Official Chengdu J-20 Discussion Thread

Translation to the above.

A fact which must be faced.
Awakening of China after the opening up is a reality that must be accepted with a positive viewpoint.
Militarily they started intimidating, it should be recognized, and they began to threaten economically it must also be aware of.
J-XX, are demonstrating their ambitions in their own control over the territory, and expanding its influence in the world seentero.
It is a fact, China will become one of the new superpower, it must be very calculated, USA.
J-XX, is clearly the collaboration of Russia - China, perhaps the fruit of a strategic error approach to the Russians, despite the fact that Russia needs China's money for research and development costs of their own weapons.
 
IMHO, in regard to cheetah original post, I believe that China is capable of producing fighter that would nominally mach F-22 technology level within 8-12 years, but only nominally. The real capabilities wouldn't match F-22 by far, just as I believe with all due respect that J-10 is only nominally F-16 class fighter but with real operational capabilities not matching already proven and battle hardened F-16. To be honest, I don't believe that anybody in the world is capable of doing it today. Even US lack political will (based on security, budgetary and public opinion reasons, as already observed by latenlazy) to go through such development. F-22 is remnant of cold-war era and what was then threat of mass clash of highly sophisticated systems, while F-35 is response to changes that occurred after the 1990.

China made significant progress on many industrial and technology fields including different aspects of military aircraft industry, however they still lack experience in design, production and especially of real combat use of such sophisticated systems. What is also surprising to me is that China does very little on the commercial aircraft field too. Although the China made progress based on the bought Russian technology in 90-ties, one should also understand that you may buy many components, you may buy some of the knowhow, but experience must be built patiently over the time (including the combat engagement). Also it has to be said that producing F-22 class fighter requires advance on the system level and not component level. It is not just about engine or AESA, it is about what you achieve with them.

F-22 excelled on the field of low observability achieved by reducing its overall signature. This includes reducing its RCS using technology that is less maintenance intensive than technology used on the F-117, reducing its IR, visual and audio signature and also reducing its electronic activity signature (what is the purpose of reducing RCS if your radar screams I'm here, I'm here). This requires lot of work on design on one side, and very high production standards on the other. Also one thing is to use such aircraft in peace time and completely another is to achieve such operational capabilities in the real combat (well F-22 isn't battle proven either, but US has still collected a lot of actual operational experience with different systems in the last 20-30 years, including LO aircrafts like F-117 and B-2).

Pilot awareness on F-22 is boosted by data links that integrates and presents information on operational level, rather than presenting only tactical situation like on the 4th gen fighters. Furthermore, F-22 itself can serve as mini-AWACS, SIGINT or communication transfer platform for other less capable aircrafts. But to use this feature in the actual combat requires building highly complex (not to mention global) C4I system, using AWACS, SIGINT, ECM and other platforms, communication satellites and of course making all of it combat operational (battle proven). Also reducing the signature as stated above requires collecting information as much as possible in passive mode rather than actively searching for targets like on previous gen fighters. Building AESA radar is one matter, making its signature effectively small when needed is another matter.

Defensive systems like ECM are always matter of wider infrastructure and specialized aircrafts like US Raven, Prowler or Growler platforms, however F-22 has unusually sophisticated threat detection and identification system that would combined with its reduced signature allow it to operate much closer to battlefield with much lower operational risk. On that field China still has a lot of things to be desired.

Offensive systems were not designed specifically for F-22, but they are also combat proven systems in the post cold war era.

Boundaries of overall maneuverability and flight envelope were moved by combining improved engines (thrust vectoring, improved fuel efficiency and TBO, reduction in number of overall parts) with digital flight control systems (based on their experience with improving the agility of aircrafts like F-16 and F/A-18, but also based on experience of controlling the flying bricks like F-117) and what is said to be extremely departure resistant aerodynamics. F-22 is capable of super-cruise (not the first and not the only one though) combined with agility far beyond of previous gen fighters like F-15 or F-16. China never obtained even thrust-vectoring technology (unlike Su-30MKI, their Su-30MKK doesn't have such engines), while J-10 or JF-17 as far as more advanced they are from their previous designs like J-7 or J-8, never achieved anything similar. China is still on the level of early F-16 and F/A-18 designs from 30 years ago, but as already said experience is something you patiently build over the time one step at the time.

