China's Stealth Fighter Flight Test Successful 161
New submitter vencs writes "China has successfully tested its second stealth fighter, a smaller, twin-engine jet that military analysts said could potentially allow it to one day fly missions from an aircraft carrier. Military analysts said the new jet's design suggested the People's Liberation Army might use it to arm and escort aircraft carriers like the Liaoning, which was officially deployed last month. Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of Kanwa Asian Defense Monthly, said the new prototype appears to have borrowed features from the U.S. Air Force's twin-engine F-22 and U.S. Navy's single-engine F-35C."
disappearing word (Score:2)
if it was REALLY a stealth fighter... (Score:2)
How would anyone know it's been tested?
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That's the beauty of it. Israel could claim Iran had invented a stealth nuclear bomb tomorrow, and noone would be able to talk them out of invading.
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SSSSssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... please stop giving them any ideas. We really cannot afford another stupid war right now.
In the mean time, we are moving to drones (Score:3)
Other than drones, we really need to focus on better defenses, and better protection for communications.
That means lasers as well as rail guns. In addition, the DOD really needs to spend money on thorium reactors. They will need to provide tanks with high electrical output to do either a laser or a rail gun.
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Right. Let's put dozens of nuclear reactors in an urban battlezone.
What could possibly go wrong?
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That's the whole problem: Tanks that are destroyed will be spewing their contents.
No amount of shielding is going to guarantee safety against present and future developments in armor-piercing weapons.
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I would guess there's a societal aspect to that split also, though... If the Chinese government, with their larger population and stronger controls on the media and information flow, can sustain a large military (and get the public to tolerate military losses) then I'd suggest that they don't need drones so much. That still doesn't give them the other technical advantages of drones, though (e.g. staying aloft for days at a time, etc).
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"technical advantages of drones"
Drones are not rocket science (hurr hurr). Hitler had them in WWII (OK, limited) and I used to play with remote control aircraft when I was a child. It is not a big leap forward. Iran has US drone tech and will sell it to anyone that wants to buy it. That cat is so far out of the bag that it has had kittens and is living under an assumed name in New Zealand (with a part in the Hobbit).
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They're like cellphones - for all the end-user attention lavished on handsets, what really enabled them is the infrastructure.
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When and if there's another total war between major powers, I agree that unless there are some really sneaky defenses that aren't publicly known, satellites are awfully vulnerable. One could imagine a mesh network of UAVs relayin
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While China is stealing western tech for stealth
You know it's possible some of it isn't stolen, and was invented by the Chinese.
Besides, the west is not the be-all and end-all of military hardware. Russia also has world class jets, India has the fastest and probably most accurate cruise missiles in the world, all home grown. The west steals lots of tech too - where do you think all the early jet engine and missile/rocket tech came from? Well, I suppose Germany is technically part of the west, but at the time was our enemy.
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The liquid rocket tech was developed in America. Ever hear of goddard? Germany 'borrowed' it.
The jet engine was borrowed from many other sources. [wikipedia.org]
What Germany had going was the mass production and R&D on variants of the above.
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In addition US military budget should exceed budgets on other 154 countries combined. Having 41% of all military spendings is not enough.
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More likely China paid attention how illusionary weapon systems created by the US were able to drive the Soviet Union spending itself into bankruptcy trying to match them. Now it can target the US in the same manner knowing full well that the US military industrial complex driven by greed will be their willing partners in their bankrupting of the US. Lots of talk of new laser weapons, anti-satellite weapons, anti-aircraft carrier weapons, etc. etc, anything to drive up spending fully supported by US corpor
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Interesting. Hopefully we at least get a manned Mars mission out of it.
Damn it, I know that's too much to hope for.
Corporate America to the Rescue? (Score:2)
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No need to build new aeroplanes or, heaven forbid, work on innovative new designs. Just attack them with...patents!
All those rounded corners must, surely, breach some spurious Apple patent or other. Microsoft can claim that numerous of their patents have been infringed and demand payments with menaces but never be willing to say exactly what patents were infringed.
Paul Allen and Lodsys had best stay out of it as we don't want these aircraft to travel to an East Texas kangeroo court to defend their claims
The kangaroos are offended.
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How could you say such a thing? Pretty much every major US company manufactures everything they sell in China. If they just said, hey, sorry, we are not shipping any more consumer goods to your country, our economy would totally collapse overnight.
China also has another weapon that nobody ever likes to talk about - their government treasury prints all the Chinese money. They do not have to borrow money from the international financial cartel. This insulates them to a large degree from world financial pr
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The plan of killing China by moving a bunch of companies over there to manufacture low- and high-tech goods has failed miserably.
