BEIJING—The first clear pictures of what appears to be a Chinese stealth fighter prototype have been published online, highlighting China's military buildup just days before U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to Beijing to try to repair defense ties.
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.
The exact origin of the photographs is unclear, although they appear to have been taken by Chinese enthusiasts from the grounds of or around the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute in western China, where the J-20 is in development. A few experts have suggested that the pictured aircraft is a mock-up, rather than a functioning prototype of a stealth fighter—so-called because it is designed to evade detection by radar and infrared sensors.
But many more experts say they believe the pictures and the aircraft are authentic, giving the strongest indication yet that Beijing is making faster-than-expected progress in developing a rival to the U.S. F-22—the world's only fully operational stealth fighter.
China's defense ministry and air force couldn't be reached to comment on the latest photos. Even without official confirmation, however, the photographs are likely to bolster concerns among U.S. officials and politicians about China's military modernization, which also includes the imminent deployment of its first aircraft carrier and "carrier-killer" antiship ballistic missiles.
Such weapons systems would significantly enhance China's ability to hinder U.S. intervention in a conflict over Taiwan, and challenge U.S. naval supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region.
Gen. He Weirong, deputy head of China's Air Force, announced in 2009 that China's first stealth fighters were about to undergo test flights and would be deployed in "eight or 10 years." But there was no clear physical evidence of their existence until the latest photographs emerged.
Chinese authorities who monitor Internet traffic in the country appear not to have tried to block the J-20 pictures.
"The photos I've seen look genuine," said Gareth Jennings, aviation desk editor at Jane's Defence Weekly.
"It's pretty far down the line," he said. "The fact that its nose wheel is off the ground in one picture suggest this was a high-speed taxi test—that usually means a test flight very soon afterwards. All the talk we've heard is that this could happen some time in the next few weeks."
U.S. officials played down Chinese advances on the plane, which American intelligence agencies believe will likely be operational around 2018. "We are aware that the Chinese have recently been conducting taxi tests and there are photos of it," said Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan. "We know they are working on a fifth-generation fighter but progress appears to be uneven."
Col. Lapan said it appears the Chinese are still seeking engines for a fourth-generation fighter from Russia, an indication that they are "still encountering problems" with development work toward the fifth-generation aircraft, the J-20.
But the 2018 estimate suggests U.S. officials believe China's development of the fifth-generation fighter has accelerated. In 2009, Mr. Gates predicted that China wouldn't deploy a fifth-generation fighter until 2020. U.S. officials said the latest disclosures wouldn't affect any U.S. aircraft-development programs.
China has made rapid progress in developing a capability to produce advanced weapons, also including unmanned aerial vehicles, after decades of importing and reverse engineering Russian arms. The photographs throw a fresh spotlight on the sensitive issue of China's military modernization just as Washington and Beijing try to improve relations following a series of public disputes in 2010.
Defense Secretary Gates is due to begin a long-delayed visit to Beijing on Sunday—almost exactly a year after China suspended military ties in protest over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
China's President Hu Jintao is then due to begin a state visit to the U.S. on Jan. 19. President Barack Obama joined in preparatory talks at the White House on Tuesday between his national security adviser, Tom Donilon, and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. During the meeting, Mr. Obama said he was committed to building a bilateral relationship that is "cooperative in nature," the White House said.
The two countries clashed last year over issues including the value of the Chinese currency, China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and vocal U.S. support for a jailed Chinese dissident who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The U.S. was also frustrated by China's refusal to condemn two North Korean attacks on South Korea, while Beijing was angered by a U.S. decision to respond to the second attack, the shelling of a South Korean island in November, by sending an aircraft carrier to take part in joint naval exercises with Seoul near China's coast.
The U.S. and its Asian allies have also been alarmed by China's naval maneuvers and more forceful stance on territorial issues, while China's military strategists have accused the U.S. of trying to "contain" China—most recently by sending two more aircraft carriers to the region in December.
"The U.S. wants to retain its global hegemony and also preserve its regional interests. It is not comfortable with China's military rise," Senior Col. Han Xudong, a professor at China's National Defense University, was quoted as saying in the Global Times newspaper Tuesday.
