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

dark sidius said:
It seem more advanced in production than we think , you don't fly demonstrator over a highway with a lot of people if you are not sure of your plane.
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Except there's literally no way to fly in and out of Shenyang Aircraft Corporation's airfield (or Chengdu's, for that matter) without flying over the surrounding city, roads, etc. SAC is building a new complex outside of the city further north but it's nowhere near ready.
 
TomcatViP said:
They would have made a single flight out to a remote location for further testing if that was the case.
The fact that it was seen flying over a city is noteworthy, even referring to Chinese practices regarding public safety.
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Indeed, they could have even forgone the ferry flight and trucked it to a more discrete location.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Informed speculation based on the flimsy evidence is fine when correctly presented as such. Analysis from current and former aerospace engineers and informed observers is interesting as are attempts to guess the dimensions and create 3D models.

Breathless fanboi posts along the lines of "this is going to be the stealthiest fighter EVAR and it probably has the bigliest radar" is not.

Yes, this isn't the only such post but more like the preverbial straw that broke the camel's back. The forum is starting to be overwhelmed at present with posts of uninformed speculation and wish fulfillment, often (but not exlcusively) from new users, cluttering out the interesting posts.

I don't see much option other than splitting the topic, so people can speculate away to their heart's content without cluttering the discussion.

Deleting messages triggers angry "you violated the first amendment" conversations.
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Thank you for the reply. I essentially agree with you (although, eh, as a Canadian - we don't have those amendments).

I also very much agree that people should make it clear when they are speculating and on what basis.

I do think standards should be applied both ways... we don't want underestimation, just as we don't want overestimation... and I think the majority of analysists suspect that this aircraft could have unusually large bays, and could also have more power for its avionics/radar than the J-20 has... so a cautious statement in the direction is a reasonable mid-point (although we should acknowledge huge error bars and things like we don't know the 'weapons bay' space isn't entirely fuel and we don't know that it even has a radar).
 
Regarding people wondering about flight testing in more remote locations...

Flight testing of new aircraft for the PRC is usually done from their primary contractor/factory airfield to begin with, the new SAC jet and CAC's J-36 isn't new in that regard.

Think about the flight testing for J-10 and variants back in the day, or J-20 and variants of it from the year 2011 onwards to now, or SAC Flankers and their various FC-31 and J-35 aircraft etc.


They of course do have more remote airfields and air bases which probably have hosted their own fair share of more secretive/black projects (potentially smaller in scale/size from an airframe perspective). But if J-36 and the SAC jet are at equivalent stages of program stages to when J-20 emerged back in the day, then I don't see why there's a need to speculate or wonder about doing further initial flight testing from their primary contractor air fields.
 
Mike Pryce said:
Another image. Moving wingtips.
View attachment 757519
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If real, that would seem to confirm the wingtips.

Also our first photo showing the top side - does anyone else think that the dorsal bulge is a bit to large for a satcom antenna? It could still be a very large drone/loyal wingman, but assuming this photo is true, the demonstrator at least is looking like a manned platform.
 
www.twz.com

China’s Mysterious Tailless Stealth Fighter Has Swiveling Wingtips

We now know the Chinese advanced fighter design incorporates moving wingtip surfaces, providing additional control authority for the tailless jet. We can now be fairly certain the Chinese design incorporates innovative moving wingtips, providing additional control for the tailless jet.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
 
But for how long will be the question getting asked siegecrosbow? I suppose that it will only be a matter of time before the first proper PLAAF squadrons get them.
 
You're looking at years before these things are in front-line service. For the PLAAF, for example, they'll undergo manufacturer's trials at their factories, as Blitzo mentioned. The next place we tend to see new aircraft is at CFTE at Xian-Yanliang. Then, they'll appear at Dingxin and Cangzhou - these aren't yet front-line units, but they are PLAAF units, used for things like weapons testing, tactics development, etc. Then they'll appear in front-line squadron service. Given that we have a pair of aircraft types only appearing very intermittently at their manufacturer's locations, they're likely very, very early in the development phase. Their first flights being in December is entirely possible, has that been implied in any way by Chinese sources? Regardless neither should be anywhere near operation by the PLAAF in trials units, let alone operational squadrons. I think the J-20 first flew in 2011 and first entered service with an operational squadron in 2019 (9 AB, Wuhu). A similar timeline is logical for the Chengdu aircraft; depending how much is evolutionary vs. revolutionary it could be a little bit quicker, but I wouldn't expect it to be drastically shorter (i.e. I could see 6 years to service, but not four). The SAC aircraft may require longer development if it is intended for CATOBAR naval use.
 
