J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Kinda bit too blurry to make it out exactly. Though it does look like CB0009.Really?
However, I've got a quick question, which I have always wondered for some time.
Why are the serial numbers on the canopy edges only visible on a few of the J-20s? Such as the following 4 photographs, whereby the serial numbers are supposed to be plainly visible to the photographers if they are printed on the same location across all J-20 airframes:
But, there are no serial numbers to be seen, despite the way of how these J-20s are photographed should have make the serial numbers readable.
Did the photographers intentionally scrub them off? Or did Chengdu deliberately leave many of the J-20 airframes unmarked?
Camera resolution and focusing limit.
I partly recall that at the beginning of 2022, my estimate was that they would get to about 150 J-20s by year's end.
CB0370 threw a wrench in it because it implies that there were already 208 aircraft up to that production serial, meaning that based on when CB0370 was delivered on, by 2022's end they would have reached well over 200 perhaps near 250 even -- a number that seemed very unlikely.
Now that we have this relatively unprecedented change that CBXYABC actually describes the cumulative produced total at "ABC" (which afaik is new for CAC as well as other major Chinese aircraft makers), then we can estimate that at minimum, they are at 156 aircraft by 2022's end.
But of course this is the PLA, meaning they will obviously never show us the true "latest" number of a new aircraft that they have.
Which is to say, chances are CB07156 was photographed sometime ago, and likely even then wouldn't have been the latest aircraft.
Per past PLA practice, I wouldn't be surprised if the true number of J-20s that exist is anywhere from half a batch to an entire batch ahead of CB07156 (depending on how big a batch is).
So my personal estimate is I think there's a good chance that the true number of J-20s right now is some 170-180 aircraft, with a much lower likelihood that they are at 156-165 aircraft or 180-200 aircraft.
CB0370 threw a wrench in it because it implies that there were already 208 aircraft up to that production serial, meaning that based on when CB0370 was delivered on, by 2022's end they would have reached well over 200 perhaps near 250 even -- a number that seemed very unlikely.
Now that we have this relatively unprecedented change that CBXYABC actually describes the cumulative produced total at "ABC" (which afaik is new for CAC as well as other major Chinese aircraft makers), then we can estimate that at minimum, they are at 156 aircraft by 2022's end.
But of course this is the PLA, meaning they will obviously never show us the true "latest" number of a new aircraft that they have.
Which is to say, chances are CB07156 was photographed sometime ago, and likely even then wouldn't have been the latest aircraft.
Per past PLA practice, I wouldn't be surprised if the true number of J-20s that exist is anywhere from half a batch to an entire batch ahead of CB07156 (depending on how big a batch is).
So my personal estimate is I think there's a good chance that the true number of J-20s right now is some 170-180 aircraft, with a much lower likelihood that they are at 156-165 aircraft or 180-200 aircraft.
Agreed and IF this is correct together with @Derpy 's idea of 20 J-20s per batch, which I rate highly likely, it is save to assume that CAC is well within Batch 08 and there are already this number available.
The only big mystery that does not fit is, how many Batches are built per year and when did we see them first. Based on what @huitong has on his blog, a few images and a lot of guesswork I have this ... but the time between a batch is too different.
Personally I am very very cautious as to us estimating how many aircraft are in a single batch right now.
Specifically, it could be that the earlier batches may have fewer aircraft than later batches now do.
That said, the fact that the ABC of CBXYABC now means "cumulative numbers" makes our tracking of J-20 numbers much easier lol.
Any idea where this particular CB07156 plane is as you already mark it as 8th BGD in Changxing? I am a complete illiterate on locating plane by photos.
No, it has not, but the 8th AB was the unit, which was only revealed by the PLAAF quite or most recently. It is in fact just an assumption on my own.
I would guess the first 2 batches total 40 aircraft because they both equip al31fn and that's my guestimate of number of j20s with al32fn. I would guess batch 02 is the first batch with ws10c and produced in 2020.
Batch 3 and 4 in 2021
Batch 5, 6 and 7 in 2022.
Batch 3 and 4 in 2021
Batch 5, 6 and 7 in 2022.
Could what we think as batch number is the number of years counted from the first year of serial production? If the first production year is 2016, 2022 would be 7th. CB07156 would be produced in the 7th year (2022) since 2016 and we just saw it in January 2023. That would explain the seemingly different batch size. Different number of batches appearing in each year would be simply due to the photos being acquired sooner or later.
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