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Chinese Stealth Fighter Jet May Use US Technology
Ponca City writes "In 1999, a US F-117 Nighthawk was downed by a Serbian anti-aircraft missile during a bombing raid. It was the first time one of the fighters had been hit, and the Pentagon blamed clever tactics and sheer luck. The pilot ejected and was rescued. Now, the Guardian reports that pieces of the wrecked F-117 stealth fighter ended up in the hands of foreign military attaches. 'At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers,' says Admiral Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of staff during the Kosovo war. 'We believe the Chinese used those materials to gain an insight into secret stealth technologies... and to reverse-engineer them.' Zoran Kusovac says the Serbian regime routinely shared captured western equipment with its Chinese and Russian allies. 'The destroyed F-117 topped that wish-list for both the Russians and Chinese,' says Kusovac."
We got the technology for the F-117 Nighthawk from the downed alien space craft in Roswell. So why can't the chinese get it from us?
Fight Spammers!
So our F-117A gets shot down by a Yugoslav-made SAM, based on a Soviet design, in Serbia ten years ago. The F-117A was already close to 20 years old at the time, and it was retired in 2008. This is definitely the tech I want to be copying for my state-of-the-art stealth aircraft.
So, why exactly are we concerned that the J-20 will give the F-22 or F-35 a run for their money? We already know that the F-22 can splash (in mock combat) F-15s and F-16s with missiles before the F-22 is even detected. If the Chinese merely copied stealth tech from the F-117A and (apparently) photos of the F-35, is it really going to have good enough stealth to stand up against the F-22 or even just the F-35 in actual combat?
The F-117 was used in the Serbian conflict because it had the ability to make quick, stealthy precision strikes on the Serbian air command, paving the way for the heavy cavalry to move in and decimate the ground forces.
As a Hungarian, I'm also pleased that the one and only time the Goblin was downed was at the hands of a Hungarian commander, one Zoltán Dani, who used an old modified Russian radar unit operating at very long wavelengths to defeat the F-117's stealth capability, and used manual guidance on the missiles along with several spotters who reported the flight path.
As for the new Chinese stealth fighter, it's reported to be an even match for the Raptor, and used designs on a Lockheed HDD that was not wiped before being sold overseas. I wonder what else remained on that drive, though...
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
In March it was shot down, in May, the US "accidentally" bombed the Chinese Embassy. There was widespread speculation the next day that it was to destroy stealth material. It wasn't a random bomb that fell onto Embassy grounds, but the most precise bomb that was available, with GPS coordinates given by the CIA rather than military intelligence, and dropped right on top of a specific foreign agents office, 5 times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade
So you know exactly what was in the the paint that the F-117 used? What about the materials used in the inlet cover of the plane to mask the engine noise and radar signature? How about the ceramic used to cool and disperse the heat in the exhaust? Just because you can see a schematic of the plane today doesn't not mean there are some facts that have not been disclosed. If foreign governments got the parts, they could analyze and reverse engineer them. There isn't a government (friendly or hostile) on this planet that wouldn't be interested in obtaining parts of a downed stealth fighter.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
We have some blurry photos of a largish fighter or light bomber, with a shape that looks like it was designed with a low RCS (Radar Cross Section) in mind, that would be done using equations the USSR published in the 1960s (never thinking that computers would become fast enough for them to be practical). What you would get from an F117 wreck would be RAM (Radar Absorbant Materiels), but how you can tell what an aircraft is made from via those photos is beyond me. Get the info from a US aircraft trying to track it, and you can say something, but all we can do with what is known now is speculate (which sure is fun).
Plato seems wrong to me today
You do realize that not only that but the F-117's were restricted to a very specific flight pattern flying over the exact same pass day and night over and over again.
He may have used some old equipment that had a different radar freq, but he also got lucky that Political stupidity played a major role(flights into and out of the region where very limited, which areas they could and couldn't fly over).
