China Unveils Yet Another Stealth Fighter 223
An anonymous reader writes "Pictures of a new Chinese stealth fighter prototype started showing up recently on the web. The airplane prototype was photographed at a Shenyang aircraft facility and seems to be a twin-engined lightweight fighter in the F-35 class. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is scheduled to visit China this week in the midst of tension regarding territorial disputes in the region."
Re:Not getting it! (Score:4, Insightful)
At least they didn't dedicate a whole Discovery channel to it...all that "Future War" stuff is just to remind Americans how awesome they are!
Re:Hey, where have I seen that plane before? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah why do they just copy our laws of physics, can't they make their own?!?
Re:Hey, where have I seen that plane before? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that we yoinked aiframes, designs, machine tools, and scientists(see 'Project Paperclip') pretty much wholesale from the parts of germany we got to first, we probably shouldn't head for the moral high ground just yet...
Re:Bootleg (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be astounding, considering most Chinese aircraft are based on Russian and Ukranian aircraft...
Re:Hey, where have I seen that plane before? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:inferior carbon-fiber layering processing (Score:5, Insightful)
its easier and cheaper to build tiny drones and cruise missiles than manned aircraft
Not an F-22 comparable (Score:5, Insightful)
Fighters are designed strategically from the top down. A country says 1) what are it's strategic goals, and 2) what capabilities are we missing to fill those? American strategic goals are long range power projection; with two oceans protecting them and more or less dominance in the western hemisphere, American goals are to spoil the rise of other countries that might threaten it's interests. The F-22 is designed around this in mind; it's designed to penetrate enemy air space and establish air superiority while destroying air defenses, so that more conventional planes and bombers can then act as a force multiplier for ground troops.
China's goals are much closer to home. China seeks to secure it's own mainland (the Chinese coast) and establish dominance over the South China Sea and it's southern neighbor. Thus it's fighters are designed around area denial, primarily to keep the US Navy out of it's terriorial waters. Everything you read about the J-20 says it's not as stealthy as the F-22 and can't seem to manuever as well, but it's mostly designed to be a threat to naval ships and keep them out of Chinese waters. THat's why you see that China has developed now 1) the world's largest attack submarine fleet (although all are Diesel-Electric, not nuclear, so individually not as good as the US or British subs, but there's more of them), 2) one of the most advanced anti-ship missiles every designed that can be launched from a mobile, truck mounted launcher, and now 3) stealth fighters that aren't quite as stealthy as the US ones but stealthy enough for the area denial role.
Re:Hey, where have I seen that plane before? (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Most of the weapons in the arsenal probably aren't to be used in actual war, but in the projection of military supremacy. Enemies would think twice if they saw what "awesome firepower" you have (even if most if it is just cardboard cutouts or lame copies).
As for your second question - probably never. If you look throughout human history, it's been basically war after war after war, and most of the research involved in making wars lead to the comforts we enjoy today. Just human nature - someone has a big gun, someone else gets jealous and builds a bigger gun. Just be content in the fact that we've not yet waged any atomic war that wipes out most of humanity.
Re:Hey, where have I seen that plane before? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese government does this a lot, even though it makes little sense. There have been many advances since the first stealth fighters were designed. Had they started from scratch, they would have had a better product. Same with aircraft carriers. They bought one from that technological power house, Ukraine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_aircraft_carrier_Varyag). So many advances in ship design have come and gone between the construction of that ship and now, that it makes little overt sense to try and retrofit it. China has thousands of unemployed engineers who could have done a much better job starting from scratch.
And don't get me started on the WTF(!) of the three gorges dam. Hundreds of small dams along the length of the Yangtze would have been manageable, affordable, allowed precise flood control, generated just as much power and provided significant redundancy. One big dam is just a single point of failure and is asking for trouble.
For a country largely governed by engineers, I would have expected better decisions.
Re:Hey, where have I seen that plane before? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just human nature - someone has a big gun, someone else gets jealous and builds a bigger gun. Just be content in the fact that we've not yet waged any atomic war that wipes out most of humanity.
Warfare is not human nature. It's the way that our culture has developed. The first archeological evidence of warfare is from 10,000 to 13,000 years ago, long after homo sapiens reached anatomical modernity (which was around 200,000 years ago). And we have archaeological evidence of other cultural activity (such as cooking, religion, music, and burials) that goes back much further, which suggests that it's not merely a case of our not *yet* having found the evidence of earlier warfare. Also, there are human societies that do not wage war.
It's an important distinction because if war truly were human nature it would mean that we will *never* be rid of it, and there would be no point in trying. Whereas cultural features can fade away over time.
There's a very well-argued book on this topic: 'The End of War' by John Horgan.
war not human nature? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, OK. I'll agree, given that we've seen chimpanzees go to war!
You're looking at something way deeper and more fundamental than human nature. War is simply a manifestation of the competition of life. On some primitive level, even the dumbest forms of life engage in this.
You can't escape the situation. Remember how the winners write history? They also leave more offspring. We are the descendents of creatures who were mostly winners and never complete losers. Our minds are shaped by evolution. Our status as humans does not exempt us from selection, not even today and not ever in the future.
Re:Hey, where have I seen that plane before? (Score:4, Insightful)
And the F-35 pretty much has to have one engine due to the VTOL requirement. If a single engine VTOL fails you just eject. If a single engine in a twin engine VTOL fails you may not get a chance to eject before the unbalanced thrust causes a catastrophic rotation. You can work around that so a single failure just causes the plane to fall out of the sky (e.g. using fans driven by both engines), but that adds more complexity which is likely to cause more crashes.
Re:war not human nature? (Score:3, Insightful)
In a cumulative total of 215 years of observation by researchers, there have been 17 instances of lethal group violence by chimpanzees. So yes, there is group violence by chimpanzees against other chimpanzees but it is not as common as some might imagine. And it has been suggested that some of these confrontations were the result of habitat loss (caused by humans).
I'm not aware of any other species who go to war (I'm defining war as lethal group violence within a species). Note the "within species" part, so hunting does not count. Can you suggest any?
Your logic with regard to evolution is circular. My point was that war is not innate (human nature), but a cultural phenomenon. You are arguing that war is inescapable because the winners of war will breed more. And there will be more winners of war to breed because war is inescapable. But you are assuming an innateness that is unproven. I would argue that, since most people are reluctant to wage war (see Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book: 'On Killing'), and there are cultures where war is unknown, war cannot be innate.