Chinese Stealth bomber program - XAC H-X (H-20)

It's all published in a Janes imagery report from earlier this year, but that means it's behind our paywall.
 
SK2 said:
Recent rumors in Chinese aerospace circle suggesting H-20 project has stalled/paused, if not abandoned
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That brief rumour is about half a year old.

More recently, it seems that it is very much still occurring, though a to-arrive period is not yet known. What is more confident is that the PLA's 6th gen fighter (which I call J-XD) is expected to emerge prior to H-20.
 
I could certainly not see the H-20 being cancelled outright. There would be financial penalties that will affect the companies involved.
 
Blitzo said:
That brief rumour is about half a year old.

More recently, it seems that it is very much still occurring, though a to-arrive period is not yet known. What is more confident is that the PLA's 6th gen fighter (which I call J-XD) is expected to emerge prior to H-20.
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The current 'stall' seems to be more long lasting, with some suggesting due to change of strategy, while others suggesting size and budgetary issue.
 
FighterJock said:
I could certainly not see the H-20 being cancelled outright. There would be financial penalties that will affect the companies involved.
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Not a chance, IMO. There may be delays: the only existing bomber of this type is the B-2 and the follow on B-21. The technology is not trivial, and I suspect in particular the PRC is struggling with engine development to achieve the range they want. I bet they could easily develop a stealth H-6 type right now, but that really does not move the needle much. If they want an intercontinental ranged tanker independent bomber, that is probably go to take a very unique engine from an industry that has very little commercial experience. PW can just take their F-135 core and commercial compressors segments and Frankenstein a high altitude, high efficiency end for a stealth bomber without even doing R&D.
 
SK2 said:
The current 'stall' seems to be more long lasting, with some suggesting due to change of strategy, while others suggesting size and budgetary issue.
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I think the problem is a suitable engine. If they are just bombing Guam, they can do that now with just lots of ballistic or cruise missiles. If they can not reach Hawaii or Alaska, what is the stealth bomber buying them that a shit load of missiles could not do for less?
 
SK2 said:
The current 'stall' seems to be more long lasting, with some suggesting due to change of strategy, while others suggesting size and budgetary issue.
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Not sure about that, the nature of it isn't clear and my sense is there are some mixed signals.


Josh_TN said:
I think the problem is a suitable engine. If they are just bombing Guam, they can do that now with just lots of ballistic or cruise missiles. If they can not reach Hawaii or Alaska, what is the stealth bomber buying them that a shit load of missiles could not do for less?
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I don't think the engine issue would be too decisive, or rather the powerplant probably would've been decided at the outset of the project and it sounds like they were gonna use a non AB WS-10 variant.
If they've changed requirements since then and realized the engines are unable to accommodate the new mission then that's a different story, and is more of a "changing requirements" matter than an engine matter per se.


My feeling is that the priority of various big ticket projects in context of PLA needs and strategic situation and needs, means H-20 is not quite as important as the others not as time sensitive, so funding is behind redirected elsewhere first, but I don't get the feeling it is cancelled or heavily delayed.
 
Redirected funding….invasion of Taiwan, increasing their influence in the South Pacific, maybe space based weapons too.
 
Perhaps if not a full delay then perhaps we could see a very slight delay of between two to three years for the H-20 so that engine development can catch up. Look at what happened to the J-20 when it finally got the engines powerful enough to Supercruise.
 
I do not think the Chinese need a strategic bomber to invade Taiwan. If the Chinese agree, I could see that program being de-prioritized in favor of other projects which would be more useful for a cross-strait invasion. This would be reminiscent of the procurement decisions made in Europe in 1938/39.
 
The H-20 will not be used for an invasion of Taiwan, instead I more or less think that it will be carrier based with the aircraft carriers taking centre stage. The H-20 will be more suited to attack Guam if that scenario ever play's out which I do not want to see happen.
 
FighterJock said:
The H-20 will not be used for an invasion of Taiwan, instead I more or less think that it will be carrier based with the aircraft carriers taking centre stage. The H-20 will be more suited to attack Guam if that scenario ever play's out which I do not want to see happen.
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PLAN carriers are not at all necessary when the target is a hundred miles off the coast. They will play a minor role in any cross straight conflict. H-20 would be more suitable for Guam, but I think ideally the PLAAF wants it to reach much further.
 