The Chinese fighter is larger and heavier than the Raptor. It doesn't use thrust vectoring nozzles, or even distributed nozzles to limit heat output by the engines. it is only stealthy head on, from any other angle it will be easy to spot. Those giant canards will also turn a very large radar reflection back too. It uses old school radar so it will be easy to track. All in all it isn't a bad attempt at an updated fighter for china, but it is two or three generations from being capable as the Typhon or raptor.
Not to mention this is the initial test flight. it will be ten years before they have decent production going. remember the raptor's flight demo for the USAF was in 1991, and the first production model flew in 1997.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Its been "reported" that its a match for the F-22, but the fact is that it's only flown a handful of times in very limited envelopes. Theres really no way to tell what this aircraft is capable of and how good it's technology is.
If it's really based on the F-117A, then the stealth technology is at least a full generation behind F-22, and less capable than what Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon have, not to mention F-22A and F-35 and modern UAVs and UCAV prototypes have.
F-22s capabilities are because of 12 years of test program and refinements of software, the new Chinese fighter is basically were YF-22 and YF-23 were in 1990-91 were or where X-35 and X-32 were in 2000-01.
Plus we don't know the sensor capability of this new aircraft, it's data link capabilities, range, speed, armament.
Its years too early to say it's a match for F-22, F-35, Typhoon or Rafale
The F-117 was used in the Serbian conflict because it had the ability to make quick, stealthy precision strikes on the Serbian air command, paving the way for the heavy cavalry to move in and decimate the ground forces.
When I visited Belgrade some years ago, I was told by someone in a position to know that US planes were actually kept away from the most demanding targets. Apparently, it was mostly the French (gasp!) who accounted for the strikes in downtown Belgrade. Their handiwork was impressive, to say the least: The Ministry of Defence building was completely destroyed, falling in on itself, while neighbouring buildings sported only a few nicks from flying debris.
The US were responsible for at least one raid in Belgrade itself. But more about that in a moment....
As a Hungarian, I'm also pleased that the one and only time the Goblin was downed was at the hands of a Hungarian commander, one Zoltán Dani, who used an old modified Russian radar unit operating at very long wavelengths to defeat the F-117's stealth capability, and used manual guidance on the missiles along with several spotters who reported the flight path.
At least some parts of the wreckage must have made it into the Chinese hands. That would account for the *cough* tragically mistaken bombing of the their Embassy. (The US knew what it was doing. If you don't think that NATO had spotters on the ground, you too are tragically mistaken.)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
As for the new Chinese stealth fighter, it's reported to be an even match for the Raptor...
You mean the J-20 which is due to be operational 6-8 YEARS from now? Most of what is "known" about it is just speculation based on some very limited information. Most performance projections are going to be pure conjecture until more information is available.
As for matching the F-22, did it occur to you that the folks selling the F-22 might have a vested interest in proclaiming this jet to be competitive with the F-22? Fear is a great way to sell weapons. It's certainly possible to design a jet to match the F-22, but its not remotely clear that this Chinese jet reaches or will reach that level of performance.
The US didn't bomb the wreckage because the scene was soon overrun with civilians, which was broadcast on CNN. It would have been horrible PR if those civilians dancing on the wreckage suddenly disappeared and the image faded to static.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
After that incident i always found it odd how the media reacted to such things. The media never reported on just how blatant the strike was. Instead the main stories been reported around the time were "attacks on US nationals increase" as various Chinese protest groups vented their anger on American government buildings around the world. Essentially the reports were made to make the Chinese look bad.
Now it's obvious that Chinese media is a complete farce. It's state controlled and blatantly so. But i also have to wonder if our western media isn't exactly the same but just smarter about it? Sure it isn't blatant like Pravda or China Daily but our western media still seems to reach for the same goals as Pravda and China Daily would. From getting people behind support of a war to excusing completely unjustifiable actions. Our media seems no better, just smarter and less blatant. Probably makes our media more dangerous than theirs to be honest.