No, China isn't splitting apart because they have different languages. This plan has been tried and it has failed miserably. Just look at all the success that the Hollywood-driven "Free Tibet" nonsense has had! We tried through a 55+ year CIA infiltration program, with the media softening up the USA to favor the brutal Dalai Lama, and threatening to exert some kind of theoretic
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If you think Tibet is seized territory than you are totally unaware of the history of the interactions between China and Tibet.
Tibet was a warlike kingdom for a very long time, which attacked China and extracted tribute for a long time, until China invaded and took it over. It was an official protectorate of Imperial China for hundreds of years.
Anyway, the Tibetans are much better off under the ChiCom than they were under Lamaism. At least they can ride a bike over the next hill without receiving the deat
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Have you actually read about Tibet under Lamaism? There were two classes of people - the Buddhist monks, and slaves.
If you left your home village without permission, the punishment was that your legs were broken and you were left in the wilderness.
Sexual slavery of acolytes was not just common, but the rule. I could go on, AC, but I think you were just here for a drive-by or else you would have posted under your real account.
By the way, I'm a loyal American, and I really have no love for the ChiCom or the
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I think the plan was to actually create wealthy Chinese through factory partnerships, then help these people get into power, where they would gradually weaken the Communist government. Thing is, it was a terrible plan from the get-go and it hasn't really worked.
The Wang Lijun incident has showed anybody with eyes to see that we are still operating power-brokering scandals in China, but they have been effectively squashed and Bo Xilai who I suspect was our man on the inside is now disgraced, and I'm sure th
Oldest trick in the book! (Score:3, Funny)
"Did you see our new stealth fighter?"
"No?"
"Damn we're good!"
More spending! (Score:1)
Well CLEARLY, America's only answer to this is another $50 billion in stealth fighters that we can store in a military hangar for the next 100 years.
Short on originality/Long on thievery! (Score:2)
"appears to have (borrowed) (parentheses mine) features from the U.S. Air Force's twin-engine F-22 and U.S. Navy's single-engine F-35C" (I think you mean stolen)!
The communist Chinese have always been short on originality and Long on thievery.
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"appears to have (borrowed) (parentheses mine) features from the U.S. Air Force's twin-engine F-22 and U.S. Navy's single-engine F-35C" (I think you mean stolen)!
The communist Chinese have always been short on originality and Long on thievery.
It would probably be closer to Russia's PAK FA developed by Sukhoi. [wikipedia.org].
Why steal from the US when you can just buy from the Russians?
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So you are saying that the Chinese were communists in 1100/1200 AD?
And it is NOT "gunpowder" until you use it in a gun, the very first "gun" was produced in Turkey around 1300!
What the Chinese had was for small rockets, firecrackers, etc ANY other claims of "great antiquity" or the usual "first", "bigger", "better" from the Peoples Ministry of Dis-Information is just more Commie propaganda!
Yeah, but. . . (Score:2)
Yeah, but being made in China the thing will break before the warranty runs out - probably within the first month, then when you check the paperwork there is no phone number or address for the company, and when you google it all you find is alibaba listings to purchase the same of crap. Then, you check out epinions and an amazon listing and everyone gives it a poor rating. Oh, and let's not even think about the lead paint.
Piece of crap.
Wonderful! (Score:2)
Another industry we can outsource to China! Look at all the money we'll save!
Google J-31 pictures (Score:2)
It's anything but stealthy with all those hardpoints and external pylons.
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didn't you get the memo? sharp angles = STEALTH FIGHTTTTERRRR!!!
X-35 clone (Score:2)
I see the chinese espionage is alive and well. That plane looks almost exactly like an X-35, except it has two engines instead of one.
This is the refurbished Russian/Ukraianian Carrier (Score:2)
Their agreement with Russia does not allow them to arm the Carrier in any conceivable way including placing armed planes on the ship. Their agreement allows them to use the carrier for one thing, testing and training. Maybe they'll violate the Russian sale agreement, I really don't think they will.
Testing? (Score:2)
Am I the only one that sees the humor here of testing stealth technology?
So where is it? Oh it already flew by... (snicker).
Best plane ever, we'll order a thousand of them.
Please make the check out to "CASH". k thx bai!
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Oddly enough he didn't go so far as to actually hire any Chinese actors though.
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you know, that show for teenage girls.
That was only the last season. Granted, that one was rather painful.
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"you know, that show for teenage girls."
Do you mean that it is for young lesbians as well?
This will make more sense when you get older ... (Score:1)
... that show for teenage girls.
The show featured teenage girls, which suggests that it was actually made for teenage boys.
When you get older this will make more sense.
Re:It ain't expensive to build a stealth plane... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is Slashdot.
We don't steal technology and knowledge.
Also how could they? Do they have direct access to the planes? Inspired by I suppose. But don't all?
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that if you want to look at it that way everyone has stolen the technology from Germany.
Re:It ain't expensive to build a stealth plane... (Score:4, Insightful)
What we did to Germany wasn't so much stealing as it was pillaging.