And in the regard of China becoming super power, well it is for certainly on the path to achieve that, but many challenges lays ahead of China that needs to be answered before they confirm such status. Being super-power is much more than producing sophisticated weapon systems. The Soviet Union collapsed while trying to match Western technology for 45 years, primarily based on pure social reasons. They were launched as super-power on the basis of their role in WWII, but they did not respond in creating satisfied society before they tackled global domination. US on the other hand became world largest economy around 1880, they had immense industrial power during first half of 20th century, but they became unprecedented global power only in WWII, some six decades later, assuming after the war leading global political and military role.

To establish them as a super-power China will have to make continuous progress on many different fields, and eventually in the second half of 21st century they might become one. J-XX is one of the steps on that path, but expecting that it will match F-22 around 2020 is just not possible.
 
Chrisious said:
Interestingly a reasonable amount of info on the country's commercial aircraft building, thrust vectoring knowledge etc can be found below, think Airbus has just built it's first A320 there. Perhaps setting the F-22 up as a benchmark could be a tall order for any country even in the West.
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They still haven't launched single indigenously designed and produced airliner, though they were successful in producing many different military purpose aircrafts. The closest one to production is regional airliner ARJ-21but it has also many non-Chinese originated components (nothing really wrong with that, but for someone thinking of tackling the F-22 technology level, you would expect capability to design and produce more or less anything required for at least more simpler designs). Also, C919 which is A320/B737 class airliner is supposed to fly in 2014, and according to article it will rely on many imported components too.

As for thrust vectoring, I shouldn't have said that China never obtained such technology, it was pure overstatement from my side. I was trying to point out that they don't have any operational aircraft using it, and I'm also unaware that any prototype or test-bed platform is equipped by such engine. Building the 5th gen fighter is not just about components, it is about actual integration experience that comes from experimental platforms as well as operational one, and it still seems to me that thrust-vectoring in Chinese designs are on the concept level at the moment.

Anyhow, Chinese did make significant progress in past 20 years, and they are still showing immense political will as well as providing the funding for advanced projects, so we may expect that Chinese will close current technological gap with JXX project even further. How much exactly remains to be seen.
 
Hi, I don't have a lot of knowledge on this project, but I do have a question regarding experience. Since personnel changes are relatively frequent as new recruits are trained each day, the experience gained by the US military must obviously be stored in some sort of physical format, so it may be passed down the generations. Now, I assume that such data is not quite as highly guarded as say the design for the newest fighter jet, so isn't it possible that the Chinese could've gotten their hands on some chunks of this data? Considering that they can even steal some data from the F-35 project, I don't think it's that inconceivable, no? And if they have that data, couldn't they have passed it onto its own military much like say the USAF does and partially negate the experience gap? I mean, it wouldn't take me nearly as long to make a light bulb as it did Thomas Edison.
 
Experience is passed down through the institutions and the training, as well as being stored and codified in manuals, books, etc.

The point is that this collective volume of information creates a culture, and an environment. When taken outside of this context it becomes hard to interpret and use. Not to mention without this context the information itself is not enough to produce the desired results.

It's the same thing that you could technicaly take an African country, spend tens of billions on modern infrastructure and development, and then come back 10 years later and find it to still be a third world hellhole.
 
Feanor said:
Experience is passed down through the institutions and the training, as well as being stored and codified in manuals, books, etc.

The point is that this collective volume of information creates a culture, and an environment. When taken outside of this context it becomes hard to interpret and use. Not to mention without this context the information itself is not enough to produce the desired results.

It's the same thing that you could technicaly take an African country, spend tens of billions on modern infrastructure and development, and then come back 10 years later and find it to still be a third world hellhole.
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Which is what makes the brain re-gain and personnel abroad experiences, as well as the FDI transfers of technical and organizational capital so critical to China's ability to catch up.



fromzg said:
China made significant progress on many industrial and technology fields including different aspects of military aircraft industry, however they still lack experience in design, production and especially of real combat use of such sophisticated systems. What is also surprising to me is that China does very little on the commercial aircraft field too. Although the China made progress based on the bought Russian technology in 90-ties, one should also understand that you may buy many components, you may buy some of the knowhow, but experience must be built patiently over the time (including the combat engagement). Also it has to be said that producing F-22 class fighter requires advance on the system level and not component level. It is not just about engine or AESA, it is about what you achieve with them.

