Rumoured Projects & Likelihood Thereof

GTI

Junior Member
Registered Member
I think we've had indications that they might be interested in a decent sized supersonic/high speed recce aircraft, but the idea of it being manned is odd for the 21st century.

That said this overall "idea" does remind me of this from a few years back

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I also think it’s a little odd. However, taking the premise that their interest is in fact true, this is what I’m positing (admittedly, somewhat shoehorned):

In a 6 / 6.5 / 7th gen future of air combat - there will be heavy use of UAVs (obviously), and also munitions with extreme range and speed. Essentially A2A, A2G, and ASh Prompt Global Strike. Some of them may even be loitering (like Iran’s “A2A mines”) and multimodal (I’m thinking of a smaller YJ-19 with a detachable powered loitering wing kit — like a large simplified and stripped down Wing Loong / MQ-9). And then there’s space-based AMTI and surface targeting…

So the high speed recon aircraft, can also serve as a targeting and comms node. It can provide targeting information to long-range fires (CJ-1000, 1000km SAMs and everything else that gets developed along these lines), especially against moving or time sensitive targets when there are no AMTI (and other types) of satellites passing overhead or that remain functional or otherwise un-destroyed. It could also be used to quickly travel closer to (non-AI, remotely controlled) UAVs that are under EW attack and reestablish control with tight beams to the UAVs.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
I think we've had indications that they might be interested in a decent sized supersonic/high speed recce aircraft, but the idea of it being manned is odd for the 21st century.

That said this overall "idea" does remind me of this from a few years back

View attachment 178172

View attachment 178173
Depending on what information they’re expected to collect or relay human discretion (perhaps in real time) might be indispensable.
 

MeiouHades

Junior Member
Registered Member
7th gen aircraft research is probably only in the preliminary stages right now. China and the US would be the ONLY nations right now even remotely looking into it, so I don't know if we can reliably speculate what 7th gen might even entail since we haven't even properly defined 6th gen yet and even great European powers don't even have their own 5th gen fighters yet
 

siegecrossbow

Field Marshall
Staff member
Super Moderator
7th gen aircraft research is probably only in the preliminary stages right now. China and the US would be the ONLY nations right now even remotely looking into it, so I don't know if we can reliably speculate what 7th gen might even entail since we haven't even properly defined 6th gen yet and even great European powers don't even have their own 5th gen fighters yet
My guess is that we are going full strategic fighter route. There will be an option for aircraft to “hyper cruise” intercontinental distances and have enough fuel left over to loiter and wipeout hostile aircraft/launch strikes.
 

lcloo

Major
We can look at the Nantianmen project for a glimpse of what the future 7th gen might be though there is no any definition for the 7th gen at this moment.

Although Nantianmen is not a real project but its intention is to inspire the imagination of kids who would be the aeronautical engineers/designers when they graduated from universities 5 to 10 years from now. And they might bring new out of box ideas to the current aircraft design teams.

IMO advanced AI and supercomputer level computational power and powerful engines for near space/ orbital super or hyper cruise and inter-operational switch between human and machine autonomous decision making and flight control should be expected.
 

MeiouHades

Junior Member
Registered Member
Well maybe we could get an idea of what they'll be like if we look at what they might replace. A 7th gen aircraft would probably start to replace platforms like the F-35 or the J-20. Now whether you'll need an aircraft at all in the future to perform the roles that these do right now, is what complicates this scenario too. 7th gen might open up a whole new role like an "air superiority" version of the SR-71 or something like Siege said.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
The thing with all this is if you can build a manned mach 3 cruising +, intermediate ranged bomber/interceptor (dropping payload at Mach 4 paper and all the HGV/FOBS dropping payload news we had years ago) then you can make that a recce/ ISR/ specialised aircraft very easily.

If you can do that, you can make them unmanned with much greater ease provided your networks and communications are up to scratch and since we already have a host of high performance CCAs and UADFs since GJ-11 (high performance in contrast to the propeller driven or subsonic MALE and even HALE UAVs), it's reasonable to assume making this thing unmanned is doable despite the obviously longer operating range.

First off, we don't know if it's manned and we're assuming it is. If it is indeed manned, who's to say there aren't unmanned lower tier versions. Just like we have UADF Type A and B that are essentially unmanned and affordable versions of the J-36 and J-50, this can be done once the higher tech tree, manned aircraft is done.

