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First Pictures of Chinese Stealth Fighter
Frosty Piss writes "The first clear pictures of what appears to be a Chinese stealth fighter prototype have been published online. The photographs, published on several unofficial Chinese and foreign defense-related websites, appear to show a J-20 prototype making a high-speed taxi test — usually one of the last steps before an aircraft makes its first flight — according to experts on aviation and China's military. Several experts said the prototype's body appeared to borrow from the F-22 and other US stealth aircraft. The US cut funding for the F-22 in 2009 in favor of the F-35, a smaller, cheaper stealth fighter that made its first test flight in 2006 and is expected to be fully deployed by around 2014."
Pictures of a stealth fighter.
If I can get pictures of it, is it really all that stealthy?
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
Looks like the YF23... This is the start of Cold War II..
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The u.s. is like the decline of Rome. Most of the budget spent on the military to little gain.
When will we realize we need to spend those billions on educating new engineers and scientists,
repair our education system and bring industry back home? Do we value having $1.00 stores so much
we will slit our own throats to save 0.50 cents on plastic goods? China's power is there is no individual, there
is only the state. Need a new bridge? Seize houses. New factory? Take land. We need to realize what we are
up against and adjust our outdated ideals about business. There is no more free market, there is the chinese
way, of the western way where people and property are respected and protected. We need to set up protective
measures to protect what is left of our industry.
The article says it would be a contender for the F-22, and calls it the world's only fully operational stealth fighter. Why don't the f-117 or even the f-35's count?
The F-117 has been retired, and the F-35 isn't operational yet. Indeed, there's a growing scandal about the lack of progress in flight testing (as well as the emergence of weight and exhaust heat problems) for the F-35, and it's likely at that at least one version... probably the STOVL "B" version... will be canceled. And it's possible that the whole project will be canceled.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Powered by a sand cast copy of a 1972 Honda mini-bike engine.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
Next time there's a rally in Tiananmen Square, the world won't see an iconic image of a protester standing in front of a row of tanks. The protester will instead be standing in front a stealth fighter jet, but the stealth fighter jet will be invisible to cameras, making the photo uninteresting.
Not really, IIRC there are about 6 Soviet/Russian aircraft that look damn near identical to the "loser's" design. The most recent example being Sukhoi PAK FA and the YF-23 (which lost to the f-22)
I think Taiwan is more concerned than anyone else.
F-35 is a fighter but it isn't an air superiority aircraft.
You're playing semantics. If plans were taken without the owner's permission then it was theft. Just because IP laws have been taken to an absurd level doesn't mean that there's no reason at all to protect intellectual property.
Hmmm, I guess we should start taking Chinese espionage seriously?
No, we should be taking the Chinese seriously. Every time one of these articles come out, there's a large contingent of people who dismiss it as "They're just copying", "It's still not a challenge to what we have" and, my favorite "These commies will never catch up to us."
Can we realize that the Chinese are on a nice technology curve that is bound to intersect with ours within our lifetime? And that their plans include putting China back into the center of the world, where they believe it rightfully belongs? Maybe the F-35 will be enough to counter any threat from the Chinese for the next 20 years. But after that, we better make sure we have the technology edge, because we sure as hell won't have the manpower or economy edge.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I went by Walmart but they didn't have any in stock.
I thought the F-22 was built in China. Everything else is.
Heh, we're not only funding our own military, we're funding theirs too, indirectly.
Proverbs 21:19
Aside from the fact that that kind of comment is potentially offensive, TFA has images of Chinese drones at a Chinese airshow last year: Image
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Despite the F designation, the F-117 is an attack aircraft, not a fighter. The F-35 is a multi-role aircraft, ala the F-16. The F-22 is a true air superiority fighter, ala the original F-15. That' why we've scaled back F-22 production and ramped up F-35 production. Hasn't been much need for a U.S. air superiority fighter in the last 20 years. On other hand, we've needed lots of attack aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They may be just copying, but the implications of "just copying" apparently haven't sunk in yet.
If they are able to acquire that much of our technology, then they've acquired the rest of it too, as has every other country to which we've outsourced our technology manufacturing. 10 years ago, I ranted about how outsourcing was not just an economic problem for geeks, but a major national security risk. At that time, I was still naive enough to believe that the folks who owned defemse technology companies gave a damn about the United States.
