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

Side detection could potentially be far larger if the sensors are mounted on a gimble to allow movement...

The nose is wide enough one might be able to mount auxiliary sensors further forward and facing sideways as well and using the same windows (likely not for targeting/imaging, but more for DASS or surveillance - but still useful).

Do you guys think this is a capability that the J-36 has or do you think that this is something different?

No idea!

A 40' target at 30 miles is only 0.0144 degrees wide.

Sensors 6' apart aimed at the exact same point 30 miles out are going to form an angle of 0.0021 at the target end.

The farther away the target, the bigger the baseline between the optics need to be to accurately determine range.

I wonder if this is as much of an issue as we think it is. With traditional binocular optical range finders it would be, but I wonder if the speed of modern electronics and fast heuristic algorithms couldn't reduce the spacing requirements (by an order of magnitude)? It might be possible to develop a system that would be much more precise (including possibly using fibre optics and references inside the housing to detect orientation at very high levels of precision).
 
My own crude estimates.. the best use case is just to show how this kind of airframe interact with radar. Size is still a dispute but i'm sticking to 23 x 19 m as what's been discussed here.



For this, no Absorber and no inlet/inlet contribution discarded as well im not into the mood of speculating. I do however have rough idea on how the ducts are arranged. Same angle as my other estimates (120 x 45 deg). Frequencies are from VHF down to X-Ku band (up to 14 GHz). This one basically depicts the "lobes" from the estimates.

J36Est.gif

Well unfortunately i forgot to add the legends. But anyway number wise it looks quite promising even without absorbers.

GraphicTabulated numbers
1737535307710.png Eq-Spherical RCS Table.png

Comparison with heavily treated clean F-16 model (a HAVE GLASS surrogate based on Barium Hexaferrite) kinda show the bigger J-36 model still hold advantage in signature. remains to be seen tho on the material department.
 
A 40' target at 30 miles is only 0.0144 degrees wide.

Sensors 6' apart aimed at the exact same point 30 miles out are going to form an angle of 0.0021 at the target end.

The farther away the target, the bigger the baseline between the optics need to be to accurately determine range.
And that was within the capabilities of mechanical Naval and AA rangefinders in WW2. I would sure as hell hope that a computerized version could do better!
 
That's a civilian project buddy. Yankees and co. seriously need to stop thinking that the PLA is at the helm of everything on that side of the Pacific.

To be fair, every company is required to surrender all data at will (compare that with how hard the FBI had to work to crack an iPhone8) and every company realistically has communist party members dominating its board, if not at inception then certainly now under Xi.

Realistically any Chinese corporation is an extension of the state with no legal framework for it to be otherwise. Any civilian platform realistically has to be interpreted as an integrated military capability. There is of course plenty of cross over in the U.S. as well in terms of contracted services, but these are much more limited and publicly disclosed, and generally are war reserve items. The Chinese state is imbedded in every large privately held corporation now; anyone who did not accept such was incarcerated.
 
Realistically any Chinese corporation is an extension of the state with no legal framework for it to be otherwise.

For example PRC law requires any Chinese company to give ANY information demanded by the PRC's intelligence services.
 
Okay, I've had enough of arguments, off-topic posts and wild speculation on the forum recently. It's always aimed to be a collection of true information on Secret Projects, not just speculation and conjecture, and the attitude to current programs in this section should aspire to be similarly informed.

This topic is now intended for news and serious discussion and analysis of the topic in question only. If you want to speculate, joke, etc, there's a new topic for you in the bar:


At present this News and Analysis topic is still open to all, but subject to posts being moved to the other topic with thread bans for repeat offenders.

This is an experiment. Lets see.
 
BTW speaking of CGIs and models. I found this on REDNOTE, a model(WIP) with very detailed speculation about the interior design and some comparisons to the J-20. 073a546588e3dc3cd3944051c51c420.jpg 8a8584c989abfa5dcf6c1f5d43edadb.jpg 0c167e57cc2b3f0eb889bfe992330d1.jpg fa668e853473e222705cc8f0ff9e400.jpg edd99df5f2b285626d1351806ceba2e.jpg ae4cc046fb1e9af84c75385c86233ca.jpg

PS: Their REDNOTE ID is included in the pics so if anyone have the APP you could follow them for future updates.
 
My own crude estimates.. the best use case is just to show how this kind of airframe interact with radar. Size is still a dispute but i'm sticking to 23 x 19 m as what's been discussed here.



