J-20... The New Generation Fighter II

After reading through several articles and reader comments on the J-20 test flight from Western news outlets - nytimes, guardian, telegraph, foxnews - the one common theme through them all was a palpable feeling of fear. This seems to be mainly manifesting itself through disparaging remarks on the technology of the j-20, claiming it is shoddy, a copy of _____ or even that it is a copy of the f-22.

This fear is understandable but unfounded, and the fearmongering by certain media outlets doesn't help.

The diameter of the engine exhaust is reduced when the thrust needed is lower, so the velocity of the jet leaving the exhaust is increased compared to that with the exhaust wide open at low fuel flow.

The aircraft will be relatively light, without weapons, with a limited amount of fuel on board, so take off will be easy. Landing with high speed is prudent. Only when you know the aircraft better can you land it at a lower speed.

The maneuverability depends on the size of the control surface, the distance of the control surface to the center of gravity and the average distance of the mass of the aircraft to the center of gravity as well as the air speed. The center of gravity is slightly in front of the main wheels.

maffiaw said:

After reading through several articles and reader comments on the J-20 test flight from Western news outlets - nytimes, guardian, telegraph, foxnews - the one common theme through them all was a palpable feeling of fear. This seems to be mainly manifesting itself through disparaging remarks on the technology of the j-20, claiming it is shoddy, a copy of _____ or even that it is a copy of the f-22.

This fear is understandable but unfounded, and the fearmongering by certain media outlets doesn't help.

Click to expand...

It's not fear. Most of the time it's a sincere belief that anything Chinese is an utter and complete joke.

Cpt_Underpants said:

[video=youtube;b4-gmx-aoV4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4-gmx-aoV4[/video]

From the video floating around on the net (interestingly for China it's been widely circulated) it seems a rather cautious take-off but come landing it comes in quite fast. pilot must be happy with it.
Interesting to note the Ws-10 engines used in the flight rather than the Russian AL-31F seen fitted on early photos of the aircraft .

Click to expand...

Thanks. Nice video. Take off is at 3:06. Touch and go at 4:30.

OK. I can't resist.

We have been watching this thing develop for a few weeks now, and our favorite airplane finally hit the mainstream Western media in a big way (NY Times, Reuters, etc.) We are watching, at close range, just how "innovative" news reporting can be. The NY Times article is actually the best sample I can get, because it is a relatively "in depth" article that contains a total of about 5 lines on the airplane. The rest is spin, generated by that comment by mr anonymous, a "high defense official" or "pentagon official".

This pentagon official actually did not quote anybody saying "I don't know". It was all his reading of the expression on people's faces. True, the exchange between Gates and Hu on the matter PROVES that Hu knew, but who cares about facts anyway.

So who is this "high official"? He is the guy brought on the trip in order to speak to the media. He's the guy in charge of SPIN ("war of perceptions", "public diplomacy", or whatever you want to call it). The storyline was developed in Washington, or on the plane on the way there. I suspect Gates asked his question about the timing more or less spontaneously, and chose to speak about it to the media spontaneously as well, because it does not fit in with the official SPIN.

If you read these articles, and I think kwaigonegin understood it perfectly well, it is supposed to be "scary, yikes". The storyline they are developing is that China is basically turning into a "military dictatorship". The news articles all start from this comment by the anonymous defense official, and they all make reference to the same spin dished out on the occasion of the ASAT test in 2007. The difference in 2007 is that on that occasion, someone thought up this "interpretation" well after the fact, whereas, in this case they jumped on it from the very start. And of course, the NY Times goes on paragraph after paragraph about this.

I am actually quite surprised that people here take this stuff seriously. It should be OBVIOUS to us all that not only the "civilian leadership", but a very large section of the civilian POPULATION is aware of this plane. Sure, many people don't follow these things as we do, but this particular piece of news is a bit like the spacewalk in 2008. The "strip tease" we have been witnessing shows that decisions about this have been entirely POLITICAL and not merely military. And the whole point with this method of releasing information that we have been witnessing was to let the whole world know. How can anyone believe that the managed to get the attention of the whole world deliberately... but they did not want Hu Jintao to know?

Red Moon said:

OK. I can't resist.