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No looting and raping? Wasn't worth effort without the looting and raping.
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You mean 'Liberated'.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_down_of_F-117 [wikipedia.org]
The U.S. has lost at least one stealth aircraft that other countries could use to reverse engineer the stealth design/stealth coating.
Re:It ain't expensive to build a stealth plane... (Score:4, Informative)
"Do they have direct access to the planes?"
Only if they went along to the last arms symposium and bought some. You do realise that things like that are available to all? I went to some when I used to work for the military and there was everyone there buying everything they wanted. Even countries like Indonesia who wanted some fighters to shoot some of their more troublesome plebs but they had to buy 2 seaters and call them training aids because they were not allowed to buy anything called a fighter. As I was working with IT at the time I was wearing a badge that said "Information Services" and everyone kept moving away from me for some reason.
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"Do they have direct access to the planes?"
Only if they went along to the last arms symposium and bought some. You do realise that things like that are available to all?
Not our stealth stuff. We do not sell F-117s, B-2s, or F-22s to anyone. The F-35 is only available to a short list of friendly countries.
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What's the major threat of Indonesia? Seem to be top us here in Sweden.
But I see now you're ranked #18 against our #28 over at:
http://globalfirepower.com/ [globalfirepower.com]
Total Population: 245,613,043 [2011]
Damn =P
Defense Budget: $4,740,000,000 [2011]
Seem like our defence budget is higher (but then services it buy are likely more expensive?)
Defense Budget: $5,500,000,000 [2011]
Your purchasing power is higher.
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In Yugoslavia, in 1999, a USAF F-117A got shot down. Chinese intelligence agents went around buying up the pieces. Six weeks later, the US "accidentally" bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade with five laser-guided bombs.
That said, if they're using F-117A-grade stealth coatings, that puts them a solid 20 years behind the US. I mean, like I said, the Yugoslavians shot one down with a modified Soviet SA-3.
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This is Slashdot.
We don't steal technology and knowledge.
Also how could they? Do they have direct access to the planes? Inspired by I suppose. But don't all?
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that if you want to look at it that way everyone has stolen the technology from Germany.
Seriously?!?!?!
Why is this guy's post modded "insightful" and not "funny?"
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Also how could they? Do they have direct access to the planes?
They don't need direct access. The People's Liberation Army hacked into the networks of American defense contractors and stole blueprints and data http://cnsnews.com/news/article/chinese-hackers-stole-plans-americas-new-joint-strike-fighter-plane-says-investigations [cnsnews.com]. If anyone had any questions who was behind these attacks, the fact that features of the F-22 and F-35 are now showing up in Chinese planes pretty much eliminates all doubt.
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I was mostly thinking about rocket engines and people working with rockets and whatever research and researchers.
Both the US and Russia for sure wanted to get whatever they could get.
I have too little knowledge about actual planes.
Re:It ain't expensive to build a stealth plane... (Score:5, Funny)
Whatever, fellah. I'm just trying to imagine some middle-aged army getting all indignant because the other side is shooting flaming arrows... "Cheaters! That's our idea, we did it first! It's for us to use against you, not the other way around! If you win and kill us all, it doesn't count!"
Klaus Fuchs (Score:1, Informative)
Nobody reacted that way when the Soviets and Chinese got the Bomb
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Re:Well, that's putting it one way (Score:4, Insightful)
"the new prototype appears to have borrowed features from the U.S."
It's very likely that China stole the technology for this fighter via cyber attacks to facilitate data exfiltration activities over the past decade, such as during the Titan Rain era. China is working diligently to position themselves as the next hyper-power on the planet. Stealth technology is critical for force projection where China seeks to dominate other countries, knowing the U.S. may enter a new Cold War and supply the middle-state pawns with surface-to-air missiles.
The real zinger is going to be stealth drones launched from carriers in the near future.
Regarding Titan Rain and Chinese cyber attacks on the USA:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1098961,00.html [time.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain [wikipedia.org]
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There's that and there is the fact that so many people of Chinese extraction with questionable loyalties are working for defense contractors, the government, and etc. where they can learn all of our secrets and report back to the Motherland.
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What they've apparently forgotten about is high-flying xenophobia. People outside of China, emigrants excepted, generally can't speak nor read the languages used in China, and that's a very fertile ground for xenophobia. It'll take very minor propaganda prodding to turn essentially all of the world against China. They'll be a very sore winner at best.
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Ethnocentric view points are nothing new. Many cultures have t
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I agree, but that misses my point. China may become a sole world superpower, but they'll be pretty much isolated in their victory.
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I kinda doubt that China's ability to project force is limited by their planes not being stealthy. Sure, that improves their ability in air combat but it's the simple logistics that they lack in. The US is far more capable of moving people, equipment and supplies around the globe. A stealth fighter won't do you any good if you cannot keep it supplied with ammo and fuel. The further away its supplies are the more time it spends traveling back and forth between its home base and the combat zone, giving it les
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China seeks to dominate other countries
Interesting theory, but do you have any evidence to back it up? Does China want to dominate the US or Europe, for example?
