Shenyang / Chengdu "6th Gen" Aircraft - News and Analysis

Avimimus said:
That makes a lot of sense - explains why there is a very bright light on one side (makes it easier to figure out the orientation - i.e. that it isn't flying upside down).
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Look closely, both wings have formation lights. The one on the right wing is obscured during the roll.
 
flateric said:
Well. Then ...quite an impressive leap in flight envelope just in few flights.
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I think its third flight had already began making some turns a month or so ago, and this would be its fifth flight. Chances are it's been expanding the flight envelope every flight but we just haven't seen every maneuver.

First Impressions of J-36's maneuverability [video]
by u/EMPERORHanWudi1112 in WarplanePorn
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarplanePorn/comments/1jdkghq/first_impressions_of_j36s_maneuverability_video/
 
siegecrossbow said:
Look closely, both wings have formation lights. The one on the right wing is obscured during the roll.
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Yeah, I mean jeez at this stage there are so many flights of J-36 (and J-XDS as well) that the threshold for actually arguing a video is outright fake or CGI (as opposed to say, an upscaled AI image, which is somewhat common due to the normalization of such software) should be very high.


If one thinks it is odd that there is only one formation light, the idea that the whole video is outright not real seems like a heck of a leap in logic as opposed to say... a formation light happening to be obscured as the aircraft was turning?
 
flateric said:
Well. Then ...quite an impressive leap in flight envelope just in few flights.
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Looking like it. Which makes me wonder if this is a pre-production prototype rather than a demonstrator (and if the basic flight control logic and aerodynamics have already been validated years ago).
 
Has anyone done some CFD on the basic shape to try to estimate the L/D ratios? Of course, without knowing the airfoil shape such information would be very approximate. It'd be quite interesting though.
 
I don't know why anyone is shocked by it's ability to turn sharply. It has large wing and it's flying slowly. I would expect that with such a large wing. It looks just like an F-35C or an F-22 in the pattern to me.
 
Sundog said:
I don't know why anyone is shocked by it's ability to turn sharply. It has large wing and it's flying slowly. I would expect that with such a large wing. It looks just like an F-35C or an F-22 in the pattern to me.
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The other reasons (than seeing it as a bomber with low structural strength - something which these videos don't settle) is a belief that large vertical stabilisers would be needed for high angles-of-attack.

The final reason why people might be surprised is simply that they assume the flight tests would be slower (or that flight tests haven't already been done in secret) and thus would expect them to be taking less risks with the prototypes.
 
Perhaps it is not that the Chinese have progressed too fast, but that some people have been resting on their laurels. In terms of R&D time, it took 13 years for China to leap from J10 (1998) to J20 (2011), and 13 years from J20 (2011) to J36（2024） at this development rate. Don't think that China is still the same China as it was in the last century, and everyone is improving. As for those "Chinese equipment is imitations", this sentence is indeed true in a certain period of history, but now it is 2025...
 
Avimimus said:
The other reasons (than seeing it as a bomber with low structural strength - something which these videos don't settle) is a belief that large vertical stabilisers would be needed for high angles-of-attack.

The final reason why people might be surprised is simply that they assume the flight tests would be slower (or that flight tests haven't already been done in secret) and thus would expect them to be taking less risks with the prototypes.
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depends in the speed, turning is nothing special, all aircraft can turn there is no magic aerodynamics a tailless is always limited, even thrust vectoring will not fix turn rate beyond 10% of the max turn rate without thrust vectoring, nothing is beyond regular performance, the term 6th generation is part propaganda modern UCAVs can do the same J-36 is doing. they say 6th generation and then people think new laws of physics, no it does not work like that.

The only advantage of a tailless is lower reflecting area,Take your F-22 and delete the vertical fins and you get less RCS signature but performance will be impacted.

Vertical fins are for a reason, add manned aircaft can not go beyond 9Gs, a UCAV can go farther, higher overload.

Manned aircraft in the 6 generation are control aircraft for UCAVs, only that, a tailless delta will still have the same limits other tailless deltas have, there are no new physics, for a Reason Mirage III used a vertical fin and for a reason B-21 does not, but is no magic, all aircraft have compromises and all these 6th generations have them, they are not super machines that break the laws of physics they still have limitations and compromises
 
In addition to the fact that it makes sense to give up some performance in the pursuit of others, I read a paper (2012) on the performance associated with tailless delta wing layouts. In fact, after developing stealth fighters, countries will realize that removing the vertical tail will be more conducive to stealth, and even at the beginning of the development of their first generation stealth fighters, tailless layouts have been discussed. As for the flight performance of the aircraft, we do not know what engine the aircraft uses, nor do we know what its specific flight control is, so we will not draw any results at this time. I'm more curious about what performance this aircraft will overpower the fifth-generation fighter than the flight performance. There are many guesses, but only time will tell the correct answer.
 
