Re: Shenyang J-21 / J-31 revealed!
Drag chutes on the land based variant has no bearing whatsoever the basic design's potential to be navalized. Both mig-29 and Su-27 have naval, carrier based variants. Both also have land based vaiants with drag chutes.
The presence of drag chutes and single piece flaps indicates the first variant isn't navalized. But that's no surprise since PLA AF is by far the senior aviation service of the chinese military compared to the navy's as yet nonexistent operational fleet air arm. They would hardly design a fighter for the pipsqueak navy first and make the far more established Air Force adapt, than the other way around. It seem plausible the PLAAF procurement of this plane could run into the thousands, while any PLAN procurement of carrier adapted version would be numbered in the dozens, or at most, low hundreds.
If and when this jet reach service, it would be interesting to see if the Chinese will use it to replace all G3 and G4 tactical aircraft in their service, like the US would do with F-35, Or if unlike the US, They would consider any aircraft with stealth baggage to be a specialized niche product, and continue to develope nonstealthy tactical aircraft.