FighterJock said:
But for how long will be the question getting asked siegecrosbow? I suppose that it will only be a matter of time before the first proper PLAAF squadrons get them.
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A lot of the aerodynamic additions are pretty novel so it will take a while to get things right. This is just the technical stuff too. The doctrine will also be unlike anything PLAAF is familiar with, so it will take a while to figure out how they coordinate with available assets in an effective and efficient manner.

This is why J-20/35 will be mass produced for the next two decades.
 
SOC said:
You're looking at years before these things are in front-line service. For the PLAAF, for example, they'll undergo manufacturer's trials at their factories, as Blitzo mentioned. The next place we tend to see new aircraft is at CFTE at Xian-Yanliang. Then, they'll appear at Dingxin and Cangzhou - these aren't yet front-line units, but they are PLAAF units, used for things like weapons testing, tactics development, etc. Then they'll appear in front-line squadron service. Given that we have a pair of aircraft types only appearing very intermittently at their manufacturer's locations, they're likely very, very early in the development phase. Their first flights being in December is entirely possible, has that been implied in any way by Chinese sources? Regardless neither should be anywhere near operation by the PLAAF in trials units, let alone operational squadrons. I think the J-20 first flew in 2011 and first entered service with an operational squadron in 2019 (9 AB, Wuhu). A similar timeline is logical for the Chengdu aircraft; depending how much is evolutionary vs. revolutionary it could be a little bit quicker, but I wouldn't expect it to be drastically shorter (i.e. I could see 6 years to service, but not four). The SAC aircraft may require longer development if it is intended for CATOBAR naval use.
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Yes, that seems reasonable to me.

There are some variable factors -- like whether the J-36 from CAC is at an equal representative stage of development as the first J-20 s/n 2001 that flew in early 2011 or if it is a bit further ahead and whether that may shave a couple of years off its development period, but otoh J-36 is also a very new aircraft concept and perhaps the first of its kind such that might then add on a couple of years to it again.
 
FighterJock said:
But for how long will be the question getting asked siegecrosbow? I suppose that it will only be a matter of time before the first proper PLAAF squadrons get them.
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Unless there's a really, really abbreviated flight testing plan (quickly verify flight control laws, do weapons clearance, keep planes maneuver-restricted while the test pilots expand the flight envelope), there's no way the planes are less than 5 years away from IOC.

And that'd be for the J-50. The J-36 is enough different an aircraft that it needs a lot more thought put into how it's going to be used.
 
li zhuo peng said:
Three jet engine , top speed exceeds Mach 3?
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Unlikely. The inlets definitely do not agree with that. Mach 3 means needing adjustable inlets, and stealth means using spikes like the SR-71 Blackbirds. This has fixed inlets, which generally suggests a most-efficient speed in the Mach 1.3-1.8 range.

It may still be able to exceed that, IIRC the F-22 can break Mach 2, but the non-adjustable inlets will cause a lot of drag and greatly limit top speed.



li zhuo peng said:
the speed of fighter more fast, more chance get rid of the pursuit of infrared air-to-air missiles, I think.
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If you're radar-stealthy, it will be unlikely for anyone to get close enough to get an IR missile lock.
 
Unless they do something different with the inlets that we do not know about Scott Kenny.
 
Scott Kenny said:
If you're radar-stealthy, it will be unlikely for anyone to get close enough to get an IR missile lock.
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Let me put a question mark here.

In a world where significant forces are stealthy and emitting is discouraged, ending up in a WVR fight is not unlikely.
 
CiTrus90 said:
I feel that, since this is "Sandboxx [...] speculating", this should go in the "General Discussion and Speculation" thread.
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The speculation is specific to the J-36.

CiTrus90 said:
On a broader take, I hope that one day people can stop linking to his videos as if they have any sort of use.
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I find his videos to be interesting and moderately informative.
 
Via by78/sinodef
A Chengdu patent on an adjustable Caret intake design for improved supersonic performance.
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What do you guys think of this patent for variable caret intakes?
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CN116176831A - Adjustable structure of diamond air inlet channel - Google Patents

The invention relates to an adjustable structure of an air inlet channel with a diamond-shaped section, which is characterized in that: comprises a front adjusting side plate, a rear adjusting side plate, a sealing side plate, a driving mechanism, a movable air passage sealing plate, a limiting...
patents.google.com
From CAC
 
Nx4eu said:
What if the J-36 really had variable caret intakes
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The patent drawing shows a variable internal throat area well after of the inlet edges. With most external compression inlets, the initial inlet ramp generating oblique shocks well forward of the opposite inlet edges, where the throat will focus the terminal shock. With this specific carat inlet, this variable throat doesn’t make much sense unless they are getting mixed compression with internal oblique shocks. Not impossible, but maintaining stable mixed compression over a significant range of AOA conditions is very challenging.
 
