The new J20 Stealth Plane? (lots of pictures)

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

I have been into planes since Grade 5, and this is a interesting development, its sort of a class of its own (read below at my comment).

Quote::

China's stealth fighter makes first flight
Peter Clarke
1/11/2011 7:27 AM EST

LONDON – China's prototype J-20 "Black Eagle" stealth fighter made its first-known test flight Tuesday (Jan. 11), according to online reports.

The J-20 flew for about 15 minutes over an airfield in the southwest city of Chengdu, reports said.

The test flight was made on the second day of a visit to China by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. China's President Hu Jintao confirmed the J-20's flight to Secretary Gates in a meeting a Reuters report said, quoting Gates as its source.

Recent activity around the development of the J-20 appears to show that China is making faster progress than previously thought in developing a rival to the U.S. F-22 stealth fighter, the reports said.

However, rather than being a threat to the U.S. the fact that the Chinese authorities have made no attempt to suppress reports about the J-20 is being seen as an attempt to be more open and transparent over military matters, the reports said.

The U.S. is the only nation known to operate a radar-eluding "stealth" fighter. The Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 "Raptor" first flew in September 1990 and is said to have entered service with the USAF in December 2005.

The J-20, in development by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, is a single-seat, twin-engine aircraft, bigger and heavier than Russia's Sukhoi T-50 and the F-22, according to Aviation Week which reported high-speed taxi test earlier in the month. The plane is expected to enter service sometime between 2017 and 2019.

Pictures of the plane, on the ground:

The Tail can turn completely instead of depending on a smaller flap.

Take off of the plane:

Bottom view of the plane in the air:

Plane in the air:

The console that was previously displayed as the "future" version for their next plane, which can only be the J20.

This seems to be for the interceptor role, so more of a defensive position then a offensive one based on its relative size and possible missile bay sizing internally. So its not a stealth like fighter like the F-22 or F-35 and the Sukhoi T-50 PAK FA, nor is it a stealth bomber cause its relatively too small to hold any real compliment of bombs. Making it possibly the first stealth interceptor out there as far as I know.

Apparently they built the first prototype in a year, and its been unofficially confirmed that its a domestic engine not a Russian one the test flight used. Which kinda serves as a show of how fast they can get their industry in gear to make something, verses the long development cycles that typically take for a new fighter. The F-35 took 3 years before the first one was built, even after the X-35 prototype was built and won the contract for the JSF. They could possibly have a fleet of them built in less time then the F-35 will reach operational strength. Shocked

Dimitri

Pumpkinslinger

D, I'm not convinced that the thing is all that effective yet. Remember the MIG-25? Everyone was all worried about it until someone defected with one and we found it that it was rather crude. It will be interesting to follow this story.

1895ss

Pumpkinslinger wrote:

D, I'm not convinced that the thing is all that effective yet. Remember the MIG-25? Everyone was all worried about it until someone defected with one and we found it that it was rather crude. It will be interesting to follow this story.

Yep, I agree...

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

Mike,

To be fair, its not a completely new design, the Chinese stole just about every document they could from the DoD in 2007-2008 about the F-35 JSF. So they had a mountain of documents to base their work on. Some of the similarities are visible on the outside, so you got to wonder what they have similar on the inside.

Additionally with the amount of offshoring to China, they do now have a pretty high tech manufacturing sector, their SMIC Foundry produces 45nm parts on 300mm silicon, and has a sales of over one billion USD a year making it the 5th largest in the world and on par technology wise till approximately 2012 when American and Taiwanese companies expect 28nm foundries to go online.

PS. Lt. Viktor Belenko, defected 11 years and 8 days before I was born. Embarassed

Dimitri

slimjim

Pumpkinslinger wrote:

Remember the MIG-25? Everyone was all worried about it until someone defected with one and we found it that it was rather crude.

The MiG-25 was crude by our standards but when analyzed, we found that the crude parts were fit for function. They didn't need to be better. The jet was built to operate in conditions that ours couldn't even taxi in. An impressive feat of engineering.

slimjim

Dimitri wrote:

the Chinese stole just about every document they could from the DoD in 2007-2008 about the F-35 JSF.

It shows! The forward fuselage look like the F-35. They even used the cockpit design - wide display with "Portaling" to manage the different formats. Copying is the sincerest form of flattery! They also took from F22 and YF23.

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

I wanted the YF-23 to win the trials over the F-22. But I guess my choice was not well liked. Northrop makes some pretty advance technology.

Had a longer range, greater combat radius, and a weight less, and could carry more heavier combat loads.

Dimitri

slimjim

Dimitri wrote:

I wanted the YF-23 to win the trials over the F-22.

Man that was so long ago, I'm sketchy on the details. As much as the YF-23 had advantages, it fell short on some key capabilities.

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

It was not as agile, which for a air superiority fighter can be a issue, especially if in a dog fight, however most of the time there are no dog fights anymore.

I didn't learn about the YF-23 and YF-22 selection till I was 10, when I started to take a interest in the technical side of the movies I had watched on the history channel. By being given a book from 1990 or so when both the YF-22 and YF-23 were featured (it was a book of all the then current fighter planes worldwide) but the "winner" of that competition had not been published, so by the time I finished the book I went online just to find out the YF-22 won the trials.

Mind you it puts things into perspective, it took 14 years from the Trial win for the F-22 to be introduced. Taking Moore's law into a account, it means, that the computer systems on the YF-22 and the YF-23 were 128 times slower then the ones available at its introduction as a fighter plane.

Dimitri

slimjim

Dimitri wrote:

Taking Moore's law into a account, it means, that the computer systems on the YF-22 and the YF-23 were 128 times slower then the ones available at its introduction as a fighter plane.

Doesn't matter, the computers are still not fast enough. The software has swallon to 4 million+ lines of code and is now the most expensive aspect of an air vehicle.

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

To be fair,

The 4+ Million lines of code isn't much, Windows XP has 45 million lines of code and can be used on a 1Ghz computer. The Linux Kernal on its own has 14+ million lines of code and can work on a computer with 100Mhz of processing power on a base install without a hick up.

PS Apple does the best job at software programming they went from BSD's base 9 million lines of code to a staggering 86 million lines of Code for OS X 10.4 Rolling Eyes

What is needed for planes however is not the code size, but its ability to constantly pool a ton of sensors on board and process the data, then convert it to flight stabilization movements faster then the pilot would even feel the plane move. Cause they are not flying planes anymore, but big expensive bricks in the air, in a aerodynamic sense.

Dimitri

Ominivision1

Dimitri:

Yup your right about windows bloatware and even worst, mac. But with windows and mac being a closed system to all but a few elite vendors (intel..etc) the kernel cannot be changed at all. Linux on the other hand allows anyone to build a kernel for their own needs after developing or downloading the source file.

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

I know Ominivision,

I am quite a fan of Linux myself. If any of Linus Torvalds, Marcelo Tosatti, Alan Cox, and Andrew Morton quit, there will be issues I foresee, they put a lot into the software. They as a team are the reason Linux is what it is today. Even if they do fight and have flame wars on a minute by minute basis.

Dimitri

slimjim

Dimitri wrote:

What is needed for planes however is not the code size, but its ability to ....

There is also a software safety cerification and real-time run environments that Windows and Mac don't have to deal with.

Dimitri · Super Member Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 5946

That is true Jim.

For embedded applications, there are a number of RTOS's out there that are both military certifiable and FDA medical device certifiable now. For IC's that are not much more powerful then a early to mid 1980's computer either (about 10-30MHz).

All this talk reminds me, I have not looked at my C library for the AVR in a while. I need to get back into it. Bang Head

Dimitri