Well i interpreted that as meaning the 3rd J-36. I have doubts about the existence of the 3rd 6th gen allegedly seen last July since we've seen absolutely nothing about it since, probably just a fairly elaborate PS.
H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
It seems fairly unlikely to me for there to be a 3rd 6th gen fighter. The only reason I could see it happening is that the CMC wants to give Xi'an some work designing fighters as well so all 3 major plants have their own practice creating teams for developing and fielding fighters. Perhaps a dedicated carrier fighter, or a mainstay fighter to pair with the J-36 that seems to be the 'high' in a hi-lo mix if the J-XDS was the dedicated carrier fighter.
H-20 seems rather unlikely this year IMO. The J-36 was the big, impressive project and that had a fair bit of chatter leading up to it including things like their engine count and rather strange shape. If the H-20 was finalize and was about to appear I'd expect some chatter regarding some of the specific unique aspects of the aircraft, perhaps leaked by AVIC or the MSS directly to test and track information dispersion routes and so they can shore up or at least manage information security for future leaks. I doubt a project this big would stay siloed up to this point.
Perhaps, but also it's not like we had commercial satellite images released to us of J-36 or J-XDS during their initial taxi runs and first flights etc.
That said I am not yet rating this too highly. If there were some more noise from the other established folks, maybe.
Is there a polymarket for this one yet? If not we should make one
Interesting correction regarding this rumour: Allegedly this claim is not related for the H-20 but „I meant to say that the third prototype of the J-36 has gone through multiple taxiing tests.“