Re: New Generation Fighter
One thing is for certain with the J20, and it is that it will not make a good carrier fighter (unless you fundamentally change the design to significantly shorten it, but you might as well design a new plane if you were going to do that).
This raises an interesting question about whether China will develop a F35 equivalent 5th gen fighter to bulk out its forces as well as give its future carriers something better than upgraded flankers. But I digress.
It is interesting looking at the side-on photos just how much length there is in the fuselage behind the rear landing gears. It looks long enough to comfortably fit a set of internal bays before and after the rear landing gear. Add in the underbelly bays and you are looking at an unprecedented internal weapons storage potential.
The only issue with aft weapons bays would be whether the engines would produce too much heat to make it unsafe to house weapons there.
Being Chinese, they probably would just use that space for extra fuel. If the Russians came up with this design, you can bet they would had added an extra pair of internal bays there. There is no word for 'overkill' in Russian you know.
