via Flight Global.com ... read the whole thing here.
Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, warns about concluding much based on available images.
"Drawing even tentative conclusions about anything other than the basic airframe configuration strikes me as speculative," he says. "The canard-delta configuration, coupled with canted vertical fins, is reminiscent of MiG's now cancelled 1.42 programme, and it would be interesting to know why the Chinese designers settled on this approach, rather than that of the Lockheed F-22 or Sukhoi T-50 platform."
Perhaps you meant ostrich mentality.
ReplyDeleteWhether J-20 means to be a prototype (YF-22) or demonstrator (MiG1.42), it's something we better keep an eye on for years to come.
i don't doubt that...but i'm reading estimates of its weapon bay size, its stealth and a bunch of other things that there is no way anyone not working on the program could possibly know.
ReplyDeleteEg. Fatigue cracks have been discovered on F-35B's #496 bulkhead.
ReplyDeleteHow would one know such information without being directly involved in the program?....
The J-20 is being built by secretive, communist, government, versus a capatalist democracy like the US.
ReplyDeleteKalashnikov is being built by secretive, communist, government, versus a capatalist democracy like the US.
ReplyDeleteYou are comparing a mass exported rifle with a stealth fighter not yet in production?!
ReplyDeleteMake that "Sukhoi" if you must.
ReplyDeleteArm/conflict/competition knows no border.
I'm pretty sure we could still kick China's big red ass.
ReplyDeleteBet that you don't know
ReplyDeleteHOW EXACTLY
will the US will "kick China's big red ass" in foreseeable future.
Li Daguang, a military expert at the PLA National Defense University, told the Global Times that Gates' prediction was overly optimistic.
ReplyDelete"The recent rumor about the J-20 is pure speculation," he said. "The F-22 is an offensive weapon that fits Washington's global strategy. China's defense development is self-defensive in nature and does not require a fighter jet of that caliber.
"Furthermore, if China does want a fourth-generation fighter jet, it needs to build a large number of them in order to affect the regional military balance. The US has capped its number of F-22s at 187. How many should China build?"
Li also noted that China's aviation technology is still far away from competing with Western countries, especially the US.
"Some Western media are more optimistic than Gates, and than the Chinese people," he said. "They've hyped the issue because they want to."
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2011/01/chinese-media-lift-silence-on.html
ReplyDeleteAn advice/suggestion:
ReplyDeleteFocus not on where they are today, but rather on the rate of their advancement. Even if J-20 were a demonstrator (its geometry resembles that of the MiG1.42 and it's exactly VLO-compatible, after all), it's still considered a leap compared to our previous expectation.