Well, the national security risk is there in the photo, and it's clear that those executives who were willing to sell out their country for next quarter's earnings and a bigger bonus didn't, and don't, give a rat's patoot about the USA. They can live quite comfortably in any country, after all. Why should they care? Let the peasants get bombed.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
In the financially strapped 1960s/70s the Soviet Mig 25 Foxbat appeared and it's rumored capabilities saved the US F14 and F15 projects from significant budget cutbacks or cancellation. Perhaps the savior of the F22 and F35 projects has arrived.
I think the Soviets once said "Sell the Chinese a fighter and 5 years later they have a fighter factory". The Chinese are determined to become the next super power and they have a huge pool of science and engineering talent to pull from. Some of whom were trained in Europe and the US. They have a good feel for the US and and Europe's capabilities and want to surpass that. I personally do not underestimate them.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Considering the limited ordinance and limited cockpit visibility the F-117 is neither a fighter nor a bomber it is an assassination aircraft. It can sneak in and take out a single air or ground target then it sneaks out again. What it lacks in versatility it makes up for in ability.
The Osprey is a fantastic aircraft, and an excellent idea - it just turned out to be a fuck of a lot harder to make than anyone thought (and the numerous dumb accidents along the way didn't help much). Nothing "pork" about it - it cost a lot because it was difficult to do.
... to validate a combat-worthy modern fighter.
A nation that puts plastic in its baby food to fake protein levels has quality control issues that will fail a phony fighter at fifty thousand feet. Remember the failure of the counterfeit aerospace bolts it ships to the west.
You can't overcome the demanding laws of physics by proclamation, family privilege, or deceit. Consequently, China's reverse-engineered Russian fighter engines don't match up. (And Russia has refused to sell them it's F22 class power plants because they're tired of getting ripped off. )
Don't even get me started on mastering the voodoo of stealth...
In short, we'll see what they have when it's super-cruising at altitude with working combat systems: Not when its taxi-ing at seal level.
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
Cobra maneuver:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHoBDW56CI
Draken (01.55 02.05 02.13):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHoBDW56CI
No such thing in the JAS 39 promotional video :/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNWpK9Qe4vk
37 Viggen going backwards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fye_2AipFTA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11-osaKapEI
I don't know why it was odd that a Swedish one happen to be able to do it. Just because it's not Russian or what? =P
Regarding Viggen development (en.wikipedia):
"In 1960, the U.S. National Security Council, led by President Eisenhower, formulated a military security guarantee for Sweden. The U.S. promised to help the Swedish militarily in the event of a Soviet attack against Sweden; both countries signed a military-technology agreement. In what was known as the "37-annex", Sweden was allowed access to advanced U.S. aeronautical technology which made it possible to design and produce the Saab 37 Viggen much faster and cheaper than would otherwise have been possible.[5]
According to the doctoral research of Nils Bruzelius at the Swedish National Defence College, the reason for this officially unexplained U.S. support was the need to protect U.S. Polaris submarines deployed just outside the Swedish west coast against the threat of Soviet anti-submarine aircraft.[5]"
F35 isn't fully operational yet,
I can't wait to witness the power of this fully operational battle aircraft.
They are slowly moving away from that in case you haven't noticed. 6th gen fighters will likely be mostly UAVs. There are a lot of advantages to having humans in the sky that are not so easily dismissed. Communications can be jammed, whereas a manned plane at least has some chance of carrying out a mission in such a situation. In fact, it wouldn't take much tech to likely ground UAVs, but that's really just a game of cat and mouse. Also you make heat seeking missiles sound like some kind of foolproof technology that cannot be thwarted. Flares and counter-maneuvers have proven effective since the Vietnam war. A missile cannot turn nearly as fast as a fighter and well placed flares can easily blind the best technology, giving the pilot an opportunity to perform some evasive action.
I would argue that radar targeted missiles can be a bigger threat, but hey I'm not going to nitpick.
zosxavius photography
Wtf, wrong video posted under draken :(
Should had been:
J 35 Draken (01.55 02.05 02.13):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqiDEcfSnXs
Because missiles are extremely bad at patrolling airspace. War isn't about blowing everything up - it's about blowing the right things up, at the right time.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Having humans in the air helps with stealth. A UAV on its own will need occasional human guidance to tell friend from foe. That means radio links. Which means the stealth is broken.
You're playing semantics. If plans were taken without the owner's permission then it was theft.
