J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
No prototype bort numbers
By this logic is the J-XDS/50 already in production? Not necessarily even in LRIP, but at least beyond EMD?
To date, not a single J-XDS airframe has been seen with bort numbers. And we've had lots of good quality photos of its underside and even on the runway, and overall these include at least a version with a pitot and a second version without. We've also not seen any major external structural changes (apart from the aforementioned pitot) as a stark comparison with the J-36 prototypes.
The J-50 may not follow the same procedure as the J-20. For one, one is SAC and the other is CAC. Second, the J-20 has been following the same procedure with numbering for prototypes vs none for production planes for a decade plus now. Third, there seems to be multiple J-20As without borts.
There's not enough photos of J-50 to say it doesn't have bort numbers. It could simple be on top of the airframe or somewhere else. Shenyang usually puts their serial on the vertical stabilizer for J-35s however J-50 doesn't have any so it could be anywhere and judging from J-35 they could also tiny in size.
Chengdu puts their serial on the side of the airframe and usually pretty large in font which is easily visible.
The FC-31 demonstrator and various J-35 prototypes (including J-35A at Zhuhai 2024 and J-35 reveal in 2025) have large font bort numbers on the side of the fuselage, towards the front near the intakes. I get that these aren't the serials for production variants (which for the J-35/A are on the vertical stabiliser), but we've got clear images of the underside and both sides of the J-XDS and there's not even a faint haze of any sort of numerical marking. Isn't this unusual?
I don't want to go too off-topic for the J-20 thread, so I'd like to make this my last comment here on this topic before I move to the J-XDS thread. I want to know others thoughts on this situation though.
EDIT: On further inspection, I realise that the J-XDS is uniquely difficult for bort numbers. Both SAC and CAC put bort numbers on front side of the fuselage and SAC additionally puts them on the vertical stabiliser. The J-XDS doesn't have vertical stabilsers, and the place where the bort would go on the fuselage is occupied by the still mysterious slightly-canted side bay panel with a bulge.
Should be quite obvious that the context of a missing bort number for a mature airframe expected to begin mass production is very different from the context of a brand-new and obviously unfinished airframe which is many years away from that milestone.
