Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator

Deino said:

Is that August date confirmed?

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The picture is claimed by the original author to be screen shot of a recent CCTV documentary. I know the documentary program, but did not have time to search the scene myself.

Giving the specifics and being easy to verify by anyone, I would believe the author is telling the truth, that is August.

Xi Jinping did went to Liao Ning in August 2013. His inspection of the J-15 training site was reported by CCTV back then, except any mention of SAC visit.

Deino said:

Is that August date confirmed?

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original article
Another picture from it confirms that Xi visited SAC on August 30th 2013.

Deino said:

Interesting, but the image right on the bottom is a Flanker IMO.

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That is right, here is the CCTV report (no later than September 1, 2013). Same report mentioned J-15.

I think the bottom right screenshot is taken either from totally somewhere else, or from another scene in the same program as the picture quality and color tone is different from the rest three. The source of my original post is Duowei news which is not professional and accurate.

Anyway, the pictures are all taken from the same visit on 30th of August.

Deino said:

But then it could also be an older image?

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The image is screenshot of recent documentary being broadcasted right now.

The event was in 2013.

latenlazy said:

It's unlikely that Xi would do two different photo ops at SAC, and if he were that carry potential implications on its own.

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It happened in the same visit on August 30th. The government just chose not to publish anything about J-31.

latenlazy said:

Bottom left is definitely 31001 though.

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Definitely, the difference between flanker and J-31 is the leading edge. On flanker, the leading edge is below 1/2 of the fuselage. On J-31, the leading edge is above 1/2 closer to the cockpit as shown in the bottom left screenshot.

Regarding the recent revelation of Xi's inspection of J-31, I think we don't need to put too much meaning in it.

Like I have being saying from the beginning, on the one hand, J-31 is a state sanctioned project instead of playing toy of SAC or a pure commercial project for export. J-31 needs CMC chairman's approval to go anywhere from the blueprint. The future catapult CV need a stealthy fighter, J-31 is one if not the only one candidate. Xi's inspection is just ordinary.

On the other hand, the reason of the project being on a lower gear is because catapult CV is still some years in the future, AVIC's priority is to field and maturate J-20 for PLAF, J-31 can wait a little bit. The publicity of J-31 is China's attempt to attract potential buyers (partially finance it in the same vein as F-35).

Therefor, the recent revelation does not indicate that PLA has decided or inclined to field J-31 in PLAF any time soon although the possibility is there.

Taxiya, fully agreed.

I remember hearing of a really good reason why J-20 actually couldn't be fielded on a carrier. This was a while back and I can't remember the reason but do recall it having convinced me that making J-20 carrier borne would be a monumental task in compromise. Does anyone know of any good reasons why J-31 would be the only choice for carrier if they went with a LO platform?

Figaro said:

J-20's wingspan is over 2 meters longer than FC-31. The notion that the J-20 has small wings really needs to be discarded. Its wingspan and wing area are roughly comparable to that of a F-22 or Su-57, so it does not have "relatively small" wings ... not to mention the coupled canards. Brings me back to the days of the 23 meter long J-20 fallacy ...

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The J-20 does indeed have similar wing area to the F-22 and SU-57,,, it also has a "lifting body" design encompassing the wings and fuselage shaping,, which the F-35 also shares??

What the J-20 and the F-35 do have in common as well? is a rather "chesty" larger diameter fuselage which to the layman appears to make the wings "smaller". The purpose of that design, which the F-22 also shares is to form a weapons "bay", in order to minimize the RCS of the aircraft and its weapons!