SinoDefence Forum

dh19440113

With stealth and thrust vector key innovation of 5th generation fighter dogfighting is clearly not dead.

Stealth on Stealth engagement can't take advantage of BVR, because no lock on radar. They again have to fight a close fight using IR missile where plane with thrust vector manuver for a firing solution. The nations with stealth will have air superiority and european union with their outclassed typhoon and rafael will be obsolete.
Typhoon and Rafael aren't stealthy and can be shot down by BVR, yet they can't fire back against 5th generation until they close to IR range.

Its like J-7 vs F-15.

Typhoon and Rafael are new plane and they will be render obsolete in ten years without a legitamite replacement.

The French does have the NeuroN stealth UCAV.

dh19440113

List of 5th gen fighters
J 12/14 by shengyang
J 13 by Chengdu (may not be stealthy)
Su-50 by sukhoi
F-22 by lockheed
F-35 by lockheed

Anyone know of any other fighter project by EU?

Londo Molari

Well I dont think stealth is black and white. Its not a choice between stealth and "no stealth".

All fighters being made today have some different level of stealth. With an AESA radar, ram coating and composites, you are already a stealth fighter compared to classic 4th generation fighters.

Even F-35 has weak stealth from the rear side. Its not as good as the F-22.

Now we will have to wait and see how good the stealth is on Chinese J-XX and Russian PAK-FA. They will have to utilize a variety of techniques such as internal bay, planform alignment, internal cooling systems, exhaust and acoustic dissipation and more to be perfectly invisible at BVR ranges.

I don't think its going to be that easy. The Eurofighter and Rafale will still be considered good fighters for a while to come. And they will dominate 4th generation fighters like F-22 dominates them. They will have no problem achieving air superiority over smaller countries for a good 20-30 years. Only a handful of countries will have real stealth fighters in operation 15-20 years from now, and they will not be going to war with each other.

But you are correct, even today all the countries who would have bought Rafale or Eurofighter are participating in JSF program instead, so in a way they are already obsolete.

Infra_Man99

Google Eurofighter Typhoon and India Su-27 or Su-30 or just any derivative of the Su-27. There are fixed sorties or simulations between these two fighter jets. The results are not fully revealed, but to say the very least, the Eurofighter Typhoon performed well. Ideally, the Eurofighter Typhoon dominates the Su-27 and even its heavily upgraded version, Su-35.

Of course, this information is from Western Europe. The Russians will probably argue otherwise.

People buy fighter jets for multiple reasons: politics, economics, performance, value/cost, and other issues. The F-35 may be bought because of all these four reasons, not just for performance. For example, according to at least one source, South Korea recently bought F-15s because of many reasons, even though the Eurofighter Typhoon had superior performance. The F-35 is planned to be superior than the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale, but that is assuming West Europeans do NOT upgrade their fighter jets.

dh19440113

Pak-FA and J-xx will be widely avalible, when they achieve full production capacity. Russia and China has no scruple about selling these fighters to Iran, North Korea, Cuba and venezuala. When these nation achieve stealth they are not going to play by the rules. They will use hit and run tactics. Shoot their BVR and run. If Eurofighter can't close to IR range who cares how manuverable it is its a losing proposition. Londo suggest J-xx isn't going to be very stealthy. Well, if china's J-xx can't achieve a cross section smaller than F-117 than it can't be considered steathy. We can only base our present assumption that China want air superiority over taiwan strait, and stealth is a much desired commodity by the PLA.
When PLA want something they usaually get it, they don't care how much money they spend.

For example, china was going through fammine when the PLA wanted Nukes. The national fund can either save a few million chinese from starvation or research nukes, guess which option they chose. PLA determination is extreme. If they want it they will get it.

Violet Oboe

No way that China would sell their new PLAAF ´stealth jewels´ for export... perhaps after a technological cooling off period of more than 10 years.

However China could be tempted to realign her weapons export policy to the common standards of the notoriously scrupulous US administration. In this case expect that J-XX's would fly on at least five continents in ten years time!

P.S.:
Selling stealth fighters to Cuba and North Korea?? Those comrades get some generous foreign aid checks and development assistance from Beijing but not toys costing more than 50 million $ a piece! (...or do you suggest Santa Claus has moved recently to Chengdu?)

dh19440113

cuba has the best equiped air force in latin america with 160 mig-21 including 69 mig-23, 30 mig-27 and 14 mig-29. Cuba is a big spender, who has been at odds with the US for 40 odd years. cuba spend 572 million dollar annually for the air force.

North korean air force is a bigger spender, it has 40 mig-29 36 su-25 56 mig-23
190 mig-21 plus the obsolete aircafts of mig-17 and others it number 1200 or more.
both country has bought R-11 archer and R-77 adder. its estimated that the air arm of its navy and air force is more than a billion dollar annually. It is still in a 50 years standoff with the south. put a few million people in slave gulog and starve a few million, the money will come in no time. They also had a nuclear enrichment program and ballistic missile program. It takes a few billion annually for a poor country like NK to get nukes. I don't think santa gives nukes for christmas LOL.

Iran and venezuala sit on oil reserve and also in a standoff with US enough said.

