J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread V

[siegecrossbow]

Where are they stationing them? I am guessing in the former Nanjing military district? That's where the air defense pressure is the heaviest.

 

[Richard Santos]

The F-35 is "very agile", you've fallen victim to the constant ca-caphony that the F-35 is a lumbering "bomb truck", it is NOT.

The F-35s agility may exceed that of the J-20 and most other fighter aircraft on the planet! It was designed to match the F-16, which was our first "unstable" fly by wire fighter, and which remains "SCARY". In fact the F-16s fly by wire had to be "dialed back", as too many jet jockeys were putting themselves to sleep. The F-35s fly by wire is also "dialed back", the aircraft joy stick will not "input" all the performance the airframe itself is capable of?

My point is that J-20 is likely very maneuverable, but the F-35 is indeed much smaller physically, and utilizes the principle of "mass centralization", in other words its much easier to "spin" a baseball, than a soccer ball?? So until we see the J-20 given a full on "airshow" type demonstration??? we will be in the dark about its actual to the limit capabilities, we've seen no max turn rate demonstrations on the J-20, nor have we seen a full on military flight demo of the F-35??

You are confusing agility with maneuverability. "Mass centralization" does nothing whatsoever for maneuverability.

 

[Deino]

To remind everyone: Chinese fighter jets are built in batches. It is not serial production, an other way of production used when products are made at a higher rate. As far as I know, i.e. as described by the experts on this forum, even J-10 is produced in batches.

Yes and no ... I think it is indeed some sort of serial production similar to the F-16, which was or is also build in batches.

Where are they stationing them? I am guessing in the former Nanjing military district? That's where the air defense pressure is the heaviest.

The first are IMO for sure based at Dingxin ... concerning the future first operational unit I would expect one of the premier Divisions like either the 1. or the 33.; but that's just my guess.

Deino

 

[Air Force Brat]

You are confusing agility with maneuverability. "Mass centralization" does nothing whatsoever for maneuverability.

No, I'm not, everyone with an interest in aircraft "super maneuverability" (USAF term for ATF requirement, at which the F-22 excels), understands that in order to be able to move something quickly, (maneuverability), you must be able to point it in the desired direction,(agility). I am a pilot, I am also a teacher, I have been paid to do both??

English is my native language, its is very nuanced and flexible, I use words very carefully to frame the idea that I am communicating, the F-35 is a very maneuverable aircraft, due to its extreme agility afforded by "mass centralization"

The J-20 has proven to be very maneuverable, turns well and flys very well from what we have observed, it is likely comparable to the F-35, as neither aircraft employs OVT, and without thrust vectoring hastening those pitch transitions, they lack the "agility" afforded by thrust vectoring.

 

[dingyibvs]

To admit esp. since I always admire H.K. very much for his analysis, but here I don't agree with him.

The 13th J-20 overall for the whole program is unlikely:

We know for sure 2001, 2002 (= now 2004 even if I still don't know why !?), 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 & 2017 = 8 aircraft

Then for the LRIP-birds we know for sure 2101 but we also know since some time (September/October) images showing at least 4 LRIP birds - 2 yellow + 2 grey ones - together, we also know from around the same time - namely since October/November - 2 birds in plain grey + 2 in splinter and again several with still yellow birds behind.

As such I think it is very unlikely that there are only 5 LRIP-J-20As out there and given that unique high-resolution image from October assuming no. 11, I think already 13 LRIP birds is highly likely.

Deino

Think you misread Henri K's article. He said this pic of the 5th LRIP J-20 is probably old and in fact probably was taken in May 2016. Presumably more have been produced by now.

 

[Quickie]

Think you misread Henri K's article. He said this pic of the 5th LRIP J-20 is probably old and in fact probably was taken in May 2016. Presumably more have been produced by now.

Assuming that this fifth aircraft is out of the chain at the end of May 2016, and based on the duration of the six J-20 prototypes between their first flight and the date of delivery to the test center, Flight, which is 112 days (~ 4 months) on average, it seems excessively long that a series or pre-series aircraft takes more than 4 months to prepare for the ground before the first flight, Delivered today.

I think what he meant was that the picture is not taken recently but rather it's an old picture of the 5th LRIP J-20, and since we haven't seen any more pictures of newer LRIP J-20s, the 5th LRIP J-20 is probably still the last one, or not much more, that has come out of the factory. It's this argument that some of us doesn't quite agree.

 

[schenkus]

what is the main difference of "Serial" and "Batches" ? ... sorry for this simple question, I just need to be sure

The difference is in the organisation of production, the typical example for serial production is a production line where you have X steps and each plane would start at step 1, next go to step 2, ... until it reaches the last step. After the first plane goes from step 1 to step 2, the next plane would start at step 1
and this continues as long as you run the production. Once the first plane is finished in step X you would get a steady stream of new planes until production stops. In order for this to work you need a steady stream of components. This is the way to produce big numbers since the times of the Ford T.