F-22 excelled on the field of low observability achieved by reducing its overall signature. This includes reducing its RCS using technology that is less maintenance intensive than technology used on the F-117, reducing its IR, visual and audio signature and also reducing its electronic activity signature (what is the purpose of reducing RCS if your radar screams I'm here, I'm here). This requires lot of work on design on one side, and very high production standards on the other. Also one thing is to use such aircraft in peace time and completely another is to achieve such operational capabilities in the real combat (well F-22 isn't battle proven either, but US has still collected a lot of actual operational experience with different systems in the last 20-30 years, including LO aircrafts like F-117 and B-2).

Pilot awareness on F-22 is boosted by data links that integrates and presents information on operational level, rather than presenting only tactical situation like on the 4th gen fighters. Furthermore, F-22 itself can serve as mini-AWACS, SIGINT or communication transfer platform for other less capable aircrafts. But to use this feature in the actual combat requires building highly complex (not to mention global) C4I system, using AWACS, SIGINT, ECM and other platforms, communication satellites and of course making all of it combat operational (battle proven). Also reducing the signature as stated above requires collecting information as much as possible in passive mode rather than actively searching for targets like on previous gen fighters. Building AESA radar is one matter, making its signature effectively small when needed is another matter.

Defensive systems like ECM are always matter of wider infrastructure and specialized aircrafts like US Raven, Prowler or Growler platforms, however F-22 has unusually sophisticated threat detection and identification system that would combined with its reduced signature allow it to operate much closer to battlefield with much lower operational risk. On that field China still has a lot of things to be desired.
Click to expand...
Though I think the advanced systems and doctrine side of the argument are all highly valid points, I do think software and method take a backseat to the actual hardware acquisition. Though you could make the argument that without a good design framework China wouldn't be able to refine its hardware to a level proficient for a 5th generation platform, overall I feel like software and use can always be tweaked, but without hardware there would be nothing to tweak. In that sense, I think that's why looking at China's hardware development and production is most important. So long as they acquire the hardware, other design points can be refined and revised, much like what we see happen with the teen series of US fighters.
 
The real issue here is airframe design, material technology (including titanium and composites), engines, radars, etc. Avionics wise, China might not be there yet but is close. The real gap lies in those areas.
 
dingyibvs said:
Hi, I don't have a lot of knowledge on this project, but I do have a question regarding experience. Since personnel changes are relatively frequent as new recruits are trained each day, the experience gained by the US military must obviously be stored in some sort of physical format, so it may be passed down the generations. Now, I assume that such data is not quite as highly guarded as say the design for the newest fighter jet, so isn't it possible that the Chinese could've gotten their hands on some chunks of this data? Considering that they can even steal some data from the F-35 project, I don't think it's that inconceivable, no? And if they have that data, couldn't they have passed it onto its own military much like say the USAF does and partially negate the experience gap? I mean, it wouldn't take me nearly as long to make a light bulb as it did Thomas Edison.
Click to expand...

The thing you appear to be overlooking is that experience is not something that can really be stolen. It is an intangible asset that is built up by personnel over time and after exposure to situations.

I do not doubt that China (or most anyone else for that matter) could get their hands on US military training manuals. That might have guides for how to do certain things, fix or employ some weapons and systems, etc. However, there is an enormous difference between what one can get from a book, and reality. Particularly with something as significant as military operations. In the US, and many western countries there are of course significant numbers of new recruits and/or conscriptions. However, there is usually some group which forms the 'backbone' of a military where traditions, methods of operating, and experience is shared. For some militiaries, there is a professional officers corps, others rely upon the NCO's (non-commissioned officers) some use both. Whatever it is, there is usually some system or mechanism by which those with experience are able to share and pass on that experience to those following after them.