Experts who said they thought the photographs were authentic included Andrei Chang of the Canadian-based Kanwa Asian Defence Monthly, and Richard Fisher, an expert on the Chinese military at the International Strategy and Assessment Center in Washington.
Several experts said the prototype's body appeared to borrow from the F-22 and other U.S. stealth aircraft, but they couldn't tell from the photographs how advanced it was in terms of avionics, composite materials or other key aspects of stealth technology.
They said that China was probably several years behind Russia, whose first stealth fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, made its first flight in January 2010, but that Beijing was catching up faster than expected.
The U.S. 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. The F-22 has mainly been used for exercises and operations around U.S. airspace, but some have been deployed to Guam and Okinawa to help maintain the U.S. security umbrella in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Chinese prototype looks like it has "the potential to be a competitor with the F-22 and to be decisively superior to the F-35," said Mr. Fisher. The J-20 has two engines, like the F-22, and is about the same size, while the F-35 is smaller and has only one engine.
China's stealth-fighter program has implications also for Japan, which is considering buying F-35s, and for India, which last month firmed up a deal with Russia to jointly develop and manufacture a stealth fighter.
I honestly don't think we're taking China seriously enough. It bugs me that it looks very similar to the F-22.
A large amount of stealth comes from the angular deflection of waves, another sizable aspect is reducing heat signature.
So yes they are going to e designed within certain parameters just like all planes are going to have an airfoil shape to their lift generating components.
_________________ "...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville
BEIJING—The first clear pictures of what appears to be a Chinese stealth fighter prototype have been published online, highlighting China's military buildup just days before U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to Beijing to try to repair defense ties.
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.
The exact origin of the photographs is unclear, although they appear to have been taken by Chinese enthusiasts from the grounds of or around the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute in western China, where the J-20 is in development. A few experts have suggested that the pictured aircraft is a mock-up, rather than a functioning prototype of a stealth fighter—so-called because it is designed to evade detection by radar and infrared sensors.
But many more experts say they believe the pictures and the aircraft are authentic, giving the strongest indication yet that Beijing is making faster-than-expected progress in developing a rival to the U.S. F-22—the world's only fully operational stealth fighter.
China's defense ministry and air force couldn't be reached to comment on the latest photos. Even without official confirmation, however, the photographs are likely to bolster concerns among U.S. officials and politicians about China's military modernization, which also includes the imminent deployment of its first aircraft carrier and "carrier-killer" antiship ballistic missiles.
Such weapons systems would significantly enhance China's ability to hinder U.S. intervention in a conflict over Taiwan, and challenge U.S. naval supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region.
Gen. He Weirong, deputy head of China's Air Force, announced in 2009 that China's first stealth fighters were about to undergo test flights and would be deployed in "eight or 10 years." But there was no clear physical evidence of their existence until the latest photographs emerged.
Chinese authorities who monitor Internet traffic in the country appear not to have tried to block the J-20 pictures.
"The photos I've seen look genuine," said Gareth Jennings, aviation desk editor at Jane's Defence Weekly.
"It's pretty far down the line," he said. "The fact that its nose wheel is off the ground in one picture suggest this was a high-speed taxi test—that usually means a test flight very soon afterwards. All the talk we've heard is that this could happen some time in the next few weeks."
U.S. officials played down Chinese advances on the plane, which American intelligence agencies believe will likely be operational around 2018. "We are aware that the Chinese have recently been conducting taxi tests and there are photos of it," said Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan. "We know they are working on a fifth-generation fighter but progress appears to be uneven."
Col. Lapan said it appears the Chinese are still seeking engines for a fourth-generation fighter from Russia, an indication that they are "still encountering problems" with development work toward the fifth-generation aircraft, the J-20.
But the 2018 estimate suggests U.S. officials believe China's development of the fifth-generation fighter has accelerated. In 2009, Mr. Gates predicted that China wouldn't deploy a fifth-generation fighter until 2020. U.S. officials said the latest disclosures wouldn't affect any U.S. aircraft-development programs.
China has made rapid progress in developing a capability to produce advanced weapons, also including unmanned aerial vehicles, after decades of importing and reverse engineering Russian arms. The photographs throw a fresh spotlight on the sensitive issue of China's military modernization just as Washington and Beijing try to improve relations following a series of public disputes in 2010.
