Fórum Defesa Brasil

China's Stealth Striker
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 12/27/2010 4:57 AM CST
Hot from the fence-line is what looks like the best image yet of China's Chengdu stealth fighter, identified so far as J-20.

Remarkable indeed - and at the rate we're going there will be a three-dimensional animated cutaway of this beast by 2.30 Tuesday afternoon, so we can safely stick to what we can see here without having to speculate too far. (Note: this photo appeared on the China Defense Forum. All I've done to it is rotate it and adjust contrast and brightness.)

The impression here is of a big, long aircraft, 70+ feet from nose to tail, which would make sense for a number of reasons. Rob Hewson at Jane's has reported that Russia has supplied 32,000-pound thrust 117S engines for the J-20, which would be adequate for an aircraft in the 80,000 pound class - with perhaps lower supercruise performance and agility than an F-22, but with larger weapon bays and more fuel.

But ask yourself: why would China need or want a short-range stealth aircraft? Any targets with defenses that call for that capability are a long way from the mainland. Also, the bigger that the aircraft is, the more likely it is that it is a bomber as much as, if not more than, a fighter.

The canard is clearly visible and at this point I'm seeing a "lambda" wing planform, seen on some earlier artist's concept out of China, with a single straight leading edge and a kinked trailing edge. It first appeared on McDonnell Douglas JAST studies in the early 1990s:



The wing shape was also flight tested on the X-36 unmanned demonstrator - and the overall "sit" of the Chinese aircraft makes an interesting comparison to this shot:



So much for this morning - but as the "what" starts to take shape, it gives us context to start thinking about "when" and "why".

Hader escreveu:Sem falar no fato inusitado de testar um equipamento classificado de secreto em um local onde qualquer zé consegue fotografar com o celular... Justo na China? É difícil de acreditar mesmo.

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Hader escreveu:Pois é Santiago... esta coisa ta bem estranha. Há rumores do quinta geração chinês nos serviços de inteligência ja faz um tempo. Mas sempre houve um ruido muito grande, sempre partindo de fontes do governo. Há mesmo uma grande suspeita que este caça poderia ter sido feito usando tecnologias roubadas por espiões chineses de uma certa empresa americana, e por esta razão o serviço de inteligência chines se esforce tanto para gerar ruido e confusão. Eu tenho grandes ressalvas a estas fotos...

Mas espero que seja verdade.

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Penguin escreveu:Tortura chinesa

Skyway escreveu:Só pra brincar um pouco.

Algo se está moviendo en China, y parece que el prototipo de lo que pudiera ser un presunto J-20 se está evaluando. Parece estar inspirado en el morro del F-22 y la trasera del Su-47 Berkut. De todas formas hay que tener mucho cuidado, dado lo aficionados que son los chinos al photoshop, pero, aunque se lleva varios días hablando de este avión, creo que finalmente, esta foto es auténtica.