I ideally see the PLAAF taking their time over the H-20 I do not see them rushing with it, as it will include several advanced technologies that are new to them so it will take them some time to design test and finally put it into operational use in the PLAFF squadrons.
 
FighterJock said:
I ideally see the PLAAF taking their time over the H-20 I do not see them rushing with it, as it will include several advanced technologies that are new to them so it will take them some time to design test and finally put it into operational use in the PLAFF squadrons.
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The US and PRC priorities and requirements on their new bomber (B-21 and H-20 respectively) and new manned fighter projects (NGAD and J-XD respectively) are interesting to me.

Because some of the noise is suggesting the J-XD may emerge in a representative prototype/2001-equivalent tech demonstrator, in the next year or so, and that the project overall is expected to emerge earlier than H-20.

A part of me wonders if it is easier for the PLAAF to define the requirements and basing for J-XD and more cautious to do so for H-20, while it is vice versa for the USAF wrt NGAD and B-21.
 
True Blitzo, the next year is going to be interesting as far as Chinese military aviation is concerned with the J-XD tech demonstrator and I would expect if the J-20 was anything to go by we might see a full up J-XD sixth gen fighter quicker than the H-20 bomber.
 
Forest Green said:
www.twz.com

China’s H-20 Stealth Bomber Unlikely To 'Debut' Until 2030s, According To U.S. Intel

China also continues to pursue a smaller regional stealth bomber aircraft in parallel to the H-20 program.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
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It does seem to appear delayed.
But then again, it's first China's 100% big plane design.
Y-20 and C919 had foreign participation or at least readily available reference.

With H-20 it's blue ocean, you have to swim yourself.
Nothing impossible, but takes time.
 
They could always turn the fabled folding tails into wings and have it flap into the air if engine development proves to be too big a problem

I would also like to give a shoutout to whoever at TWZ decided that the titanic ALBM slung under this H-6 needed an even bigger red arrow (from above article)

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My thoughts too Josh_TN, engines are always the biggest problem in aviation whether bombers or fighters. I suspect that they are taking their time with the engines and that is why the H-20 has not been revealed yet.
 
FighterJock said:
My thoughts too Josh_TN, engines are always the biggest problem in aviation whether bombers or fighters. I suspect that they are taking their time with the engines and that is why the H-20 has not been revealed yet.
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I mean, if the H-20 is roughly the size of the B-21, CFM56 engines or equivalents would likely work acceptably. And China has CFM56 equivalents, had them for years.

So I'm actually expecting their flight control system is what's causing the most trouble.
 
I suspect that whatever powers the B-21 is still pretty far from a conventional high bypass civilian turbofan*, and furthermore the physics of burying the engine in the fuselage has additional complications. Someone in a previous post or on another thread, I believe @Hydroman, indicated that low bypass engines (ETA: I mean specially on the B-2, not B-21) were used because of concerns over engine stalls.

*I think the popular guess is that the engine is a militarized PW1000 family with F135 core elements (PW9000).
 
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Josh_TN said:
I suspect that whatever powers the B-21 is still pretty far from a conventional high bypass civilian turbofan*, and furthermore the physics of burying the engine in the fuselage has additional complications. Someone in a previous post or on another thread, I believe @Hydroman, indicated that low bypass engines were used because of concerns over engine stalls.

*I think the popular guess is that the engine is a militarized PW1000 family with F135 core elements (PW9000).
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The B-2 uses the GE F118 engine which is a derivative of the GE F110 turbofan. Due to our serpentine inlet configuration and that a single, split inlet fed air to two engines, compressor stalls were a risk to the USAF so a lot of ground testing was performed on a test rig at EAFB early on in the program.

When I was at the CTF at EAFB during the main flight test program, we hammered the hell out of these engines at various altitudes and up to max AOA and AOS simultaneously with rapid throttle bursts to each engine and we had no compressor stalls, USAF was very happy about that. We did have inlet air flow distortion (had to live with that) but the goal was no compressor stalls across the entire operating envelope. The F118 is rated at 19000 lbs of non-installed thrust but we lost thrust due to the serpentine inlet and exhaust configurations and again, design induced.
 

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