J-20... The New Generation Fighter

rhino123 said:

Could it be that the Chinese are facing with quite a lot of technical challenges that they might not be able to successfully solve at present moment or near future that they fall back on the more proven design such as J-10 and instead of coming out with something totally new, they are looking at evolution of the basic J-10, improve it and give it more teeth. This is more or less a stop-gap tactics till the real stealth fighter came along.

Also it will provide the aviation industry with more experience and skills in doing evolution of old design until they are confident enough to embark on the more ambitious stealth design.

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rhino123 said:

Actually I think the J-10 approach is more sensible at present moment. First it is cheaper, faster and easier to achieve, there is no need to throw in heaps of money to create something totally new (no matter how effective it is), the unit price for each is going to be hell, and it would not really be effective if you only have money for a couple of this new weapons.

Unlike US, who is still playing policemen and will be playing global policemen in near future, China didn't have (at least they appear so) that ambition and so the nearest adversaries nearby is those from India, South Korea, Japan, Russia and Taiwan, and they do not really need a superplane against these nation's airforces, so by just evoluting existing aircraft to a higher standard would be enough at present moment.

I am not saying that China should or would give up the stealth project, but perhaps when the technologies are more mature, they will embark into this project with more confident.

Please note that China uptill relatively recently, then they could independently design and built modern fighters, all other samples are either basing on or direct copies with minor improvement to Russia design. Thus if I was to look at it, China might not have enough confident, industrial support and capability to embark into something as ambition as the F-22 design, no doubt they tried to do it before and is still trying at present moment.

(PS, I am not looking down or dismissing China's aviation industry, just pointing out my opinion.)

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Bltizo said:

I do agree with what you say to an extent, but I think that the J-10B should be enough to fill the roles of a 4th/3rd + generation fighter to be used against China's neighbours in the near future instead of needing another new J-10 variant.

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rhino123 said:

What you say make sense. However I believe that since China didn't have any experience with stealth technology, maybe they are taking a more conventional way to achieve that capability, first by upgrading proven airframe and powerplant (in this case J-10) to achieve partial stealth capability. I believe that they would even try create new variants for most of their older fighter type (J-8D, JH-7A, etc) to achieve partial or full stealth and once they found that their technology in stealth had reach maturity, then they will embark on a totally new design of perhaps F-22 capability.

This way, they will not waste a whole lot of money on something that they have no confidence in.

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twodollarss said:

I don't know why China cannot build a plane similar to F-22. Is China's college not as compete like the ones MIT, Harvard etc.. There got to be some smart students who could figure it out.

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Bltizo said:

it needs air superiority pretty badly in any taiwan scenario involving US and raptors

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Bltizo said:

With the video interview with the PLAAF general dude being quite confident, I myself think that confidence right now isn't that much of an issue.

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