Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36)

EmoBirb

New Member
Registered Member
I long for the day we finally make a good looking aircraft besides the J-XDS

That's what the J-20A/S and J-35A are for.

That aside, ultimately I'd wager that aesthetic doom and gloom or overarching theory crafting with regards to the nozzles and arguably even the intakes of the aircraft are premature until a third distinct prototype surfaces. Because if one looks like that and the other like this, it can simply come down to validating different components under real world flight conditions (an important step despite the advancements in modern simulation tools). An additional prototype could lean more into one way or the other, which may give us the general direction where things are heading. Because at two prototypes, I'd argue all bets are still off aside from certain fundamental characteristics (three engines, two seats, cranked delta).

Now if a third prototype would look different from the first AND second one, that's where it would drift off into the realm of borderline trolling.
 

Atomicfrog

Major
Registered Member
Obvious ones would be that they are for testing different parts of the flight envelope. No1 might by able to give better data on how the top mounted intake performs, especially at the extreme edge of the flight envelope (high supersonic speeds, high AoA etc) which might not be possible with triple DSI if the DSI itself is the limiting factor that needs pushing to the limit.

Similarly, No1 could be testing rear aspects stealth while No2 tests out the agility benefits of unrestricted TVC.

Engineering is all about balancing pros and cons of different design choices. Being able to do real world testing of those different pros and cons as well as how they impact the overall design is a fantastic way to do things. It’s just rarely done because of the multiplication of costs and increased development time that will result from doing parallel testing like this.

Looks like these really are no-expense spared projects for the PLAAF.
Testing 2D engine nozzles performances loss is probably one of big reasons of these two prototypes divergence. I think even more than manoeuvrability.

With the range oriented large J-36 airframe, performances loss means firstly range loss and at the same time speed/accelaration loss.
 
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