LLLLOL. Extending the concepts fit for individuals to nations will always create hilarious images. Like in this case:
I suggest US sue China over copyright vilolation and put China in prison.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Meh. India is the ones who should be worried. When China gets more control of all those headwaters in the Himalayas, it's gonna get *real* ugly for India.
Diversion of the Brahmaputra... the Ganges... etc.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
And this is the #1 reason why Tibet will never be free from Chinese rule. Supporters of Tibetan independence have... some goodwill through human rights on their side. China has the need to control the main water sources in Asia on its side.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Good idea - then we'll only have to dig half as far to get there.
It has been at least 50 years since heat-seeking missiles were invented. They can hunt down a fighter with far more accuracy than a human pilot can, they can withstand much higher accelerations, they are much cheaper than a manned fighter plane.
Why do they insist on manned fighter aircraft?
Because to date, every attempt to replace manned, and in fact gun-armed and dogfight-capable, fighters with missiles or "missile truck" aircraft has failed miserably. At some point a combination of SAMs and UCAVs may replace fighters, and manned combat planes generally, but we're not there yet -- or more precisely, we have no evidence that we're there yet. There's only one way to really put it to the test, of course, and nobody wants to go there.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
...For what it's worth, the USA doesn't have the resources to build F-22s either ;)
Yurt, actually, I'm in complete agreement with you. I've been in the aviation field for a long time now, both for fun and for paychecks. And there was a great article written more than 25 years ago.... Lord, I wish I could find it.... where the writer predicted that the US would eventually come to a point where it could "build a fighter with all of the electronics of the Starship Enterprise, but what good will it do us if we can only afford two of them?"
I think we hit that point starting with the B-2, and have continued it with the F-22 and F-35. Instead of following the American model of WWII... buy the best weapon that you can get in large numbers affordably... we've adopted the German model of WWII, which is to design the finest, most exotic weapons and make do with limited quantities of them (most people would be absolutely shocked if they knew, for instance, just how few tanks the Germans produced in comparison to the Allies. The Germans produced less than 1350 of the legendary Tiger tank, and less than 500 of the King Tiger). I think we saw how that turned out for the Germans. Americans and Russians just kept churning out Shermans and T-34's, and simply overwhelmed them. I'm very much afraid that in any future war with a peer foe (which, for the record, I think is a LONG way off), we might get smeared simply because we don't have enough fighters and ships and tanks and will be outlasted in the field. I think we desperately need large numbers of easy to use and maintain weapons, not 187 F-22's. That's not even enough to guarantee security of US borders, let alone deployment in a Korean or Eurasian war. But not even the greatest economy in the world can afford $183 million per fighter, flyaway (the CBO's estimate of the eventual cost of the F-35). That's simply insane.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Are they looking at different photos than what were published? The side-view photo certainly doesn't appear to be a high-speed test. Hard to tell with all the grain, but I would expect some blurring of the background and/or jet exhaust if it was traveling at high speed, but you see neither in those two photos. For all I can tell it could be a mockup sitting still on the tarmac. Not to say the Chinese haven't conducted high-speed tests of it, I just disagree with the claim that these photos show any evidence of it.
Other Photos seem to have the same issues - that might be some heat waving in the Guardian photo, but tough to tell.
Claiming that this could be a prototype fighter that challenges the F-22 based on these photos is just ridiculous, and one would think a writer for Jane's would know better. It is quite possible, as China has really made no secret of the fact that they are pursuing aviation technology very aggressively (and I do seem to recall reports of large portions of engineering data for the F-22 being stolen a while back. My mistake - apparently it was the F-35), and no doubt they are working on bringing their high-tech fabrication technology up to speed. But there is a very big jump between putting together a stealthy-looking mockup (all that can really be determined from the photos) and producing an effective combat system, from airframe to FCS to weapons systems and avionics. Like I said, I don't doubt that this is their goal, and I don't doubt that they will be fully capable of it within a relatively short time, but a couple of photos really doesn't prove (or even really suggest) much of anything.
>>Can we realize that the Chinese are on a nice technology curve that is bound to intersect with ours within our lifetime?
Well, their strategy in this regard is quite smart. They are sitting on a long pile of dollars, which, you know, some companies would like to get. So they will buy stuff from western companies with the following deal: we'll buy the first few outright, the next few we'll buy from you but assemble in China, and the next few you'll turn the plans over to us, and we'll build it ourselves but pay you a royalty. They've done this with high speed trains, nuclear reactors, and so forth. Very very cheap way of bypassing the need for doing the R&D themselves.