In batch production you would decide to produce X planes at a time, get the necessary components for X planes and then put together X planes. After the X planes are completed you would then start another batch of X planes or perhaps build a batch of different planes (if your production equipment allows this --- if I'm not mistaken this is what happens when SAC changes between JH-7A and H-6 production).
This way is more suited to building smaller numbers and should allow more changes between batches.

Typically you would produce prototypes and development planes in small batches and once development and testing is complete you might set up "serial production" if you want to produce a lot.

I'm not sure why chinese warplanes seem to be built as batches, it might be that the number of planes ordered for each type is relatively small so setting up a production line is not worth of the effort or that there have been problems in the past with setting up the kind of logistics necessary for a smooth production line.

 

[delft]

The difference is in the organisation of production, the typical example for serial production is a production line where you have X steps and each plane would start at step 1, next go to step 2, ... until it reaches the last step. After the first plane goes from step 1 to step 2, the next plane would start at step 1
and this continues as long as you run the production. Once the first plane is finished in step X you would get a steady stream of new planes until production stops. In order for this to work you need a steady stream of components. This is the way to produce big numbers since the times of the Ford T.

In batch production you would decide to produce X planes at a time, get the necessary components for X planes and then put together X planes. After the X planes are completed you would then start another batch of X planes or perhaps build a batch of different planes (if your production equipment allows this --- if I'm not mistaken this is what happens when SAC changes between JH-7A and H-6 production).
This way is more suited to building smaller numbers and should allow more changes between batches.

Typically you would produce prototypes and development planes in small batches and once development and testing is complete you might set up "serial production" if you want to produce a lot.

I'm not sure why chinese warplanes seem to be built as batches, it might be that the number of planes ordered for each type is relatively small so setting up a production line is not worth of the effort or that there have been problems in the past with setting up the kind of logistics necessary for a smooth production line.

That is well described. Of course many of the parts for aircraft build in series are build in batches because the time needed to produce these parts is small and you then can use the people producing such a batch to produce a batch of another part. production of aircraft is very complex and changing the production rate, up or down, in series production is expensive. So while aircraft produced in a steady series are cheaper, batch production is more flexible, makes update of an aircraft being produced easier.

 

[SanWenYu]

I'm not sure why chinese warplanes seem to be built as batches, it might be that the number of planes ordered for each type is relatively small so setting up a production line is not worth of the effort or that there have been problems in the past with setting up the kind of logistics necessary for a smooth production line.

I would guess it is due to production capacity and maturity of the models in question. Both the Chinese aviation industry and PLAAF had experience in mass producing military aircrafts before. But those were all 2-gen and 3-gen models, much less sophiscated than the 4-gen J-10, J-11, etc.

I have the feeling that PLAAF also don't want or need to hoard large number of J-10, in particular the earlier variants like J-10A. They learned a lesson dearly from J-6 which was made in thousands even when it was already obsolete.

 

[antiterror13]

The difference is in the organisation of production, the typical example for serial production is a production line where you have X steps and each plane would start at step 1, next go to step 2, ... until it reaches the last step. After the first plane goes from step 1 to step 2, the next plane would start at step 1
and this continues as long as you run the production. Once the first plane is finished in step X you would get a steady stream of new planes until production stops. In order for this to work you need a steady stream of components. This is the way to produce big numbers since the times of the Ford T.

In batch production you would decide to produce X planes at a time, get the necessary components for X planes and then put together X planes. After the X planes are completed you would then start another batch of X planes or perhaps build a batch of different planes (if your production equipment allows this --- if I'm not mistaken this is what happens when SAC changes between JH-7A and H-6 production).
This way is more suited to building smaller numbers and should allow more changes between batches.

Typically you would produce prototypes and development planes in small batches and once development and testing is complete you might set up "serial production" if you want to produce a lot.

I'm not sure why chinese warplanes seem to be built as batches, it might be that the number of planes ordered for each type is relatively small so setting up a production line is not worth of the effort or that there have been problems in the past with setting up the kind of logistics necessary for a smooth production line.

Thanks schenkus. I would be surprised for high performance and expensive fighters be built in "Series" ... it would be difficult to tweak the fighters ... so basically you would get exactly the same hundreds fighters ... perhaps not wise decision for J-20 or even J-10. It seems that China would like to keep improving the fighters and produce exactly the same fighters for a regiment (~24 to 40 fighters) ... and thats make sense for operational, maintenance and logistic point of views