real-world RCS than the predicted RCS. If you really want good, consistent stealth, you need to be at 6 or 7 sigma (0.00034% defects or 0.0000019% defects, respectively).

I say "until" because they will eventually get there. The question is how long it will take to instill that level of OCD and perfectionism in the various corporate, industrial, and military cultures.