(Luft) Chengdu Aircraft Industry J-20/FC-31/J-35

[revan]

Sehr guter Artikel zur J20 von Aviationweek. Achtung, man beachte die zweite und dritte Seite. Man kopiere bitte den Link Manuel, da es sonst einen ERROR gibt.


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What China's Stealth Fighter Means

With the surprise rollout and high-speed taxi tests of China’s newest J-20 fighter, a stealth prototype, the U.S. Navy’s top intelligence official admits that the Pentagon has erred in its estimates of the speed with which Beijing is introducing new military technology.

The aircraft’s existence was not a surprise to the intelligence community, but “one of the things that is . . . true is that we have been pretty consistent in underestimating the delivery and initial operational capability of Chinese technology weapons systems,” says Vice Admiral David J. Dorsett, deputy chief of naval operations for information dominance and director of naval intelligence. Two recent examples of misanalyses have been the J-20 fighter and the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile (AW&ST Jan. 3, p. 18). Moreover, there is evidence that China’s advances include high-performance engines and missiles that display a new level of technical maturity and performance.

“In terms of the [J-20] stealth photos, it’s not clear to me when it’s going to become operational,” Dorsett says. “Do we need to refine our assessments better? I think so.”

Other Washington-based intelligence officials say they are watching the J-20’s testing with interest. “They have done several high-speed taxis with the nosewheel off the ground,” says another veteran analyst. “They could still be working out some kinks before they try an actual first flight.”

There also are a lot of unknowns about the aircraft’s real importance.

“Operational impact is a tough call to make at this point, given that this plane, even if it flies, is not going to be a full-up fifth-gen [aircraft],” the analyst says. “In essence, this is going to be a novelty for the next decade before it starts to roll off the series production lines and gets to the line units in any numbers that would impact any of our mission planning. A lot of things can happen, good and bad, between now and then to either speed this up or severely put the brakes on things.

“As far as radar cross section goes, this is not [a Lockheed Martin] F-22, nor should we be thinking that they are going for low RCS right out of the chute,” he says. “We have to keep in mind that this is the first attempt and it’s also the very first prototype of that first attempt. There’s a lot of tweaking . . . before they get to the final version. I see too many people . . . making sweeping assessments. That has always been a mistake.”

Engines have been an Achilles’ heel for Chinese high-performance aircraft. The Chinese have not produced an indigenous engine that has the performance they need for a world-class fighter. Under earlier military doctrine, which favored mass over advanced technology, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force was equipped with adapted versions of 1950s-era Soviet aircraft designs using old-technology engines. Analysts offer different assessments of China’s first high-performance engine, the Shenyang WS-10; but recent images of the J-11B fighter—China’s bootleg version of the Sukhoi Su-30—appear to show a nozzle design that differs visibly from the Russian AL-31F and resembles that of WS-10 engines displayed at air shows.

Dorsett downplays the immediate impact of the new fighter and new anti-ship missile.

“I’m more worried about Chinese game-changing capabilities in nonkinetic [areas such as information dominance, network invasion and electronic warfare],” he says. “I am most concerned about China’s focus on trying to develop [the ability] to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum, to counter space capabilities and to conduct cyberactivities......