"China to be 2nd Nation to Deploy Stealth Fighters" Topic
7 Posts
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Mako11 | 25 Jul 2016 1:36 a.m. PST |
It appears that the Chinese, with their J-20, will beat the Russians to producing an operational 5th Generation Stealth Fighter. Four of them were just completed, under a slow rate production run. They should be operational in the next few years, and possibly earlier, if things go according to plan. The Russians are producing the Pak-Fa T-50, and 12 were to be produced, but that had to be cut back in 2015, due to budgetary concerns. link It is believed that the Chinese plan to produce 500 – 700 of their J-20 fighters in coming years. |
Lion in the Stars | 25 Jul 2016 2:26 a.m. PST |
Let's see if they get the engines sorted out. Those are kinda critical to fighter planes. Russian engines last a couple hundred hours, and right now Chinese engines last a couple dozen hours. Plus, the Chinese engines are very slow to spool up (compared to either Russian or especially American engines). And that's with the Chinese making licensed (civilian) jet engines for US companies! |
Gylippus | 25 Jul 2016 3:20 a.m. PST |
If they get anywhere near 500 then it'll be a case of quantity having a quality all of its own. The PAK FA just demonstrates how hard stealth is to do. it's pretty questionable given the developments in EW and radar whether it's worth it. There's a good overview of current fighter programmes here link |
Winston Smith | 25 Jul 2016 7:01 a.m. PST |
Based on nothing but a hunch, my guess is that Stealth has been "solved" by the major air defenses. Now, having a hideously expensive high maintenance airframe is nothing but a prestige project. Stealth worked the first few times it was tried, but so did the B-17. It us not yet officially obsolete, but…. Cheaper will win. |
Mako11 | 25 Jul 2016 7:23 a.m. PST |
Yea, not convinced they'll be able to do that soon. Might need to buy Russian ones in the interim. Mach 1.7 is rather slow, but with stealth, and most the time, you don't use much more than Mach 1 anyway. Perhaps a little more now that economical supercruise is available. Yea, I figure stealth has been significantly degraded, but supposedly it still works as a very decent local area "camouflage", since the LR/LW radars have difficulty pinpointing the, accurately, with much fidelity. No doubt, IRSTs will come to the fore to help deal with that, and visual searches will be key too. Hope they pull up the production/development of our 6th Gen. fighters. Would like to see them scrap the F-35 in order to start work on that. |
15mm and 28mm Fanatik | 25 Jul 2016 8:53 a.m. PST |
The Russians have wisely abandoned stealth and invested their limited funds on EA and DRFM jammers. They (and the Chinese) are also developing low frequency radars and large high flying drones to detect (if not target) stealth aircraft. These sensor platforms will be used as part of networked AD systems. 500 J-20's seems a lot. I'm more inclined to think half that number. |
Mako11 | 25 Jul 2016 10:16 a.m. PST |
Too inaccurate to be able to target for now, supposedly, but they can give you an idea of the general area the jets are operating in. |
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