F-14ATomcat said:
The only advantage of a tailless is lower reflecting area,Take your F-22 and delete the vertical fins and you get less RCS signature but performance will be impacted.
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That isn't true though, is it?

Getting rid of the vertical tail also means less drag and less requirements for structural strength (as the fuselage doesn't have to take all of the forces on the stabiliser), plus the weight of the stabiliser.

If you can find another way to take-off and land safely in a cross-wind... then there is no reason to have one and a lot of non-stealth related reasons to get rid of it.
 
sienar said:
Strange that birds lack verticals given that nature has yet to develop radar.....
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B-21 has no tail but vertical tails are for a reason, no passenger of A-380 will be happy if in mid flight loses its vertical fin tail......and that is my point, Every thing is for a reason you gain something you lose something nothing is free in life, all has consequences designing an aircraft without tail gives the aircraft some advantages but it also loses some features.
Avimimus said:
That isn't true though, is it?

Getting rid of the vertical tail also means less drag and less requirements for structural strength (as the fuselage doesn't have to take all of the forces on the stabiliser), plus the weight of the stabiliser.

If you can find another way to take-off and land safely in a cross-wind... then there is no reason to have one and a lot of non-stealth related reasons to get rid of it.
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My point was is not what you say is not correct you are right you gain less air drag.

My point was people make absolutes, all aircraft can turn, there is nothing special in J-36 turning.

The tailless configuration regardless is B-21, B-2, J-36 or what ever model, has advantages as well as disadvantages.

J-36 has wings and then it behaves like any other aircraft, regardless some people thinks by the virtue of being 6th generation magically has no disadvantages.

No one will be happy is that person is flying on a B-787 loses the vertical tail mid flight and will say we are more stealthy, my point was the tailess configuration is very old, from the Ho-229 or Me-163.


But at the end most aircraft use vertical tails because there are advantages over a pure tailless like Ho-229, and even some aircraft increased the size of their horizontal and vertical tail in order to increase safety, in example MiG-25.

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Earlier MiG-25 prototypes had smaller tails
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Tails are so fine that Rafale could dogfight versus F-22 in equal terms despite lacking thrust vectoring, and having canards even its earlier stable mate Mirage III had no canards, and that is my whole point people should not get over excite, it is ridiculous to over react to J-36 turning, there is nothing new over the sun.

In that case every one will say look Rafale with canards is superior to Mirage III, what I mean that way of reasoning is flawed, but here they say look it is turning come on is to laugh, its funny when people forget all aircraft have wings and behave basically the same.
 
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Avimimus said:
That isn't true though, is it?

Getting rid of the vertical tail also means less drag and less requirements for structural strength (as the fuselage doesn't have to take all of the forces on the stabiliser), plus the weight of the stabiliser.
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Also one less structure to risk structural failure - was reading in the news just this week that Airbus data analysis spotted a pilot trying to control an upset had stressed the aircraft's vertical tail right up to its design limits through over-aggressive rudder use. (And then not bothered to report to maintenance all the alerts he'd triggered).
 
Avimimus said:
The final reason why people might be surprised is simply that they assume the flight tests would be slower.
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If you want to you can hit a rapid cadence with not just your test-flying, but also the changes that emerge as a result. With 777 we had Boeing flying it one day in Seattle, getting a resulting tweak in the flight control laws through to Rochester for their evening/our morning, implementing them during the day, compiling them overnight* and one of our guys in the Seattle office reprogramming the boxes the next morning and driving them over to Boeing ready to fly that afternoon.

* I got a lot of overtime on that project as I was the one hanging around into the evening waiting for everyone else to finish in order to kick off the compile.

There's ultimately more to test on a military aircraft, but not necessarily all at once. At this point they don't care about the difficulties of getting multiple avionics systems to play nice together, all they need are the Flight Control System and Engine Management Unit working and they'll be hitting multiple test points per flight as they open up the envelope. As long as they don't hit anything seriously unexpected they can happily run those flights one after another.
 
TomcatViP said:
So definitely a single seater. (see how big that dorsal inlet would be compared to the side seating arrangement).
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Not necessarily. First, the inlet is raked forward and narrows at the top, which exaggerates its apparent height from this particular angle and lighting. Second, the cockpit moulding does appear to show two seats, with an HUD for the pilot on the left.

And if that does show two seats, then it's crewed by leprechauns or it's an absolute monster.
 

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TomcatViP said:
So definitely a single seater. (see how big that dorsal inlet would be compared to the side seating arrangement).
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Rhinocrates said:
Not necessarily. First, the inlet is raked forward and narrows at the top, which exaggerates its apparent height from this particular angle and lighting. Second, the cockpit moulding does appear to show two seats, with an HUD for the pilot on the left.