And the West loves it, though it's essentially shooting itself in the foot.
Given the amount the US owes to China, I am reminded of the Ankh-Morpork anthem, which goes, in part:
Let others boast of martial dash
For we have boldly fought with cash
We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes.
We own all your generals - touch us and you'll lose
See also this version
Rumor has it the canopy from the Chinese fighter will fit an F22 without modification but ranks lower in crash safety tests.
"And it's possible that the whole project will be canceled."
Not likely, the F22 project was cut back because it was not deemed acceptably exportable technology, the F-35 is and already has a bunch of export customers set up, and even helping to fund the project such as Australia and Britain.
It may well be scaled back in capabilities but it will not be cancelled because it's just too important to US defence exports, cancelling it would not only be devastating financially for US defence contractors involved but it would also massively harm the US' image as a trustworthy defence exporter- why trust your military equipment future on a country that just can't deliver and ends up leaving you defenceless and out of pocket? The US just can't afford to cancel the F-35.
I'm glad you mention the Su-27, but lets make it clear, the Russians basically invented these beautiful manoeuvres, they really knocked the US back on their asses at the time these were shown.
I love this story from the Australian International Air Show, for 1995:
"The 1995 Avalon airshow was held on March 21-26. The show was largely stolen by the visiting Russian contingent of Anatoly Kvochur, his specially modified SU-27P Flanker and Il-76 tanker aircraft. Aerial inflight refueling was displayed as well as Kvochur's world famous flying routine with the Flanker which involved the "Cobra", knife edge and extremely low level passes. The final display on the Sunday show saw the Flanker cruise down the Avalon runway at approximately 15 feet AGL. The RAAF and USAF were reluctant to compete with the Flanker and there was no solo F/A-18 Hornet aerobatic display this year. The USAF flew the F-16 Falcon with external drop tanks fitted which they said limited the aircraft to a "3g max" display. Kvochur won the award for best flying display this year."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_International_Airshow#1995
Uncle Sam was too scared to even show up! Ha!
---
The F-35 is not an air superiority aircraft, because it is a versatile airframe that can take on many roles, one of which is air superiority. In its air superiority role, it would prove more than adequate against anything known today except the F-22.
The F-35 trades off not being quite as potent as the F-22 in air-to-air combat for being useful after the first two days of combat.
The enemies of Democracy are
Why? it's not liek the Chinese can't use conventional aircraft. Unless Tiawan has a much more sophisticated army then I think they have.
Taiwan has an extremely sophisticated army compared to the PLA, but the sheer numerical inferiority dooms them. Even apart from this, they wouldn't be able to maintain air superiority anyway: by prevailing doctrine the first sign of a war will be China shredding every single runway in Taiwan within 3 minutes using the 1000s of missiles already pointed at them. So Taiwan's only chance really is guerilla warfare against sea reinforcements using shore-based anti-ship missiles...
This is about pretending to be able to make the same technological achievements as the west.
Look at the thing. It looks horrid and out of date. I can see the seems for christ sake.
That $183 M covers the R&D so it not the series production cost. In wartime, things have historically cost around 1/3 once the R&D has been paid back and economies of scale achieved. This makes the F-22 very affordable (one reason the USAF was pushing for more of them is that it gets cheaper when you get more).
If a future war lasted long enough the US would still outproduce and out muscle anyone else (I'm not from the US and this is obvious even to me). Out of the biggest countries it still has the biggest economy; most internal natural resources; biggest, most advanced, best equipped and led military; best educated population (on average); most allies; and relatively attractive ideology to most of the World (meaning its allies would stick with it). Despite all the hand-wringing about it's fall (and it is interesting to see even the USAF release classified studies in an attempt to get even more F-22s, when the USAF is so much stronger than all the other countries combined) it is very unlikely that the US will not still be extremely influential into the future. The Chinese are not contenders at this point and no one apart from themselves and pariah states wants to see them dominate the rest of the World in the future.
About half of the discretionary budget is spent on the military.
http://www.warresisters.org/files/FY2011piechart.pdf
The reason the United States is dying is because we aren't collecting enough taxes to pay for our infrastructure. We started two wars and then dropped taxes. That shit doesn't work.