IDonT

On your list only the F-22 and F-35 are true 5th gen fighters. The J-13, J12/14, and Su-50 have not even flown yet and will not be in service for a long time. (talk about counting your chickens before they hatch)
At that time, it will have to face the F-22's replacement.

Cuba and Venezuela are not even on the same league as the regional Latin American powers of Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico.

zhouj

The F-22 won't have a replacement for decades and if current reports are true, Su-50 will be test-flying next year. F-22 and JSF procurement isn't even remotely completed and they haven't replaced their predecessors yet and you talk about their replacements?

All of the listed aircraft will be 5G (excluding J-13 if it's just a stand-in when they fly if they follow the current specs) so please stop with the misinformation.

bd popeye

zhouj, IDonT is a long time member here and is in my opinion and others well informed.

I believe his point is how can anyone say aircaft that have flown zero flight hours be compared as 5th generations fighters when the PLAAF and Russian aircraft are still on the pervabile "drawing board". Fact is they cannot be compared.

True enough though only a hand full of F-35 have been delivered to the USAF and zero to the USN and others.

However 109 F-22 Raptors have been delivered to the USAF and two squadrons are operational. That is a fact.

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dh19440113

IDont I know you have a lot of national pride, but the facts are F-22/F-35 won't be replaced until 2050 and S-50 will fly next year with SU-50 being scheduled for delivery by 2015. J-xx may take longer, but will definitely be avaliable between 2020-2025.
That leaves a 25-30 year window for these 5th generation fighters to coexist.

Idont mexico air force has 10 F-5 tiger light interceptor, thats about it. They are far from a force to be reckoned with.

Argentine has 24 mirage-3, 7 mirage-5, 13 IAI Kfir, 34 Douglas A-4 and it seems that super etandard was leased and given back to france.
As you can see they have weakened since the falkland war. Oh yes, the carrier veinticinco D' mayo has been scrapped in india.

Brazil air force has 57 f-5 light interceptor, 5 embraer erieye awacs (nice), 160 tucano prop fighter LOL. Real weapon include 52 AMX ground attack plane and 11 mirage 2000C. I would be afraid of brazil, if they had all this in WW2.

You may argue than F-5 is a good fighter, on the contrary no. It has 5000 lb of thrust on each of its engine with a combine 10,000 lb. Mig-21 has one Tumansky 15,000 engine with a top speed of mach 2.1 .

zhouj

I've noticed that several "long time members" are less than apt at their analysis. Either way, it matters little what his track record when it's evident that he's put forth a highly flawed argument. He used the term "true" construing that the other fighters on the list lack the identifying characteristic of 5th generation fighters over 4.5th generation fighters. Each of those fighters will no doubt include significant stealth capabilities (again, excluding the J-13 potentially.)

Especially flawed is his assertion that they would be facing the F-22 replacement. I'd love to see a F-22 replacement in 2008. Or 2028 for that matter. Or you do really think all of the other projects will still be on the drawing board in two decades. The reality is that the other 5th generation aircraft will be deployed by the middle of the F-22's product lifetime, which has barely begun. It's also questionable whether the F-22 will even be deployed in significant numbers beyond the current deployment.

IDonT

The F-22 was first developed in 1981. The F-15 was put into service in 1974. The YF-22 and YF 23 first fle 10 years later. Do you really think the US does not have have in development plans for the F-22's replacement?

IF we are talking technology demonstrators, the US has have preliminary aircraft that have actually flown in the air.

X-36


X-45




X-47



Aircraft classified as fourth generation jet fighters are those aircraft, representing the design concepts of the 1970s. Representative fighters include the "teen" series of American fighters (F-14, F-15, F-16, and F/A-18) and the Soviet MiG-29 and Su-27 and its derivatives. Its defining characteristics are great agility through high thrust to weight ratio and low wing loading. In terms of avionics, BVR and look down shoot down capability are employed.

Fifth generation have characteristics that include super maneuverability, stealth, super cruise, AESA radars. Russia has shown capable of developing 3 out of the 4 defining characteristics. China has none. Your J12/14 is still a long way.

zhouj

No, the F-22 program was not initiated in 1981. In 1981, the USAF commissioned the need for a F-15 replacement in anticipation of Soviet countermeasures. In 1986, they sent out the RFP to the contractors with selection done in 1991. The first production-level model was flown in 1997. Deployment was in 2005.

So no, given the F-22 timeframe and the fact that the US is considering reducing F-22 procurement, it is very unlikely that the F-22 successor will see the day of light before Chinese and Russian fighters are deployed. In fact, if you had any real insight into military development, you'd notice that it's very political and if the Russians don't have a stealth fighter in the next three decades, any F-22 replacement is even less likely to appear.

Violet Oboe

@IDont:
ATF project got only finalized in fall '86 leading to orders for Lockheed and Northrop/McDonnell Douglas to produce YF-22 and YF-23 prototypes ready for testing in '90. Preliminary studies for the next generation fighter were conducted by the industry from '78 onwards but they were just that.

As for your nice pics:
Of course we all know that we will have to show some patience before the first authentic images of J-XX prototypes or technology demonstrators will appear. Indeed the entire concept of sinic civilization is not quite exactly about ´showing everything off´...

(... so there may be next year a new ´surprise season´)