And if that does show two seats, then it's crewed by leprechauns or it's an absolute monster.
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Chances are the real thing has side by side seating, but the model is not necessarily authoritative in any way and being featured on CCTV is hardly meaningful without corroborating indicators.
 
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Avimimus said:
Getting rid of the vertical tail also means less drag and less requirements for structural strength (as the fuselage doesn't have to take all of the forces on the stabiliser), plus the weight of the stabiliser.
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If you think through it then the aircraft still needs to meet static and dynamic stability (or instability) criteria and still needs to be able to trim the aircraft. This applies whether the aircraft has "tails" or not.

A conventional "tail" has high control effectiveness and hence can be quite small.

A "flying wing" has to have all the controls in the wings, which are less effective (pitch and yaw especially). This means the controls have to be larger. This also impacts the efficiency of the wing (i.e. more drag). You also can't trim out the pitching moment caused by flaps (i.e. less lift). All of these add up to making a much larger, heavier, draggier wing than the "tailed" aircraft.

For different classes of aircraft (e.g. fighter, bomber, airliner) then you can see the above being worked through in published concept level studies. Generally the "tailed" aircraft is more efficient i.e. smaller, cheaper etc.
 
red admiral said:
A conventional "tail" has high control effectiveness and hence can be quite small.

A "flying wing" has to have all the controls in the wings, which are less effective (pitch and yaw especially). This means the controls have to be larger.
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OTOH controls on the wings also have a longer lever, so a drag-rudder near the tip has a considerable multiplier to its effectiveness that a conventional rudder doesn't.
 
DWG said:
OTOH controls on the wings also have a longer lever, so a drag-rudder near the tip has a considerable multiplier to its effectiveness that a conventional rudder doesn't.
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vertical fins do not need the rudder to stabilize all the time, the vertical fins straight up the flow by becoming walls that are most of the time in the symmetric line that cuts the fuselage in two sides longitudinally or what we call fuselage longitudinal axis . for a reason they are called vertical stabilizers and most of the time the rudder is a small part of them.
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Mirage III for that reason used a fin, not an all moving vertical fin like SR-71 or Su-57 or split rudders like B-2.

J-36 or any flying wing needs to create drag reducing lift to apply a differential force.

We have to face the reality, these tailless aircraft prioritize stealth and are better than 5th generation in stealth terms but in controlability, no they are not as good, most aircraft for a reason have ventral or dorsal fins with rudders, which is only a small part of the vertical fin.
 
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red admiral said:
If you think through it then the aircraft still needs to meet static and dynamic stability (or instability) criteria and still needs to be able to trim the aircraft. This applies whether the aircraft has "tails" or not.

A conventional "tail" has high control effectiveness and hence can be quite small.

A "flying wing" has to have all the controls in the wings, which are less effective (pitch and yaw especially). This means the controls have to be larger. This also impacts the efficiency of the wing (i.e. more drag). You also can't trim out the pitching moment caused by flaps (i.e. less lift). All of these add up to making a much larger, heavier, draggier wing than the "tailed" aircraft.

For different classes of aircraft (e.g. fighter, bomber, airliner) then you can see the above being worked through in published concept level studies. Generally the "tailed" aircraft is more efficient i.e. smaller, cheaper etc.
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I agree. That said, it depends a lot on the flight regime.

Certainly, having a separate horizontal stabiliser (or canard) allows more control of pitch moments, and using a higher angle-of-attack and high lift devices during take-off and landing. This then means a smaller wing which is better optimised for cruise efficiency can be used... and for many tasks this makes conventional horizontal stabilisers a better choice. There are situations where this isn't the case, for instance low speed flight with very high internal volumes, or the use of lifting bodies for supersonic cruise.

I think the case for vertical stabilisers is more difficult. They certainly provide a more reliable margin of safety, but they also introduce a lot of structural weight.
 
F-14ATomcat said:
We have to face the reality, these tailless aircraft prioritize stealth and are better than 5th generation in stealth terms but in controlability, no they are not as good, most aircraft for a reason have ventral or dorsal fins with rudders, which is only a small part of the vertical fin.
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This I will agree with. Certainly no AFTI!
 
sienar said:
Strange that birds lack verticals given that nature has yet to develop radar.....
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Watch videos of birds in flight, their tails often get twisted to near-vertical or turned into an /\ shape as they maneuver



red admiral said:
If you think through it then the aircraft still needs to meet static and dynamic stability (or instability) criteria and still needs to be able to trim the aircraft. This applies whether the aircraft has "tails" or not.
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Engineers used to spend a whole lot of time tweaking a design out to minimize control surface deflections for trim purposes. I suspect that tailless aircraft need to have that much time spent on them.
 


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