Defense Secretary Gates is due to begin a long-delayed visit to Beijing on Sunday—almost exactly a year after China suspended military ties in protest over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
China's President Hu Jintao is then due to begin a state visit to the U.S. on Jan. 19. President Barack Obama joined in preparatory talks at the White House on Tuesday between his national security adviser, Tom Donilon, and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. During the meeting, Mr. Obama said he was committed to building a bilateral relationship that is "cooperative in nature," the White House said.
The two countries clashed last year over issues including the value of the Chinese currency, China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and vocal U.S. support for a jailed Chinese dissident who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The U.S. was also frustrated by China's refusal to condemn two North Korean attacks on South Korea, while Beijing was angered by a U.S. decision to respond to the second attack, the shelling of a South Korean island in November, by sending an aircraft carrier to take part in joint naval exercises with Seoul near China's coast.
The U.S. and its Asian allies have also been alarmed by China's naval maneuvers and more forceful stance on territorial issues, while China's military strategists have accused the U.S. of trying to "contain" China—most recently by sending two more aircraft carriers to the region in December.
"The U.S. wants to retain its global hegemony and also preserve its regional interests. It is not comfortable with China's military rise," Senior Col. Han Xudong, a professor at China's National Defense University, was quoted as saying in the Global Times newspaper Tuesday.
Experts who said they thought the photographs were authentic included Andrei Chang of the Canadian-based Kanwa Asian Defence Monthly, and Richard Fisher, an expert on the Chinese military at the International Strategy and Assessment Center in Washington.
Several experts said the prototype's body appeared to borrow from the F-22 and other U.S. stealth aircraft, but they couldn't tell from the photographs how advanced it was in terms of avionics, composite materials or other key aspects of stealth technology.
They said that China was probably several years behind Russia, whose first stealth fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, made its first flight in January 2010, but that Beijing was catching up faster than expected.
The U.S. 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. The F-22 has mainly been used for exercises and operations around U.S. airspace, but some have been deployed to Guam and Okinawa to help maintain the U.S. security umbrella in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Chinese prototype looks like it has "the potential to be a competitor with the F-22 and to be decisively superior to the F-35," said Mr. Fisher. The J-20 has two engines, like the F-22, and is about the same size, while the F-35 is smaller and has only one engine.
China's stealth-fighter program has implications also for Japan, which is considering buying F-35s, and for India, which last month firmed up a deal with Russia to jointly develop and manufacture a stealth fighter.
I honestly don't think we're taking China seriously enough. It bugs me that it looks very similar to the F-22.
We won't ever go to war with China. Our economies are linked too much. It's suicidal even if you only look at economic devastation.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:47 am Posts: 324 Location: Knoxville, TN USA
Kind of in a "Seriously? Go do your own R&D, you have the money" sense is my guess. I remember hearing a lot of that sort of thing whenever a new MiG would look strikingly like something else.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be apprehensive as hell to get in the cockpit of anything that relied on Chinese electronics for fly-by-wire. Correct if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the "flying wing" designs and their derivatives are highly unstable without it.
_________________ Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be apprehensive as hell to get in the cockpit of anything that relied on Chinese electronics for fly-by-wire. Correct if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the "flying wing" designs and their derivatives are highly unstable without it.
I'd be more than apprehensive about getting into the cockpit of anything, but I bet these planes are much safer than WW2 era planes.
Kind of in a "Seriously? Go do your own R&D, you have the money" sense is my guess. I remember hearing a lot of that sort of thing whenever a new MiG would look strikingly like something else.
Come to think of it, aerodynamic properties are kind of a law of physics no? There can only be one most aerodynamic design so eventually all fighters should evolve to the same basic design.
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Quote:
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Kind of in a "Seriously? Go do your own R&D, you have the money" sense is my guess. I remember hearing a lot of that sort of thing whenever a new MiG would look strikingly like something else.
Come to think of it, aerodynamic properties are kind of a law of physics no? There can only be one most aerodynamic design so eventually all fighters should evolve to the same basic design.
Nah, there's an optimum aerodynamic design based on certain inputs, such as lift capacity, available thrust, manueverability, reduced radar signature, etc.
To gain one, you will lose another, and so on. This will result in a variety of designs based on performance preferences.
