Chinese Stealth Fighter Jet May Use US Technology 339
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."
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Informative)
The 117 is old hat, and was never all that stealthy.
The new Chinese J20 fighter [ausairpower.net] reported recently is based on features found on much later US and Russian designs, and bears little resemblance to the F117.
Technology stolen would probably include anti-radar coatings and perhaps engine and avionics.
The J20 is simply too big to be very stealthy.
Re:This story is BS (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If true... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Okay, so (Score:5, Informative)
Concerns are based on two problems:
1. Russians were above and beyond West in both radar tech and SAM tech by at least two-three decades according to jane's back when soviet fell apart and some US specialists got to poke at some soviet tech. It's one of the development areas known to have not stopped due to lack of funding as it was considered strategically important to Russia. Decades old S-300 is most likely capable or detecting and tracking F-117 if it comes close enough. S-400 was specifically built to track and kill B-2-generation aircraft and its derivatives in addition to cruise missiles. S-500 coming next year was officially designated as an "AWACS/Electronic warface aircraft killer" carrying insane sounding range of 600km.
Most Chinese radar tech is direct derivative of russian tech. This was largely confirmed when US and Israel all but pissed their pants when hearing about S-400 being potentially sold to Iran - it would've essentially make any airstrike against Iran a one way trip for many strike craft and force to essentially use nothing but last generation stealth aircraft and still most likely take significant losses, cutting both Israel's options to zero and making US "plausible deniability" to any airstrike made zero as well.
2. Air-to-air combat between two stealth fighters has a very high probability of becoming dogfight situation. This is very, very bad for US whose strategic approach is to field a low number of nigh-untouchable aircraft from remote bases and aircraft carriers using long and medium range radar guided missiles as their main weapon. Stealth on the opponent's side makes both early detection and radar guidance difficult, and makes superiority of your own aircraft much lesser then that of the opponent. Up until now, US was counting on fielding something around 200 stealth aircraft to suppress Chinese airforce in event of Taiwan escalation (the main conflict at the moment). China can field approximately ten times that at least. So strategically this requires each airstrike group being able to fight in at least 1:4 scenario, and win with minimal attrition. Old stealth may indeed still allow for numbers, but would raise attrition rates to unacceptable levels causing a strategic failure.
We know how China's tech is mostly simply copied/licensed russian tech, we can trust that craft in question most likely have older, worse stealth, but significantly better radar system and most likely better tracking. We still couldn't fit helmet-mounted HUD and wide-angle tracking on F-22, it simply wasn't ready yet. It's a major feature of F-35 though, and it's a direct copy of russian tech reverse engineered from MiG-29 lifted from the few aircraft that Germany gained in unification. This system gives pilot tremendous advantage in dogfighting, and if chinese can indeed use older stealth to force F-22 into close range dogfights and has a copy of that old russian tech as well , F-22's superiority itself becomes questionable.
Finally, there's an obvious home field advantage for stealth aircraft and radar usage. Firing up your active radar essentially nullifies your stealth to a large degree. This is why neither F-117 nor B-2 carry any kind of active radar. F-22, being an actual air superiority fighter however does, and would have to actually fire it up to engage enemy fighters stealthy enough to disallow passive guidance. This makes it vulnerable to ground-based interception as well as air based one.
All in all, any opponent who is in possession of any stealth tech AND plans to fight inside or close to its border presents a number of strategic and tactical problems that opponent that doesn't have stealth fighters won't. Even in best-case scenario where Chinese wouldn't have access to russian radar tech and software, this would cause a major headache and significantly more restrictive rules of engagement, cutting down strategic options.
Re:This story is BS (Score:4, Informative)
Yep. As I pointed in another post, the details matter - a great deal. If the stealth fighter (which I have no experience with) is anything like nuclear submarines (which I do have experience with), what's on the web and other places isn't actually all that detailed or informative. (Not to anyone who actually knows the details that is, though it may impress the less well informed.)
J-20 info (Score:4, Informative)
Air Power Australia has excellent coverage of the J-20.
Chengdu J-XX [J-20] Stealth Fighter Prototype: A Preliminary Assessment [ausairpower.net]
J-20 Stealth Fighter: China's First Strike Weapon [ausairpower.net]
And if you want to know why scrapping the F-22 was a bad idea and why the F-35 won't cut it in future conflicts, read this: Surviving the Modern [ausairpower.net]
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