Similar things happened in the Hainan Island spy plane incident. The Chinese returned the crew in perfect health and the also spy plane to the US but they were the bad guys according to the media i'm exposed to. I really don't get our media. I'm sure if the roles were reversed China would still be made out to be the bad guys.
Yet again the same thing with the Iraq war. There were never any links to Al-Qaeda. No WMDs. But our media didn't even report that as a possibility in the lead up to war.
The F-117 is 25-30 year old technology at this point. I would be more worried about the tech being freely handed over to China by companies like Boeing when they go into partnerships with Chinese state owned firms.
I'm pretty skeptical that these pieces could really have led to a stealth fighter. Stealth tech isn't that tough to figure out and I'm sure the most you can gain from these pieces is what materials were used.
There's actually quite a bit of complicated technology to stealth fighters or everyone would have had them by now.
First of all there's the chemistry of the ablative coatings used on the equipment. They have to absorb wavelengths, prevent infrared emissions from the aircraft, scatter radar in a certain manner, and still be light, adhere well, provide corrosion resistance, and so on.
There's also specific angles for stuff like air intakes, exhaust nozzles, instrumentation, etc. so you have as little backscatter on radar as possible. Some of the concepts are simple but tricky to implement in an vehicle that still needs to be aerodynamic and efficient in flight. These aircraft also use special alloys for various purposes and pieces of the aircraft would be great for reverse engineering those alloys.
All this stuff still has to be able to fly and there's a lot of engineering involved in designing the control surfaces, not to mention the computerized and fly-by-wire systems needed to stabilize a craft which is not as easy to control as a non-stealth aircraft.
So yeah, there's a lot of technology for someone to capture.
Sapere aude!
What exactly is the basis for these claims that the tech is stolen and they cant do it on their own?
The fact that China is not a major exporter of aircraft, particularly of the cutting edge military variety. The fact that they don't even produce a 4th generation fighter of their own design (most of their fighters are copied/adapted from Russian designs) and suddenly they unveil this supposed 5th generation fighter supposedly without any foreign technology. Major leaps in technology like that generally do not happen without some help. The Chinese are smart people but development of that kind of technology takes time and infrastructure neither of which seem to be applicable here. It's not that they couldn't do it; it's just that it is unlikely that the could do it that fast without getting a little boost on the information front.
Stealth has been around for a long time
No it hasn't and what has been around is among the more highly guarded secrets among the military forces that have access to it.
Chinese may well have found a way to do it.
Certainly possible, though the smart money says that they probably acquired significant amounts of knowledge through spying. Please note that this isn't a condemnation, every country spies including the US. China acquiring this technology illicitly seems the most likely source.
there have been a lot of Chinese researchers in the US, they may not have worked directly on the projects, but definitely there must be many who worked on relevant projects, and nothing is stopping them from taking the knowledge back to their country with them.
You think the defense industry isn't aware of that possibility? I've been in factories where they make fighter jets. Foreign nationals are quite carefully monitored and aren't given access to sensitive technology without some very careful background screening.
One of the more serious problems with the military-industrial complex's development process, besides obvious little things like threatening to kill millions of people and possibly initiate nuclear winter, is that it takes a large number of scientists and engineers and diverts them away from useful civilian technology and diverts their talents to working on projects that ideally will never be used, and hides any parts of that work that could be useful away where the public can't use it.
A long time ago (perhaps in the 1960s) I saw a quote from the head of one of the major Japanese corporations. Might have been Sony, but I can't find it now. He said (something like) "American engineers are very good, American first-rate engineers are better than ours. But your first-rate engineers are working on military products. We're building consumer products, and win in the marketplace because our first-rate engineers are better than your second-rate engineers."
Nonsense. Laying train tracks is a well-understood process and can be done at any rate providing you have enough engineers, labourers and money. Building a next-generation multi-role fighter is completely different because you're trying to make a single extremely complicated item, with a view to some day manufacturing a few hundred.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?