For this, no Absorber and no inlet/inlet contribution discarded as well im not into the mood of speculating. I do however have rough idea on how the ducts are arranged. Same angle as my other estimates (120 x 45 deg). Frequencies are from VHF down to X-Ku band (up to 14 GHz). This one basically depicts the "lobes" from the estimates.

View attachment 757025

Well unfortunately i forgot to add the legends. But anyway number wise it looks quite promising even without absorbers.


Comparison with heavily treated clean F-16 model (a HAVE GLASS surrogate based on Barium Hexaferrite) kinda show the bigger J-36 model still hold advantage in signature. remains to be seen tho on the material department.
So according to this and the WordPress blogs that you helped with, the crude J-36 model performs somewhat comparable to both the F-35 and J-20(Comparable average RCS while being more than twice as steathly when comparing median RCS) in X band RCS while completely obliterating both in lower frequencies(With Median RCS being an entire order of magnitude lower while having smaller average RCS) despite J-36 being nearly twice as wide and a bit longer than the J-20 which is already a massive aircraft. If these simulations are accurate, it means the J-36 is currently by far the overall stealthiest fighter that has been publicly flown and probably carrying the most powerful radar ever put on a fighter with that giant nose while also having the largest internal weapons bay for a fighter.

This thing is a true menace.

F-35 Simulation results:
ezgif-4-9792661ee0.jpg

J-20 Simulation results:
ezgif-4-ecc9777ee9.jpg

Su-57(With intake radar blockers) Simulation results:
ezgif-4-48b3832e45.jpg

Sources and credits:
 

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BTW speaking of CGIs and models. I found this on REDNOTE, a model(WIP) with very detailed speculation about the interior design
Just remember, 'detailed speculation' is just 'speculation' with more opportunities to be wrong.

It's very easy nowadays to throw together something in CGI that looks impressive, but looking impressive doesn't necessarily mean it has any greater grounding in reality.
 
BTW speaking of CGIs and models. I found this on REDNOTE, a model(WIP) with very detailed speculation about the interior design and some comparisons to the J-20.View attachment 757276View attachment 757277View attachment 757278View attachment 757279View attachment 757275View attachment 757280

PS: Their REDNOTE ID is included in the pics so if anyone have the APP you could follow them for future updates.

The weapons bay carrying ALBMs internally in the main bay and PL-10s in the side bays seem a bit too large and a bit too large and a bit too small respectively.

But their attempt at the intake ducting looks reasonable.
 
So according to this and the WordPress blogs that you helped with, the crude J-36 model performs somewhat comparable to both the F-35 and J-20(Comparable average RCS while being more than twice as steathly when comparing median RCS) in X band RCS while completely obliterating both in lower frequencies(With Median RCS being an entire order of magnitude lower while having smaller average RCS) despite J-36 being nearly twice as wide and a bit longer than the J-20 which is already a massive aircraft. If these simulations are accurate, it means the J-36 is currently by far the overall stealthiest fighter that has been publicly flown and probably carrying the most powerful radar ever put on a fighter with that giant nose while also having the largest internal weapons bay for a fighter.

This thing is a true menace.
That a bit of apple to orange comparison.
Su-57, F-35, J-20 in the blog has their inlet and engine included. The J-36 does not, so it should have lower RCS
 
8a8584c989abfa5dcf6c1f5d43edadb-jpg.757277

Some parts of this interior design are quite plausible but I'm not sold on those ALBMs fitting.
 
If these simulations are accurate, it means the J-36 is currently by far the overall stealthiest fighter that has been publicly flown and probably carrying the most powerful radar ever put on a fighter with that giant nose while also having the largest internal weapons bay for a fighter.

This thing is a true menace.
As much as I respect @stealthflanker's attempts at RCS analysis, without truly detailed high fidelity models, estimates are fairly crude. They give you an insight into the basic signature features of the planform, but no more than that. The J-36 model is very crude and accuracy potentially low.

@Tomboy your response to this post is conjecture of the wildest kind from the flimsiest evidence, and deeply premature. Refrain from such posts or be banned from this topic.
 
Hope the aircraft will appear in Google earth soon. For more proper measurements. That will allow fuel capacity and thus cooling capacity to be "educately guessed".

