H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)

silentlurker

Junior Member
Registered Member
I think people put too much faith into PLA watchers in China. First of all, reliable information has been scarce ever since military reform in 2016. They built higher walls and better security around air field facilities and photos/videos that do get released are either official or semi-official. Second of all, big shrimps were hit or miss even before tightened security. For every J-20, Type 055, or FC-31 there is also a JH-7B, Chinese Su-34, or stealthified flanker. There is a lot of confirmation bias at work here.
That's erroring on the side of too many predictions, not to few. We should look at cases where there were no guesses and something appeared
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
I think people put too much faith into PLA watchers in China. First of all, reliable information has been scarce ever since military reform in 2016. They built higher walls and better security around air field facilities and photos/videos that do get released are either official or semi-official. Second of all, big shrimps were hit or miss even before tightened security. For every J-20, Type 055, or FC-31 there is also a JH-7B, Chinese Su-34, or stealthified flanker. There is a lot of confirmation bias at work here.

I think that's why it takes at least 1-2 years of consistent mentions by multiple individuals that have a proven track record for something to be considered "possible".

IMO PLA watchers in China still outstrip anything else we have, but applying appropriate safeguards for when something is to be taken seriously is important.
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
The ability to detect the H-20 in development from satellite photos, etc, would vary. We know from prior US programs on stealth aircraft quite often they mainly conducted flights at night precisely to avoid satellite reconnaissance. The aircraft were hidden in the daytime. China could simply to the same to avoid detection. I do agree that once they hit large scale production at Xian it would become obvious though.
 

HybridHypothesis

Junior Member
Registered Member
Yes they have, both the PLAAF Dingxin Flight Test & Training Base and Cangzhou Flight Training Base, but at least by all know, each regular type was first tested at the factory, then at the CFTE at X#An-Yanliang and the both PLAAF Flight Test & Training Bases.

Thsi IMO however would never be unnoticed, since for XAC, where the H-20 is designed and built, this is both at Xi'an-Yanliang and I cannot think of a stealth bomber being secretly rolled out, secretly test flown only at night thru all the years at Yanliang without any rumour.

Now one could argue, the H-20 is not a regular type and maybe there is a secret XAC factory somewhere hidden under mountains far far away near a similar secret flight test facility, ... yes, there could also be already a secret moon base where the PLA Space Force tests cloaking devices and photon-torpedoes. ;)

What about UFO rumors in China? American test flights often inspired beliefs that "black triangles" were coming to abduct ppl here.
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
If they were testing and they needed it to keep it a secret, they would fly it at night. Remember how they said China never tested its ASBM because the US would've detected it. Apparently it's been tested and the US never found out about it until China confirmed it with a demonstration the Pentagon seems to acknowledge.
 

by78

General
An illustration from a paper on a large stealth bomber concept. This might be of some relevance here. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the paper.

Weight (max takeoff or other?): 180 metric tons
Initial altitude (?): 100m
Initial speed: Mach 0.8

50932921576_16b948b881_o.jpg
 
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