We have been watching this thing develop for a few weeks now, and our favorite airplane finally hit the mainstream Western media in a big way (NY Times, Reuters, etc.) We are watching, at close range, just how "innovative" news reporting can be. The NY Times article is actually the best sample I can get, because it is a relatively "in depth" article that contains a total of about 5 lines on the airplane. The rest is spin, generated by that comment by mr anonymous, a "high defense official" or "pentagon official".

This pentagon official actually did not quote anybody saying "I don't know". It was all his reading of the expression on people's faces. True, the exchange between Gates and Hu on the matter PROVES that Hu knew, but who cares about facts anyway.

So who is this "high official"? He is the guy brought on the trip in order to speak to the media. He's the guy in charge of SPIN ("war of perceptions", "public diplomacy", or whatever you want to call it). The storyline was developed in Washington, or on the plane on the way there. I suspect Gates asked his question about the timing more or less spontaneously, and chose to speak about it to the media spontaneously as well, because it does not fit in with the official SPIN.

If you read these articles, and I think kwaigonen understood it perfectly well, it is supposed to be "scary, yikes". The storyline they are developing is that China is basically turning into a "military dictatorship". The news articles all start from this comment by the anonymous defense official, and they all make reference to the same spin dished out on the occasion of the ASAT test in 2007. The difference in 2007 is that on that occasion, someone thought up this "interpretation" well after the fact, whereas, in this case they jumped on it from the very start. And of course, the NY Times goes on paragraph after paragraph about this.

I am actually quite surprised that people here take this stuff seriously. It should be OBVIOUS to us all that not only the "civilian leadership", but a very large section of the civilian POPULATION is aware of this plane. Sure, many people don't follow these things as we do, but this particular piece of news is a bit like the spacewalk in 2008. The "strip tease" we have been witnessing shows that decisions about this have been entirely POLITICAL and not merely military. In fact, this distinction between civilian and military leadership is itself an invention which does not accord with known facts.

Click to expand...

Well you have to realize that the vast majority of people have little or no interest in military hardware. Sensationalistic articles are a great way to gather readers. Media has been guilty of this since the Spanish American War.

siegecrossbow said:

Well you have to realize that the vast majority of people have little or no interest in military hardware. Sensationalistic articles are a great way to gather readers. Media has been guilty of this since the Spanish American War.

Click to expand...

There are definitively political agendas involved not just sensationalism.

Red Moon said:

If you read these articles, and I think kwaigonegin understood it perfectly well, it is supposed to be "scary, yikes". The storyline they are developing is that China is basically turning into a "military dictatorship".

Click to expand...

I wanted to emphasize this part of your post because it's supported by at least one other trend in reporting on China. Lately there have been more and more articles saying that either the civilian leadership is slowly losing influence on the military, or that the military is growing increasingly influential in the government. Basically as you say, they're claiming that China is becoming a military dictatorship.

Considering this, it won't be surprising the see the articles eventually claim that the military "Factions", have finally usurped the Politburo and have established real control over the government, at which point it would be easier than ever to paint China as some kind of demonic nation bent on ruling the world with an iron fist.

kyanges said:

I wanted to emphasize this part of your post because it's supported by at least one other trend in reporting on China. Lately there have been more and more articles saying that either the civilian leadership is slowly losing influence on the military, or that the military is growing increasingly influential in the government. Basically as you say, they're claiming that China is becoming a military dictatorship.

Considering this, it won't be surprising the see the articles eventually claim that the military "Factions", have finally usurped the Politburo and have established real control over the government, at which point it would be easier than ever to paint China as some kind of demonic nation bent on ruling the world with an iron fist.

Click to expand...

You guys are just being paranoid. It was a simple journalistic mistake. It happens a lot in western media when people are rushing out news to beat competitors. They don't do all their fact checking and revisions before they publish, especially online.

latenlazy said:

You guys are just being paranoid. It was a simple journalistic mistake. It happens a lot in western media when people are rushing out news to beat competitors. They don't do all their fact checking and revisions before they publish, especially online.

Click to expand...

I'm not referring to a typo or a misnamed individual. Actually, they're not outright getting anything wrong either. What they are doing is simply parroting American suspicions that the military must be the cause of all the recent incidents with China, which they claim implies a split between the generals and public leaders like Hu. They could be right, honestly, but I'm not trying to nail them on supposed mistakes they're making now anyway. I'm just considering their options down the line.