This would be the high supersonic "JH-xx" if you will. It doesn't necessarily need to conform to any particular recce/attack role. A high supersonic manned/unmanned aircraft of substantial size (looks to be possibly fighter wingspan and 1.5x fighter length in size) has a lot of mission profiles not just recce/fast ISR, serving as some fast sensor node, interceptor, supersonic strike at intermediate range.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
7th gen aircraft research is probably only in the preliminary stages right now. China and the US would be the ONLY nations right now even remotely looking into it, so I don't know if we can reliably speculate what 7th gen might even entail since we haven't even properly defined 6th gen yet and even great European powers don't even have their own 5th gen fighters yet

We can look at the Nantianmen project for a glimpse of what the future 7th gen might be though there is no any definition for the 7th gen at this moment.

Although Nantianmen is not a real project but its intention is to inspire the imagination of kids who would be the aeronautical engineers/designers when they graduated from universities 5 to 10 years from now. And they might bring new out of box ideas to the current aircraft design teams.

IMO advanced AI and supercomputer level computational power and powerful engines for near space/ orbital super or hyper cruise and inter-operational switch between human and machine autonomous decision making and flight control should be expected.

What is also not mentioned earlier about this arrow tip aircraft is that it can simply be the other end of the spectrum for "6th generation fighter".

While J-36 and J-50 focus their leap in all aspect next generation stealth while improving every other parameter except maybe agility, they've left room for a stealthy, high supersonic aircraft. It's no secret that China's performed payload dropping flight tests from HGV and/or FOBS and has some disclosed (public efforts) academic efforts at pursuing Mach 4 payload separation aerodynamics. Since China tested payload separation from Mach 20 + HGV back in 2021/22, this public paper on Mach 4 payload separation is nothing to write home about (for China at least).

If flying so fast makes you a little to a lot less stealthy, in no small part due to the shaping and aerodynamics required for such high supersonic flights disagreeing with the best stealth geometries (pure flying wing - subsonic). At least this entirely yet unexplored domain of "next generation" air to air mission focused aircraft still needs exploring! China has all the excess engineering, industrial, academic overcapacity to explore. What's to say that the generation 3 thinking of missile energy doesn't now actually trump the generation 4 thinking of balancing BVR and WVR capabilities while noting that BVR actually does require a lot of kinematic talent for a fighter to excel.

Not only does this hypothetical aircraft have legs as a "fighter" but also recce/ ISR, comms, sensor node, strike aircraft/ small bomber, it even presents as a technology demonstrator. One day, you still need to fly faster. Every step in improving and achieving a future product is made by these steps.

7th gen will be defined by propulsion if 6th gen intend to make use of VCE, 7th gen may use combined cycle to expand the envelope of operating theatres, speeds, altitudes. Enhanced sensors as we'd expect, perhaps embedding sensors into the skin or activating the skin in whatever form future (today's experimental) technology allows. Revolutionary sensor types, moving away from our current emitter - receiver physics (perhaps finally making use of quantum entanglement as with the "photonics radars"), much more adaptable airframes and 6th gen (at least with J-36) has already shown with hingeless/ covered, moving control surfaces.

MUM-T is a given, boring and separate to these discussions. It's far from the leading edge now and both China and US have been actively fielding MUM-T for some time with the latest pairings done by J-20S and the US with the Ghost Bat simply being a new generation. Russia has done MUM-T with S-70 Okhotnik and China and US have long since used some form of MUM-T just much less sexy and visible compared to GJ-11 and J-20S of today's or perhaps even the UADFs with J-20S.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Also someone might recall these images being shared not long after the appearance of the two 6th gen flying prototypes with the attached narrative being "you haven't seen much at all" with the implication there being the 6th gens weren't anything groundbreaking compared to what else China has been working on.

2024.jpeg

2024 Dec.jpeg

This was before the arrow tip aircraft satellite images made their way online and the planform, aspect ratios sort of align with those satellite images of the arrow tip. These images are probably screencaps from video and with zoom hence the potential deformation of the actual shape.

We've also seen these types of contrails on multiple videos captured by civilians from different angles. Usually those flights were associated with rocket to scramjet or combined cycle transitions but this contrail does appear similar to those. You can't use a turbofan, not even VCE beyond mach 3.5. You wouldn't use a rocket for this, what's left is simply combined cycle - turbofan + scramjet or one of the other detonation engine types China has already test flown on many occasions and often by different houses.
 

ACuriousPLAFan

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
While J-36 and J-50 focus their leap in all aspect next generation stealth while improving every other parameter except maybe agility, they've left room for a stealthy, high supersonic aircraft. It's no secret that China's performed payload dropping flight tests from HGV and/or FOBS and has some disclosed (public efforts) academic efforts at pursuing Mach 4 payload separation aerodynamics. Since China tested payload separation from Mach 20 + HGV back in 2021/22, this public paper on Mach 4 payload separation is nothing to write home about (for China at least).

Do you have the links to the reports and/or academic papers on these developments?
 
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