My guess is the serrated edge bay is an actual weapons bay for testing and the other bay is probably being used for flight test equipment. Production aircraft would revert to having both as weapons bays.I noticed the starboard ventral weapons bay has a sawtooth edge, but not the port side. Software or lens distortion?
Or its an AI scaling artifact.My guess is the serrated edge bay is an actual weapons bay for testing and the other bay is probably being used for flight test equipment. Production aircraft would revert to having both as weapons bays.
If it really is as your plan shows, it's a pretty smart space-saving solution.Short-range missile placement option
Reloading that may not be fun if the bay doesn't have a trapeze, but it definitely works.Short-range missile placement option
They miscalculated the length of the missile, so they had to add a bulge to fit? I doubt it. Internal gun there might be a better guess, but it looks like there is not enough space with the wheel retracted. Or is it? I'd say this is probably some kind of ECM/RWR antenna, datalink maybe or something like that.Short-range missile placement option
I’m no aerodynamicist but don’t really think you can compare birds to aircraft at all in this particular way.A lot of manoeuvring in birds and bats is done through wing tip deflection, with the tail being used more often in a role similar to that of flaps (trim and lift control). There are exceptions of course, here you can see the tail being used sometimes to deal with a cross-wind:View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJff3J_9jVs
Overall though tails are flat (i.e. oriented like a horizontal stabiliser) and integrated into the trailing edge of the wing. So, they'd be classified as tailless design with some polymorphic abilities.
It is worth noting that long tailed versions of birds, bats, and pterosaurs are all well documented, but they were eventually replaced by tailless lineages.
Not directly comparable to aircraft, but I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a reason for this that also applies to some types of aircraft in the future. Look at the amount of weight the active controls the Boeing Spanloaders would have required in the 1970s, now look at the weight of modern computers and the ability to do things like have distributed airflow sensors... there are a lot of technological limitations against distributed lift designs which are increasingly being overcome.
I have to agree. Not enough space for a missile without making it a contortion act. Was looking at photos of the J-31 and J-35, no side weapons bays. It seems Shenyang stays away from them (at least for now).They miscalculated the length of the missile, so they had to add a bulge to fit? I doubt it. Internal gun there might be a better guess, but it looks like there is not enough space with the wheel retracted. Or is it? I'd say this is probably some kind of ECM/RWR antenna, datalink maybe or something like that.