PLA Air Force news, pics and videos

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
But if I am not mistaken, he specifically use Shenyang-designed aircraft in his background picture.

I am not quite familiar with aircraft though, they are J-8, two flanker variants, GJ-11, FC-31 demonstrator and J-35 then the two mysterious planes in my untrained eyes. It is a great leap forward for them in term of presentation skill.

I agree, I think the two concepts there are interesting but they may not necessarily be actively under development or of any significance for our interests, and I don't think either are related to the 6th gen manned fighter.

One of them is consistent with what the look of JH-XX, the other looks like a high speed UAV.
 

by78

General
Mr. Sun Cong (孙聪), a designer of FC-31 and J-35, gives a public lecture on the development of combat aircraft and future trends. Of interest are the two unknown airframes on the background display (far left). I can't tell if they are manned or unmanned systems. They could simply be mere placeholders/artist impressions and therefore not representative or indicative of actual projects, especially considering that this is a non-classified lecture. Does anyone have a summary or video of the lecture?

52808084614_397f55fb48_o.jpg
52808327523_6f73d5370f_o.jpg
 

phrozenflame

Junior Member
Registered Member
With the engine placement and design, that would give off huge RCS spikes, perhaps RCS blockers similar to Su-57? Can't see the outlet from the angle to pass an arm chair air marshall comment on the IR management.
 

Gloire_bb

Captain
Registered Member
It’s probably a super high speed wingman. Might be an evolution of the sharp sword concept.
wm by definition is expected to have roughly at least roughly same flight envelope as the controller.

The gap between 4th and 5th gen is huge because of a fundamental focus on stealth with internal bays.
F-117 and now F-22 example show, that ironically it isn't, by itself stealth is more of a sidestep. Just a different form of self-defense solution.
The feature was to bring LO w/o obvious sacrifices in capabilities (and development prospects) elsewhere.
 
Last edited:

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
With the engine placement and design, that would give off huge RCS spikes, perhaps RCS blockers similar to Su-57? Can't see the outlet from the angle to pass an arm chair air marshall comment on the IR management.

The engines are in separate nacelles similar to SR-71, rather than integrated with the fuselage.

That doesn't mean the engines are facing the airstream directly. If it's a combined cycle engine, then you'll need separate airstreams for a turbine and a ramjet/scramjet, which gives you options to still have appropriate ducting.
e.g.: see this which depicts how a combined cycle turbine/scramjet for the SR-72 concept would be arranged. It's very simplistic but shows it most clearly, and we can see how the intake for both the turbine and scramjet ducts are not direct to the airstream by the nature of the engine type, and also that operating as a scramjet the turbine side would be blocked.

foVF5IR.png




Additionally, an aircraft like this probably will be operating at very high altitudes, so there probably won't be a frontal radar system at a similar altitude looking at it anyway.

As for the separate engine nacelles themselves, I suspect you can still achieve significant LO if not VLO signature reduction even with engine nacelles separately like that.


For a high speed aircraft like this (seems to be at least high supersonic if not hypersonic potentially), one other factor is internal payload volume (whether it's for a sensor bay or for a weapons bay). Integrating the engines into the main fuselage similar to concepts like SR-72 is one way of doing it, but it also can reduce the effective volume and dimensions you have to work with in the main fuselage of the aircraft.


====

Posts moved to the breaking news thread, as these pictures don't really fill any other thread. The two interesting parts of the picture shouldn't be 6th gen and don't fit UAV or breaking news threads perfectly as the discussion as gone.
 
Last edited:

Canton_pop

Junior Member
Registered Member
Mr. Sun Cong (孙聪), a designer of FC-31 and J-35, gives a public lecture on the development of combat aircraft and future trends. Of interest are the two unknown airframes on the background display (far left). I can't tell if they are manned or unmanned systems. They could simply be mere placeholders/artist impressions and therefore not representative or indicative of actual projects, especially considering that this is a non-classified lecture. Does anyone have a summary or video of the lecture?

52808084614_397f55fb48_o.jpg
52808327523_6f73d5370f_o.jpg
could be a China Space Bombardment plane

 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
could be a China Space Bombardment plane



Well ... in fact it could be anything and IMO it was just deliberately used since it looks new, fancy and futuristic. I won't overrate it as a modified JH-XX bomber design or an orbital bomber, just as a futuristic shape that shows we are working for and on the future!
 

GTI

Junior Member
Registered Member
Well ... in fact it could be anything and IMO it was just deliberately used since it looks new, fancy and futuristic. I won't overrate it as a modified JH-XX bomber design or an orbital bomber, just as a futuristic shape that shows we are working for and on the future!
Speaking of JH-XX do we have any additional pictures from this presentation?

In particular, I’m interested in the one that is obscured by his neck (YF-23 looking one) as it would interesting to see if it is single seat, or perhaps a 2-seater with a side-by-side seating arrangement.
 
Top