When our way of life actually was in danger during WII, we immediately raised taxes to pay for the cost of saving our country, and those rates lasted throughout the 50s, which was one of our best economic periods in history. Our national debt dropped, and continued to do so through 1980. Then an actor named Ronald Reagan decided to hand the nation's wealth to the wealthy, and hope they wouldn't blow it all on coke and hookers and stupid investments. He was wrong. Then he passed deregulation that led to the S&L crisis, just like Clinton passed the regulation that would eventually lead to the derivatives crisis that's still boning our economy. Reagan also raised military spending but dropped taxes, and that shit didn't work back then either. Bush I and II continued the same idiot policies, and people complain that Obama hasn't fixed the economy yet. Well, when you've had some fucking frat brats with sledgehammers renting a place for the better part of 30 years, it tends to take more than 20 months to fix.
Anyway, Bush II got kicked out for doing the sensible thing and raising taxes to cover our debt. Clinton raised the top rate again to 39.6%, reduced military spending, and our national debt dropped. McCain even ran in 2000 on protecting Social Security to fulfill our promise to "the greatest generation" with the extra money we had lying around. But that sad sack of shit has sold out along with the rest of the Republican party, pandering to some illiterate backwoods fuckwits called "Evangelical Christians" who believe that Obama is a Nazi Socialist Muslim born in Kenya.
But you need a certain type of idiot to vote against their own interests and ignore common sense and hard data for thirty years running. They're the same idiots who give Jesus $5 hoping for a $10 return. They think the GOP will give them the same deal, and they don't know how fucking right they are.
The problem is they don't invent any of it. They simply negotiate smartly to steal the existing technology with little to no improvement. The problem with military equipment like a fighter jet is that the US doesn't export the technology, even to very friendly countries like Britain and Israel. It's built in the US and the export versions are sufficiently degraded to the point that the receiving countries frequently install their own systems because the export US versions are shit.
So what the Chinese have, they have stolen from countries that will give them access, basically Russian and maybe some French tech and the Russians learned their lesson, they now have a policy of transferring or selling nothing to China because they just steal the design. So the design is probably nothing more than copies of some of the concept Sukoi aircraft that were proposed when the US announced the YF-22 that are nothing more than some simple modifications to Mig-35's. Might look interesting but it's not the airframe that's important anymore, it's the electronics because dog fights don't exist anymore, the missile technology is so good that fighters just launch missiles while the target is still over the horizon and invisible.
Your "allies" would be just fine if you will also cancel the next worldwide economic crisis with it.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Might look interesting but it's not the airframe that's important anymore, it's the electronics because dog fights don't exist anymore, the missile technology is so good that fighters just launch missiles while the target is still over the horizon and invisible.
That's not really true. The technology is there and almost certainly works as well as advertised, but there's almost always been a requirement for the pilot to positively identify the enemy before firing upon it, and that usually requires visual confirmation. Very few air-to-air kills have been made at beyond visual range, for this reason.
My understanding of the argument is that this meant that because the USSR economy had to maintain a high war footing to keep up with US and NATO spending and developments (something like 30-35% of its industries compared to 20-25% of US industries),
That was not anywhere close to the official numbers. US "economists" believed that USSR is "hiding something" and produced ridiculously inflated estimates of military budget because they expected it to be somewhat similar to how US military spending works. US military-industrial complex was happy to see it because it justified US military spending, and actual state of USSR economy was of a purely academic interest.
other areas of social development suffered and gradually standards of living etc fell behind which led to political and social dissatisfaction, hence the downfall of the system.
I lived there, and my standard of living was higher than in US now (despite being an engineer in SF Bay Area). Shortages of luxury goods were far outweighed by over-developed by US standards urban infrastructure -- things like public transit, construction, etc. Moving from an individual home into apartment building was considered an upgrade, thanks to one of the better Khrushchev's ideas that resulted in constantly increasing quality of construction over 60's and 70's that ended up rebuilding whole cities. If anyone wonders what USSR built instead of a highway system, that was it -- all-concrete high-quality buildings with apartment rented at nominal rates to almost everyone.
In 70's-80's people were pissed at Communists for things other than quality of life -- censorship, maintaining overpaid elite in supposedly egalitarian workers' state, etc. Compared to US it was pretty tame, however in US politicians do not claim that they actually serve everyone, and work to develop a society based on fairness and respect for labor, so the contrast between their speeches and actions was greater.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.