In the case of forces like the USAF, The lieutenants and junior captains of yesteryear who flew air superiority and strike missions are now majors and colonels who conduct flight planning for currents ops while drawing up doctrine to employ upcoming systems. Those same majors and colonels will in latter years be the general officers in charge of theatres and other major commands and/or force elements.

There are also courses which officers at least will be run through to teach how certain types of things are to be conducted (at least at certain levels) like the Command and General Staff College, or the various Army, Air and Naval War Colleges. Much of the information from such courses is classified AFAIK, but still it is just theoretical unless there is some foundation upon which to use the knowledge.

Consider this. Assuming that China was able to successfully acquire the printed materials and tech sheets for the HARM, as well as the doctrine the US military uses for SEAD/DEAD missions and IADS roll-back operations. Assuming that China had a comparable weapon system, but little or no practical experience in employing the weapon, would China be successful in adapting US doctrine? IMO ultimately they would, and having the US doctrine available would likely allow China to accomplish their objectives and/or develop their own doctrine more quickly. But it would not be as efficient/effective or rapid as if Chinese forces went in already experienced with the weapon(s) in question.

-Cheers
 
fromzg said:
They still haven't launched single indigenously designed and produced airliner, though they were successful in producing many different military purpose aircrafts. The closest one to production is regional airliner ARJ-21but it has also many non-Chinese originated components (nothing really wrong with that, but for someone thinking of tackling the F-22 technology level, you would expect capability to design and produce more or less anything required for at least more simpler designs). Also, C919 which is A320/B737 class airliner is supposed to fly in 2014, and according to article it will rely on many imported components too.
Click to expand...
China did develop the Y-10 during the 70's, but was abandoned due to political reasons.

Civil aviation market is much more difficult to entre than military, Boeing and Airbus are already well established, any new entrant can expect to make loss for the first two decades, so it will take some serious backing from the government for it to survive. Plus, US and EU governments are actively protecting their own civil aviation industries by make it difficult for aircrafts of foreign origin to obtain air worthiness certifications. One of the main reasons why ARJ-21 uses so many non-Chinese components was to ensure that it would be certified by the FAA.
 
It would appear that the information kept is quite valuable, though possibly not as valued as when the cold war officially existed. Surprising that some high rolling individuals were prepared to sell confidential info for a profit, though supposedly for ideological reasons at the same time. Interestingly a fair amount of knowledge has been transferred through recovered equipment from expended munitions and downed aircraft. Some of which I believe has been put to use in missile systems. Which probably says that when a project or system is compromised it's time to move on.
 
King Comm said:
... One of the main reasons why ARJ-21 uses so many non-Chinese components was to ensure that it would be certified by the FAA.
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FAA (and other "national" authorities) approval is a good point. Although its approval has validity in USA only, while other authorities are responsible for other nations, I can imagine that you can't really compete on the world-wide market without it.

Also, bit off-topic though, how EMBRAER's airliners stands in the terms of using imported components (other than engines)? Just curious to compare different approaches.
 
Todjaeger is absolutely correct. I'll be attending an aircraft qualification course next month so to put this in perspective I can provide my insight. Even though I've had the operators manual for several months to study, and have been attending mission planning, after action reports, and continuation training in the class room I'm still pretty clueless about my new aircraft. The operators manual has very little information about weapons and avionics, in fact the information is limited to essentially how to turn items on and off, go to different menus etc. I could give the manual to a rated aviator from another aircraft, give him all the time he needs and he still wont have the information necessary to safely fly the thing let alone employ it's weapons and systems.

In short, the vast library of manuals still isn't enough information, it's very compartmented. There really is no centralized data base where all of the information is stored, that could be corrupted completely. In reallity, Janes often contains classified informaton we aren't even allowed to mention in briefs unless it's a secure briefing. Silly but true. And that's just from the operators point, the manufacturer isn't even privy to all of the information on the final product. Many components aren't even designed by the manufacturers so their information is likewise limited.

It is virtually impossible to "steal" an aircraft design to any meaningful degree. Newer aircraft don't even have all of the software loaded in the aircraft permanently and even then, there are countermeasures in place to prevent corruption through destruction of critical data and circuits. Design espionage is much less of a threat today than it was back in WW2 when aircraft were designed on paper and the whole thing was hardware.
 