Come to think of it, aerodynamic properties are kind of a law of physics no? There can only be one most aerodynamic design so eventually all fighters should evolve to the same basic design.
In a sense, they already have. Fighters all have two main wings, a tail, and a cockpit.
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Come to think of it, aerodynamic properties are kind of a law of physics no? There can only be one most aerodynamic design so eventually all fighters should evolve to the same basic design.
In a sense, they already have. Fighters all have two main wings, a tail, and a cockpit.
and thanks to Bill Clinton- the fighters of our two nations prob share a lot more!
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Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:47 am Posts: 324 Location: Knoxville, TN USA
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Nah, there's an optimum aerodynamic design based on certain inputs, such as lift capacity, available thrust, manueverability, reduced radar signature, etc.
To gain one, you will lose another, and so on. This will result in a variety of designs based on performance preferences.
I love the Internet! When I was a teenager and a big aerospace geek, I always wondered about stealth aircraft. You can mess with the airframe, use novel materials, shroud your exhaust to lower your infrared signature, and whatnot. No matter what though, the thing always has to move through space (okay, the sky, before someone says something ) at a pretty good speed, and that's going to make a wake vortex. So maybe you can't see the plane, but you can detect that something is displacing a lot of air. Here's some Air Force guy's 20-year-old masters thesis barking up the same tree: (spoilered for gratuitous geekiness)
Abstract : This thesis investigated the feasibility of air-to-air detection of high altitude aircraft wake vortices at long ranges using infrared Doppler lidar. The purpose of this technique is to detect otherwise stealthy aircraft. Three laser wavelengths were analyzed: 1.064, 2.091, and 9.115 microns. Analysis revealed that the spectral width of the return signal from an aircraft wake presented a good signature for detection. Based on the analysis, a minimum signal-to-noise ratio of 0 db was established. Detection performance was then analyzed using signal-to-noise ratio calculations for backscatter by ambient atmospheric aerosols, jet engine exhaust soot particles, and condensation trail ice particles. Results indicated that atmospheric aerosols alone were not sufficient for detection in clean atmospheric regions. Backscatter enhancement by soot particles did, however, appear to be sufficient for detection out to 80 km. Enhancement by condensed ice particles in wake contrails provided detection well beyond 100 km in range. Interestingly, the shorter wavelength lidars did not perform as well as the 9.115 micron lidar due to degradations from shot noise, wavefront mismatch, refractive turbulence, and atmospheric extinction.
So yeah. Leaves a wake, and also continues to burn fuel. Actually, the fuel bit turns out to be more important than the moving through the air part. Sayeth the guy "In particular, I found that enhancement of the backscattered signal by the presence of exhaust soot is the pivotal issue on whether this technique will work. "
Man that thing looks F-111 big. Looks more like a tactical strike aircraft or strategic bomber, especially with that cargo door.
_________________ "Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko
Its similar to the F-22, but it looks quite a bit larger. I would guess that its about the size of the Russian PAK-FA (which *also* looks similar to the F-22).
Also, this is interesting. It *is* huge.
It you look at all of the 5th gen fighters, (F-22, F-35, PAK-FA, this J-20, and the YF-23) They all have similar appearances.
Interestingly enough though, this J-20 has a canard layout(like the Eurofighter Typhoon and SU-37) rather than the elevators that most of the others use. I don't know a *lot* about Chinese fighter tech, but it may be worth a looksee.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am Posts: 9449 Location: Your Dreams
Screeling wrote:
Jeryn wrote:
And the Eurofighter Typhoon looks fundamentally like the 40-some-odd year old Viggen design (delta wing with canards). Everything's derivative
Fixed.
How is your red-x a "fix?"
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Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am Posts: 15740 Location: Combat Information Center
If they're just now at a taxi test, they're still a good ways off from operational capability. I doubt it's going to be an equal to the F-22 regardless mainly because from my understanding China is a lot farther behind on jet engines than on other aspects of the technology.
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) at a pretty good speed, and that's going to make a wake vortex. So maybe you can't see the plane, but you can detect that something is displacing a lot of air. Here's some Air Force guy's 20-year-old masters thesis barking up the same tree: (spoilered for gratuitous geekiness)
Doesn't appear to have thrust vectoring either.