Too many people missing the obvious.

This is a very large airplane with a very large weapons bay - it certainly is not intended for dogfighting, or even as a medium range bomber (lol), but with the two outer engines shut down in cruise, this would have an epic range - more than enough to carry out an attack on the US, from a direction the US would not expect, such as the east coast, or the gulf of Mexico, from underground bases in China that the US has yet to even identify. The notions that the Chinese would make basic errors like incorporating nearby power lines into their assessment of its RCS are nothing short of racism, and the result of that kind of thinking leads to disasters like that Russia suffered when it attacked the Japanese, in 1905. Underestimate the Asians at your peril. China has more university tech grads than the US has university grads, and it has been matching western electronics for decades now, and in some cases, it is much more sophisticated, such as the microscopic addition they made to mother boards a few years ago that causes thousands of critical servers to be retired prematurely, because the Chinese were reading all the traffic - which the west lacked the capacity to even duplicate as it required not merely reverse engineering the board in a very short period of time, but understanding it well enough to make a modification that left no traces. To imagine that they are somehow a full generation behind the US on stealth is delusional. You also can't judge Chinese thinking based on US thinking as they aren't moving in the same direction.

From the 1940s through to the 1970s, many of the longest ranged aircraft routinely shut down engines for extra range, but shutting down one engine in a twin with widely spaced engines, such as on a typical stealth fighter with a large weapons bay between them, would cause it to crab - thus increasing drag. Having three engines allows them to shut off the two outer ones, and still have enough power for cruise, while burning very little fuel, relatively speaking, and without the need for tankers that are easy to track. When they need to accelerate, or to reach penetration speeds, they fire up the other two engines.

At the same time, the US's physical isolation from all of its conflicts has left a LOT of vulnerable infrastructure completely unprotected - and in many cases unprotectable. The electrical grid has been undermaintained to boost short term profits for so long it has thousands of vulnerable points, many of which could easily trigger a repeat of the 2003 blackout, while oil refineries are also vulnerable. Even having two critical ones out of commission from a hurricane spiked gas prices for months. Imagine if a dozen were permanently out of commission? There are about 120 oil refineries in the US, although many are specialized, for plastic or fertilizer production. A single squadron of these could wreck the US economy, and they could keep coming back for decades - tens of thousands of bridges, oil storage and distribution, rail lines and other systems are all extremely vulnerable - even before you add on the reliance on just in time shipping, that guarantees widespread shortages if anything goes down.
 
Nieuport said:
Too many people missing the obvious.

This is a very large airplane with a very large weapons bay - it certainly is not intended for dogfighting, or even as a medium range bomber (lol), but with the two outer engines shut down in cruise, this would have an epic range - more than enough to carry out an attack on the US, from a direction the US would not expect, such as the east coast, or the gulf of Mexico, from underground bases in China that the US has yet to even identify.
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As if the rest of the planet wouldn't see the kilotons of rock getting excavated...

Same answer we keep giving people insisting that there are huge underground hangars at Area 51.

*facepalm*



Nieuport said:
The notions that the Chinese would make basic errors like incorporating nearby power lines into their assessment of its RCS are nothing short of racism, and the result of that kind of thinking leads to disasters like that Russia suffered when it attacked the Japanese, in 1905. Underestimate the Asians at your peril.
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The US didn't realize that you needed to stealth the test pole till someone made a plane that "wasn't there".

People don't know what they don't know!

If you don't know how much impact the power lines a couple of KM away are having on your measurements, you don't know that you need to find a place without any such power lines for your real testing.


Nieuport said:
To imagine that they are somehow a full generation behind the US on stealth is delusional.
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They've been a generation or more behind Russian engines in terms of lifespan for a long time, even after they started making CFM56s.

Stealth is extremely reliant on consistent quality of assembly, something that China has struggled for a really long time on.


Nieuport said:
You also can't judge Chinese thinking based on US thinking as they aren't moving in the same direction.
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And yet Article 36011 is almost an exact match for the publicly discussed ideas for the USAF NGAD...
 
Sintra said:
Sweet Mother of freaking Jesus
The combat radius of the J-36 is "Trans Pacifico"
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In my view, developing a bomber to fly from Chinese territory and drop unguided bombs on Boeing facilities in Seattle is far less strategic than building a platform capable of launching the JL3(air-launched version) from within domestic airspace.
 
Nieuport said:
Too many people missing the obvious.