The Chinese position is a reaction to US foreign policy. Not just the wars and invasions, the damage to other country's economies. China doesn't want to dominate the US, it just wants to counterbalance it.
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Didn't something also crash in China? I vaguely remember something like that happening but google is failing me.
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Found what I was looking for. Wasn't stealth though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident [wikipedia.org]
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Russia arse raped Georgia a couple of years ago and the US did not blink so I think it may only be some of Europe that would get a reaction and then that would be a limited reaction.
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I am sure if a part of your country declared independence with Russian help you would sort of get annoyed and send in some soldiers, too. In fact, wasn't there this "Confederate States" for a little while? 1860-ish? Ring a bell? No Russians, though.
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Nobody knew the Russians would actually fight back. Hell, in the Western defense press, there was article after article of defense "analysts" scratching their heads and saying such stupid things as: "We didn't even think Russia had working tanks any more!" and "They spend such a small amount of money on their military that we thought they wouldn't be able to fight even a minor conflict!"
Of course, none of those analysts want to mention that with state-owned defense firms, Russia can do the same work with $
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Are you denying the fact that the Western intelligence analysts were totally floored by Russia's blitzkrieg into Georgia?
You can deny it but it's true.
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Who said anything about superiority? The Russians are simply more economically efficient, but I don't know if that translates into overarching superiority.
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Russia moved Chechen troops into South Ossetia and they had been attacking Georgia for months before Georgia retaliated. It was stupid but it was not Georgia that attacked first.
http://gozie.com/video/5A99NA87MR74/Putin-Russia-amp-the-West-The-War [gozie.com]
I believe that South Ossetia was just smoke and mirrors and that what Russia really wanted was the deep water port in Abkasia.
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Actually the Russians had been shelling Georgia for months before Georgia retaliated
http://gozie.com/video/5A99NA87MR74/Putin-Russia-amp-the-West-The-War [gozie.com]
but in reality, I think it is more likely that Russia was after the deep water port in Abkasia as Ukraine was refusing to renew the lease on Sevastopol (they did renew in the end) at that time. Russia has kept Abkasia.
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None of that matters -- if China isn't directly threatening Europe or Israel, then the US doesn't give a flying fuck what China does. China has been able to rise precisely because it's located far from those countries and thus wouldn't trigger alarm bells from the their powerful US foreign policy lobbies. As for any rising potential threat to the US itself, that doesn't matter -- the US doesn't pursue its own national security, just the national security of other nations/continents who have strong lobbies in Washington.
What about Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam (R.I.P.), Singapore?
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US has told Taiwan to shut up about independence, and has turned a blind eye to the KMT's return to de facto dictatorship by jailing political opponents. US only needs weapon sales to Taiwan, to feed the weapons industry lobby.
Even the arms sales are pretty limited.
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What he really means by that is that they have one with 2 engines and one with only one engine. Clearly have 2 or 1 engine is a US patent.
Re:It's just for the show (Score:5, Funny)
It might look like F-35, whether it actually has all the necessary components to be called the fifth-generation jet and whether they all work as advertised is another matter.
So pretty much the same as the F-35 then...
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Hang on a moment - they tested a stealth plane - and we saw it?
Um - I rate that a fail.
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MIGs use Klimov RD-33s. Chinese J-17s and J-31 use Klimov RD-93. Different modification of a same engine. They used engine which was already verified and used live in other Chinese fighter plane. Chinese don't have MIG-29s.
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I'm not sure what you mean by problem. It's expected that other countries will gain US technology. It's just a matter for the US to continue development of better radars to detect stealth planes.
Re:USA is too expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it is older radar with a longer wavelength that is better at detecting stealth planes. I was working with ATCs in Europe a few years back and it came up that on one island that I went to their radar could see the stealth planes as clear as any other plane because they still had old radar.
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No, the ATC said that the first reason that he contacted the pilot was because the transponder was turned off, and the pilot was surprised that he could even see him. As for your stupid "No you didn't", if you are really that young you are not really worth communicating with.
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A simple thought exercise for you. We are discussing a field in which I worked. I was there, these were the people I worked with.
A total stranger is telling me that the experts are wrong and which do you think I will listen to. I am not interested in getting into detail but I do know how and why this works. It was my job to know.
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Does the US NEED to react? China has a prototype stealth fighter. The NATO has tons of stealth fighters and bombers that are ready for combat. The Chinese fighter has not shown its actual combat abilities yet, there's more to a 7th generation fighter jet than just stealth.
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Yeah, because you, dear AC, are so much better than everyone else. We're all human, it must have slipped your mind this morning, I guess.