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."
This story is BS (Score:1, Insightful)
The F-117 is a decades old design made of aluminum and off-the-shelf components. The only thing you need to canvas to build a F-117 is Google. This story is complete rubbish.
Yet another example of /. increasing anti-Chinese story bias.
there's a standard solution to this (Score:3, Insightful)
what stealth fighter? (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
It's "Open Source" development (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
There are occasionally useful technologies that escape - this "Internet" thing really is more convenient than uucp and Usenet were, and GPS is really cool but there are other ways to implement wide-area navigation systems without satellites. But they guys who were making tank engines 20% more efficient could have been doing that for truck engines or car engines, and the people working on improving small supersonic airplanes could have been improving civilian passenger or cargo airplanes instead.
Re:If true... (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Fear sells weapons (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]? 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.
Re:there's a standard solution to this (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not stopped by CIA bombs (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Old (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:what stealth fighter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Shh... the point is to get approval for F-XX uberstealth fighter project that will maintain the US air supremacy. Military-industrial complex needs bigger and better enemies as the wars in the middle east can be fought with current low tech equipment. If you read the news articles they are wondering if this will offset new arms race, several companies are counting on that.
Occam's Razor (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:If true... (Score:4, Insightful)
Eh. Dani tells a nice story, but it's rather short on details. The "long wavelengths" explanation comes from a guy at Jane's Magazine, and it's pure conjecture. There's really no evidence that any part of his story is true, although it seems plausible. Given that Serb source were reporting dozens of aircraft shot down while the war was ongoing, I fail to see any reason to give them much credence in this case.
As other have pointed out, though, even if true, his story shows that the shoot-down was as much a result of luck as skill. He had to wait for just the right circumstance - lack of supporting aircraft including Prowler jammers, shit weather, aircrew over-confidence - before he could get a successful kill. And the figures for the rest of the war show the same; with only 2 or 3 NATO aircraft lost during the entire campaign, there's no doubt that Serb anti-air assets were largely irrelevant. As I said, it's a neat story, but there's not much there for you to be proud of.
As for the new Chinese fighter, it's reported to fly on pixy dust and fire laser-rainbows. Until we see some real data, I'm not buying it.
Re:Not stopped by CIA bombs (Score:2, Insightful)
But i also have to wonder if our western media isn't exactly the same but just smarter about it?
To be fair, you wont get locked up in the US for doing a piece on Tienanmen square.
Re:If true... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
This is China - in 2004, they didn't have a high-speed rail network worth the name. In 2010, they had approximately 10,000km built. If they want it next year, they'll get it alright.
Re:"the US's budget is 10x China's" -- BOGUS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If true... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not stopped by CIA bombs (Score:3, Insightful)