China Flanker Thread II

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ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Isn't it clear enough from the hints given that J-20 is being mass produced already? There's no need for a flanker derived, dedicated air superiority fighter when the PLAAF already operate the J-16, improving J-11B to G standard with AESA, and have a handful of Su-35s for limited confrontations and intercepts. J-10C is also a modern air superiority fighter. How many 4th gens does the PLAAF want? For sure the priority will be given to buying J-20s instead of J-11D. J-16s are probably still receiving upgrade development funding just like the J-10 series may be as well.
 

lcloo

Captain
"D" (Dian=电(子)Electronic) variant, whether it is J11D or JXXD, is not primed for air-superiority or strike role. "D" is for electronic warfare like F-18 Growler. They work in parallel with other aircraft, suppressing enemy's electronic sensors like radar etc.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
A general question about Flankers, but I have never seen any kind of head mount used with Flanker helmets, so how do Flanker pilots wear NVGs during night operations?

As far as I am aware, the HMS for flanker helmets is extremely rudimentary, so cannot act as a HMD to project imagery from the IRST directly to the pilots’ eyes.

So do flankers just do instruments only during night ops, or is there so sort of workaround?
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
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The Flanker helmets used to be manufactured in Ukraine. The picture above shows a SURA-I HMTDS.
The helmet AFAIK can aim and display flight symbology with the SURA HMTDS attached to the bracket on the helmet.
It is probably a vector display with no raster capability so I doubt it can overlay images.
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I think I have heard of night vision goggles also being possible to attach to the helmet bracket.

The Russians have recently made their own helmets to replace Ukrainian supply.

I do know that Russian helicopter helmets can have night sights on them.

They are also developing more modern VR helmets for the helicopters and the Su-57:
 
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The Observer

Junior Member
Registered Member
Does anyone know why Flankers have what looks like metallic plates over their engine and in the case of Su-35, also the horizontal stabilizer? I'm not sure if they affect the performance noticeably, but I haven't noticed any other fighter design that has those parts.

732885_720.jpg
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
Does anyone know why Flankers have what looks like metallic plates over their engine and in the case of Su-35, also the horizontal stabilizer? I'm not sure if they affect the performance noticeably, but I haven't noticed any other fighter design that has those parts.

Probably to add stiffness and dissipate heat. The original Su-35s didn't have visible metal in the tail. I guess they added it to increase stiffness because of TVC induced fatigue or some other reason. The engine covers, probably to dissipate heat.
Also that part of the engines typically isn't visible to radar so...
 

sheogorath

Major
Registered Member
Does anyone know why Flankers have what looks like metallic plates over their engine and in the case of Su-35, also the horizontal stabilizer? I'm not sure if they affect the performance noticeably, but I haven't noticed any other fighter design that has those parts.

View attachment 63816

All of that is titanium, which is hard to paint for one and in the case of the engine casings, it helps disipate the heat. For the elevators, it works as a shield to protect them from the missiles' exhausts.
 

DaTang cavalry

Junior Member
Registered Member
The "enemy plane" struck, and the pilot of the lead plane planned a hierarchical interception by the crew through the data link.

In late autumn, an airport in the north of the Great Wall was still hot. As a green signal flares cut through the sky, the war eagles whizzed and took off... A certain unit of the air force in the central theater focused on missions and organized multi-course and multi-batch cross-day and night flight training to comprehensively test the actual combat level of the troops.

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