First Pictures of Chinese Stealth Fighter 613
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."
Re:Is this really how fighter jets work? (Score:2, Interesting)
So... more engines and bigger equals "decisively superior," based solely on some photos?
Before anyone gets their panties in a wad about this airplane, please note that it may not even be able to fly. These photos are from "taxi tests"... basically, driving it down a runway. Some pretty knowledgeable people are asking if this isn't another MiG 1.42, an infamous "potemkin fighter". In other words, a model that looks good but that will never see service, built mainly as a bluff against the West. At least the PAK-FA can get off the ground, and it's fire control system is still vaporware, and it's using older engines from the Su-27 family of fighters. The truth is that neither Russia nor China have the resources to build anything like the F-22.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Fast taxis aren't enough (Score:5, Interesting)
... 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.
Re:Hacking Pays Off (Score:2, Interesting)
When I was in HS John Lennon sang the words "Their starving back in China", it was a phrase used by mother's all over the western world to get their kids to finish their dinner. Fourty years later China has dragged more people out of poverty and starvation than the rest of the world put together. True the gang of four put them there in the first place but to say they haven't suffered hard times is naive at best.
Re:Is this really how fighter jets work? (Score:5, Interesting)
...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.
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:5, Interesting)
>>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.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
"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.
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Uncle Sam was too scared to even show up! Ha!
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Arms/money race (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:4, Interesting)
I seem to recall that pastel colors make for the best aerial camouflage, but the pilots protested flying pastel blue and pink planes and so the military went with grays and blues.
Re:Hacking Pays Off (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe America should be taking itself more seriously? I always laugh at how you Americans dismiss Chinese developments saying they copied you, or Russia. Have you looked at your education system lately? FYI, the rest of the world is amazed you can design a working bicycle, let alone a stealth fighter.
The rest of the world only get a part of the picture with regards to the US educational system. Big cities drive down the numbers, inner city schools in New York, Los Angeles and Baltimore are abysmal. But travel 20 minutes to one of the suburbs and the schools are fantastic. The smart kids from a middle to upper class school district or one of the new charter schools can hold their own with kids from anywhere in the world. It's leading to a more distinct stratification of society, there are the really poor and uneducated, the middle class and uneducated, the middle class educated and the upper class(here it doesn't matter if you're educated or not, your family's fortune will carry you).
LK
Re:China the new global superpower, and US decline (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait, what? The U.S. is in decline because people think that we're overspending on the military? That doesn't jibe w/ the numbers I've seen. [wikipedia.org]
Medicare & Medicaid expenditures are big -- as big as defense. But you seem to suggest that they either dwarf defense spending, or are less important than defense spending ("The U.S. is in decline because..."). One of those points is factually incorrect, and the other, I suppose, depends upon your income, age, and sadly your political leaning.
My particular perspective is that spending on social programs should dwarf military spending - but unfortunately, it doesn't.