J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

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no_name

Colonel
The easiest air attack loyal wingman configuration achievable is probably to have the fast stealthy uav like the FH-97A fly towards target much like it itself was the missile until wvr, then deploy the small aam that you see under the belly. That's probably why the missiles carried are so small and also why they have optical/ir targeting. The uav don't have to worry about high g force and can spam large amounts of small ir missiles that seeks by itself, essentially spam fire and forget then on to next target.

This may well be a temporary stop-gap solution until development of uavs that can fight like a conventional piloted jet in the traditional sense.

The j20 and loyal wingman may play the sneak one and approach targets from behind, where the ir seekers would be most useful. So j20 would be part of larger detection and info sharing assets network.

Strategic support force indeed ;)
 
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TK3600

TK3600

Captain
Registered Member
gelgoog said:
Jesus man. You are comparing single engine medium fighters to twin engine heavy ones. China certainly does not need as many twin engine heavy fighters. It will not be cost effective for one.

The Soviets made a big mistake in the 1980s going with twin jets for both the medium and heavy fighter program i.e. MiG-29 and Su-27. It turned out the MiG-29 was almost the same price as the Su-27 with way less capability. The Russians ended up buying slightly more Su-27s and not buying any MiG-29s. It is simply not cost effective for China to have that many heavy fighters. Now, what I could get, was if Chengdu was expanding production to produce some twin-seater variant of J-20 to replace the Su-30MKK or some of the J-16s even.

Just think about it. Twice as many engines means roughly twice as many parts. A lot of the parts in larger engines scale up in size but do not scale up in number of operations to produce the engine. At most it might take longer to make larger turbine blades but that is about it.
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Reality says China is converting J10 facility making room for J20. China is certainly not overburdened financially from doing this. Even in case of smaller J-31 they still opted for twin engine. Your argument for single engine does not hold up to reality.
 
N

no_name

Colonel
May also explain why j20 is designed to be highly maneuverable. When loyal wingman is still unsophisticated there is greater chance of engaging them, or them choosing to engage you, at wvr.
 
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gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
TK3600 said:
Reality says China is converting J10 facility making room for J20. China is certainly not overburdened financially from doing this. Even in case of smaller J-31 they still opted for twin engine. Your argument for single engine does not hold up to reality.
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In the case of J-31 this is a naval carrier fighter aircraft. In there the dual engine actually makes sense since it is more reliable.
Same reason the US Navy chose the dual engine F/A-18 and not the single engine F-16. And they would have continued doing so if the F-35 had not been rammed down their throats.
 
L

latenlazy

Brigadier
gelgoog said:
Jesus man. You are comparing single engine medium fighters to twin engine heavy ones. China certainly does not need as many twin engine heavy fighters. It will not be cost effective for one.

The Soviets made a big mistake in the 1980s going with twin jets for both the medium and heavy fighter program i.e. MiG-29 and Su-27. It turned out the MiG-29 was almost the same price as the Su-27 with way less capability. The Russians ended up buying slightly more Su-27s and not buying any MiG-29s. It is simply not cost effective for China to have that many heavy fighters. Now, what I could get, was if Chengdu was expanding production to produce some twin-seater variant of J-20 to replace the Su-30MKK or some of the J-16s even.

Just think about it. Twice as many engines means roughly twice as many parts. A lot of the parts in larger engines scale up in size but do not scale up in number of operations to produce the engine. At most it might take longer to make larger turbine blades but that is about it.
Click to expand...
Cost is not just a function of fighter size and engine size.
 
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AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
TK3600 said:
Wrong. China is doing what they currently is doing while spending less % of gdp. If US want to arm race they will be the one going the fate of soviet union. But that is off topic.

The 200 per year by 2027 is not unreasonable. It could come at cost of less flanker and J10 produced, but it is very achievable.
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Think about it.

Let's say China is building 200 J-20 every year by 2027. These are air superiority focused fighter jets.
By 2032, you'd have over 1600+ J-20. That is way overkill, and the money would be better off spent elsewhere eg. H-20s, missiles, drones etc

For a somewhat balanced fleet, it would make sense to continue building 40 Flanker airframes per year, for 1. strike use 2. naval use 3. to complement the J-20 as a long-range AAM carrier. So that's another 400 extra airframes

That's 2000+ new airframes over the next 10 years, excluding any new J-10s.

It's possible for China to do this, but it does come at a cost and opportunity cost, as mentioned before
 
L

latenlazy

Brigadier
AndrewS said:
Think about it.

Let's say China is building 200 J-20 every year by 2027. These are air superiority focused fighter jets.
By 2032, you'd have over 1600+ J-20. That is way overkill, and the money would be better off spent elsewhere eg. H-20s, missiles, drones etc

For a somewhat balanced fleet, it would make sense to continue building 40 Flanker airframes per year, for 1. strike use 2. naval use 3. to complement the J-20 as a long-range AAM carrier. So that's another 400 extra airframes

That's 2000+ new airframes over the next 10 years, excluding any new J-10s.

It's possible for China to do this, but it does come at a cost and opportunity cost, as mentioned before
Click to expand...
Non LO fighters will become increasingly unsurvivable going into the future. If you need a fleet of 1000-2000 fighters they will all eventually need to be stealthy. As sensors get more powerful you will need proliferation of LO platforms just to maintain parity of capabilities. It’s not like a fleet of 1000-1500 J-20s will be coming at the expense of other airframes either. The overall fleet of modern aircraft the PLAAF will need to field is set to grow so long as their primary objective is being able to cover conflict against the US+regional security partners. What we thought was “reasonable” a decade ago was a combined function of lower geopolitical tensions plus capabilities bottlenecks. The norm then was never the ideal.
 
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Jj888

New Member
Registered Member
latenlazy said:
Non LO fighters will become increasingly unsurvivable going into the future. If you need a fleet of 1000-2000 fighters they will all eventually need to be stealthy. As sensors get more powerful you will need proliferation of LO platforms just to maintain parity of capabilities. It’s not like a fleet of 1000-1500 J-20s will be coming at the expense of other airframes either. The overall fleet of modern aircraft the PLAAF will need to field is set to grow so long as their primary objective is being able to cover conflict against the US+regional security partners. What we thought was “reasonable” a decade ago was a combined function of lower geopolitical tensions plus capabilities bottlenecks. The norm then was never the ideal.
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Totally agreed

Suppose 10 J20 costing twice of J16 can eliminate 30 lower gen fighters without loss. Which plane would be prefer? Costs & pilots favours J20.

Those early platforms are based on 1970s technologies. It’s time to move on.
 
TK3600

TK3600

Captain
Registered Member
AndrewS said:
Think about it.

Let's say China is building 200 J-20 every year by 2027. These are air superiority focused fighter jets.
By 2032, you'd have over 1600+ J-20. That is way overkill, and the money would be better off spent elsewhere eg. H-20s, missiles, drones etc

For a somewhat balanced fleet, it would make sense to continue building 40 Flanker airframes per year, for 1. strike use 2. naval use 3. to complement the J-20 as a long-range AAM carrier. So that's another 400 extra airframes

That's 2000+ new airframes over the next 10 years, excluding any new J-10s.

It's possible for China to do this, but it does come at a cost and opportunity cost, as mentioned before
Click to expand...
How is that overkill. Over the next 10 years us will have NGAD flying and continued around 100 f35 a year. US will have 1600+ 5th gen too and they are not stopping there.
 
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