This is a very large airplane with a very large weapons bay - it certainly is not intended for dogfighting, or even as a medium range bomber (lol), but with the two outer engines shut down in cruise, this would have an epic range - more than enough to carry out an attack on the US, from a direction the US would not expect, such as the east coast, or the gulf of Mexico, from underground bases in China that the US has yet to even identify. The notions that the Chinese would make basic errors like incorporating nearby power lines into their assessment of its RCS are nothing short of racism, and the result of that kind of thinking leads to disasters like that Russia suffered when it attacked the Japanese, in 1905. Underestimate the Asians at your peril. China has more university tech grads than the US has university grads, and it has been matching western electronics for decades now, and in some cases, it is much more sophisticated, such as the microscopic addition they made to mother boards a few years ago that causes thousands of critical servers to be retired prematurely, because the Chinese were reading all the traffic - which the west lacked the capacity to even duplicate as it required not merely reverse engineering the board in a very short period of time, but understanding it well enough to make a modification that left no traces. To imagine that they are somehow a full generation behind the US on stealth is delusional. You also can't judge Chinese thinking based on US thinking as they aren't moving in the same direction.

From the 1940s through to the 1970s, many of the longest ranged aircraft routinely shut down engines for extra range, but shutting down one engine in a twin with widely spaced engines, such as on a typical stealth fighter with a large weapons bay between them, would cause it to crab - thus increasing drag. Having three engines allows them to shut off the two outer ones, and still have enough power for cruise, while burning very little fuel, relatively speaking, and without the need for tankers that are easy to track. When they need to accelerate, or to reach penetration speeds, they fire up the other two engines.

At the same time, the US's physical isolation from all of its conflicts has left a LOT of vulnerable infrastructure completely unprotected - and in many cases unprotectable. The electrical grid has been undermaintained to boost short term profits for so long it has thousands of vulnerable points, many of which could easily trigger a repeat of the 2003 blackout, while oil refineries are also vulnerable. Even having two critical ones out of commission from a hurricane spiked gas prices for months. Imagine if a dozen were permanently out of commission? There are about 120 oil refineries in the US, although many are specialized, for plastic or fertilizer production. A single squadron of these could wreck the US economy, and they could keep coming back for decades - tens of thousands of bridges, oil storage and distribution, rail lines and other systems are all extremely vulnerable - even before you add on the reliance on just in time shipping, that guarantees widespread shortages if anything goes down.
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Thats one hell of a rant, i'l give you that!
Mainland China to Los Angeles is a ten thousand kms one way trip... So, no, the J-36 is not gonna cross the Pacific and magicaly destroy the US economy.
And in 1905 the Japanese attacked the Russians not the other way around.

Cheers
 
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Dolgoth Sepk said:
In my view, developing a bomber to fly from Chinese territory and drop unguided bombs on Boeing facilities in Seattle is far less strategic than building a platform capable of launching the JL3(air-launched version) from within domestic airspace.
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First, i have to say "sorry", you were answering to something that i've posted by mistake (i made another slightly bigger post, bellow).
Second, launching JL3 from mainland China into the US is a very fine way of starting a nuclear war, hard pass from me...

Cheers
 
Nieuport said:
Too many people missing the obvious.

This is a very large airplane with a very large weapons bay - it certainly is not intended for dogfighting, or even as a medium range bomber (lol), but with the two outer engines shut down in cruise, this would have an epic range - more than enough to carry out an attack on the US, from a direction the US would not expect, such as the east coast, or the gulf of Mexico, from underground bases in China that the US has yet to even identify.
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Do you have any hard calculation to know that size with an extra engine emphasized for cruise can have enough fuel for higher kinetic performance once in the defensive bubble of the US continent then fly back unrefueled? If no higher kinetic performance required rather than subsonic bombing mission, then why high swing sweep, 3 engines, f-22 style inlets?

A rejection of your idea isn't so much an underestimation of China, but a recognition of physics.
 
Sintra said:
First, i have to say "sorry", you were answering to something that i've posted by mistake (i made another slightly bigger post, bellow).
Second, launching JL3 from mainland China into the US is a very fine way of starting a nuclear war, hard pass from me...

Cheers
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Aircraft with a combat radius exceeding 12,000 km or those claiming to air-launch JL3 belong to the realm of strategic absurdities—this is pure satire, of course.

Cheers
PS: Even engineering-wise, the latter is more feasible to implement.
 
Today multi-engines strategy for longer range is to trade the drag of a an engine pod for better SFC with more efficient combustion (larger Fan, increased mechanical complexity (geared-fan), Augmented reliability with diminishing failure occurrence via reduction of engine number).

If the J-36 designers were aiming for longer range with that 3rd engine, they would have made a huge step... Backward in term of a design strategy.
 
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