The Reply

J-XX, merupakan sebuah lompatan dari J-10 (ex Lavi Israel) dan J-11 (Duplikat SU-27/30 Rusia), pesawat ini diklaim China memiliki kemampuan setara F-22 Raptor Amerika, SU-37 Berkut atau T-50 Fakva Rusia. Secara nyata F-22 maupun F-35 adalah wujud seni teknologi tinggi, gabungan keindahan perancangan, kecanggihan teknologi komputer yang disandang (system komunikasi dan pemandu senjata) dan daya hancur/mematikan, tak salah kalau yang satu disebut “Raptor” dan yang lainnya “Lightning”.
Pada jamannya, desain perancangan teknik (Blue Print) dilakukan diatas kertas, sedangkan sekarang semua dilakukan secara elektronik/digital. Pada jamannya dulu, sebuah blue print bisa berujud ribuan lembar, sekarang bisa hanya berujud selembar chip seukuran kuku, terlebih jika kita libatkan juga kemungkinan penggunaan teknologi nano.
Pembatasan perdagangan pada jaman sekarang, sebagai bagian dari pencegahan resiko jatuhnya teknologi kepada pihak musuh atau saingan sungguh sangat sulit dilakukan.
Mencermati semua titik lemah ini, dan menyaksikan kecepatan gerak maju yang dimiliki China saat ini, dan dengan mencermati beberapa kasus peperangan di dunia maya, jelas sudah, China memiliki infrastruktur itu. Ditambah dengan kepiawaian mereka dalam memanfaatkan peranan kapital dengan nominal besar/sangat besar, Tak heran kalau mereka sanggup membeli teknologi “Lavi Israel” sesuatu yang sangat, bahkan paling sulit dilakukan, bukan bandingan kalau harus dibandingkan dengan membeli lisensi SU-27/30.
Hakikatnya, perangkat keras (hardware) teknologi adalah sama, apakah ketika dia digunakan sebagai perangkat sipil atau militer, hanya kemasan dan isi programnya saja yang akan berbeda. Sehingga tak aneh kalau akan terjadi substitusi fungsi-fungsi hardware dari sipil ke militer, hanya dengan cara menformat ulang kemudian mengisinya dengan program militer, kemudian dikemas dengan kemasan militer, jadilah dia perangkat mematikan.
Kamajuan China secara militer saat ini hampir telah merata disemua matra, kecerdasan mereka dalam menduplikasi sangat nyata terlihat, mulai dari “Crotale” atau “Roland” yang berubah ujud jadi system SAM persi mereka, mereka juga memiliki inovasi kreatif dengan mengubah arsenal kapal perang untuk keperluan pertahanan pantai, lihat lagi SA-2/3 yang mereka duplikasi, belum lagi jika melihat metamorphosis lahirnya rudal balistik ICBM dari hanya berbekal rudal balistik jarak pendek.
Intinya China adalah kekuatan baru, raksasa yang sudah bangun dari tidur panjangnya, dan dengan lapar memakan apapun yang bias diraihnya. Untuk jadi Adikuasa jelas masih butuh waktu puluhan tahun, tapi jika melihat kecepatan dan percepatan gerak penguasaan teknologi mereka saat ini, jelas mereka bukan hanya membayangi, tapi bergerak semakin dekat, satu hal yang harus diwaspadai, mereka tidak mengenal pembatasan.
:)
 
Syahbana this is an English-speaking forum. You need to make your posts in English. It's pretty obvious you speak English, since you managed to register on here.
 
Feanor said:
Syahbana this is an English-speaking forum. You need to make your posts in English. It's pretty obvious you speak English, since you managed to register on here.
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I think it was translated from English by Google or by idiot who knows very little of Bahasa Indonesia. I myself can read and speak Indonesia as I lived there for a few years ...... i can tell you .. it is a bad translation, very bad
 
Syahbana, think you may find one or two online automated translators online. Google has one, though may be difficult depending on which part of the globe you are coming from.
 
Chrisious said:
Syahbana, think you may find one or two online automated translators online. Google has one, though may be difficult depending on which part of the globe you are coming from.
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When you find an article with perfect vocabulary but mess up grammar, you know they use online translator.
 
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