I dont buy into the ALBM speculation at least not 2 of them in a bay.. If it based on CM-400 it would be hell of a bay. Considering each missile is about 61 cm in diameter discounting the wing, probably close to 1 meter. They bay would be over 2 meter wide maybe 2.3 with clearance and some 7-7.5 m long. If it's based on KD-21, basically Chinese Kinzhal.. doubt it would carry 2 internally or even designed for such. One can see how chonky the pylon to support it for H6K.
 
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@Tomboy your response to this post is conjecture of the wildest kind from the flimsiest evidence, and deeply premature. Refrain from such posts or be banned from this topic.

There have been a lot of worse conjectures than the three that were quoted by Tomboy. Let's look though the three claims:

(1) The claim about stealth is highly speculative. The overall layout of the design combines a number of well known stealth features along with a tailless planform and thus outwardly appears to be making more aerodynamic compromises for stealth than even the F-22. However, stealth is complex, the design of the internal structure matters and the role of RAM is important. So, it may well be less stealthy than designs which make a lot less sacrifices for stealth. This claim about stealth is probably the least defensible. (Furthermore, as signatures vary by wavelength and angle the ability to rank aircraft in terms of stealth itself is questionable).

(2) The nose has ample space for antenna area and cooling. Furthermore, the existence of a third engine suggests at least 50% more power than the J-20 (and with WS-15 rumoured to have substantially increased power generators that could eventually be significant). The efficiency of Chinese radars isn't known, but they do have substantial gallium reserves so a GaN AESA can't be ruled out either. Of course, we don't know - but the overall design suggests potential for an unusually powerful radar.

(3) Given the aircraft's size and the length of the "bays" seemingly being sized to carry PL-17 internally - it arguably has the longest internal bays of any fighter aircraft. The total volume depends on depth, which we do not know. However, given the size of the aircraft it isn't unreasonable to think that the aircraft will have a larger payload (with the question being how it is distributed between fuel and armaments) than most existing fighters.

I'm very much for evidencing claims, and making sure speculations are clearly marked as speculations - but overall, two of these claims are relatively well supported by the evidence - and compared to a lot of other claims, seem more grounded than most.

Edit: I may be confused - is the goal to remove all speculation from this thread to the bar? If so, there is a lot (essentially everything other than the photos themselves)... I'm confused.
 
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When I worked in an industry that specialized in client statistics, I always added unfounded numbers outside the realm of significant digits. I found that if you actually rounded your numbers to realistic expectations…nobody fucking believes you. So I never trimmed those extra numbers, and a couple times when they seemed too round, added in some prime numbers at the end to make them feel more “real”.

I’m not proud of that, but I’m also not watching a workforce of 30 people get liquidated just because I have scientific integrity.

This is a dangerous game to play, no? If I know anything about what you're measuring and how you're measuring, I might ask how you got such insane significant digits. I probably wouldn't be happy to know that you made them up.
 
I decided to make some refinement to my previous estimate. mainly fixing things i rushed back then. First is the sharp edges along the fuselage, which doesnt make a good transition. Second is the wing actuators "warts" which ended up not only too big but also the shape is wrong RCS wise, which i rectify by making it less protruding and actually wider in shape of convex lens. There is a term for that shape but i forgot. Followings are images of the corrections.

For refined model i added radar absorber. Similar as what i speculate for Su-57 skin. a combination between ferrite and composite "beehive" core absorber skin.

Also increased the T/c into something more worldly to 3% from previously 1.2%.

early "crude" modelbit refined model with radar absorber
Smoother Transition.png Chining-1.png
Old Actuator.png New Actuators.png

Absorber application is, given the model is crude and have relatively few polys, allows total coverage of the model's body except parts like canopy and the radome.

With Absorber.png

Result wise can be seen, the spike previously seen at ventral is now gone. below is some animation.

Crude J-36 modelMore refined model with absorbers added
J36Est.gif J-36New-Absorber.gif


On the numerical side. Well Clearly i need some update to my RAM Library. can't really milk 10 dB out the the RAM specs that i have. This is even without counting inlet contribution. Given the nature of 3 inlets.. means Chinese designer need to think on how to treat these 3 large and long cavities without causing too much weight penalty. Their RAM must be lightweight and maybe the entire duct is actually Composite RAS (Radar Absorbent Structure).


As seen the treatment further lowers down the RCS of the crude model by about 1.9-7.4 dB and in average 5.5 dB. Hopefully there would be better pics and proper dimension of the aircraft.
 

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