Chinese VTOL aircraft

There are lots of general layout similarities with the raider, of course, but let's look at the differences :
Pusher prop on Chinese craft has 7 blades. Raider's has 6.
Exhaust is simpler, seems to have mid tail left and right pointing exhausts. Raider has a upward pointing exhaust at the end of the tail. ?
Chinese help seems a bit more front heavy, as its rotor is a bit more forwrad than raider's.
Front landing gear on raider is more forward of the rotor. On Chinese helo it is closer to its rotor.
Rear vertical tails protrude more downward on raider. While Chinese helo has them going more upwards.
Chinese helo is generally more like an early concept demostrator, with less refined details. Extra support struts on the horizontal tail. More basic looking landing gear and so on.
 
lancer21 said:
So the chinese were telling everyone what they were doing, but no one paid attention. Any illustration as to what the final military tilt rotor product product is supposed to look like? The hints i've read is after the flights of these demonstrators which probably happened as early as last year, operational models should follow "soon".

PS: Huitong says the HSH flew as early as 12/23. And found this image of what the operational products are expected to look like.
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Those are the V-280 and S-97.
 
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All I can do is shrug again：）no surprise, the same old story just keeps replaying
 
linbug said:
All I can do is shrug again：）no surprise, the same old story just keeps replaying
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If the same story hold true. Once they are comfortable with these technology then the fun begin. I suspect that will be when they start making their own contribution to these type of aircraft.
 
thanix01 said:
If the same story hold true. Once they are comfortable with these technology then the fun begin. I suspect that will be when they start making their own contribution to these type of aircraft.
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Bats can fly, but they’ll never be birds. Over the past 30 years, China has leaned on Soviet tech transfers, Western dual-use imports, and some gray-area military deals to produce a whole range of weapons that look pretty “advanced.” Military aviation is probably the clearest example.

The pattern is always the same: on the outside, these systems resemble certain Western models. But look closer, and you’ll see major gaps in design quality, materials, engines, electronics, reliability, durability, and maintenance costs. This isn’t just coincidence—it’s the product of China’s military research system. Design bureaus survive on government funding and leaders’ trust, so to prove their worth, they keep a close eye on Western developments, borrow from those pioneers’ work, and then propose something similar.

There are clear upsides to this. Technically, it keeps costs down and helps avoid a lot of mistakes. Politically, it’s easy to pitch: “We can build things just as advanced as the Americans,” or “If they have it, we need it too—otherwise we can’t counter their threat.” But limited by their own capabilities, the end result usually turns out to be a kind of “monkey models” ,sometimes even worse.
 
linbug said:
Bats can fly, but they’ll never be birds. Over the past 30 years, China has leaned on Soviet tech transfers, Western dual-use imports, and some gray-area military deals to produce a whole range of weapons that look pretty “advanced.” Military aviation is probably the clearest example.

The pattern is always the same: on the outside, these systems resemble certain Western models. But look closer, and you’ll see major gaps in design quality, materials, engines, electronics, reliability, durability, and maintenance costs. This isn’t just coincidence—it’s the product of China’s military research system. Design bureaus survive on government funding and leaders’ trust, so to prove their worth, they keep a close eye on Western developments, borrow from those pioneers’ work, and then propose something similar.

There are clear upsides to this. Technically, it keeps costs down and helps avoid a lot of mistakes. Politically, it’s easy to pitch: “We can build things just as advanced as the Americans,” or “If they have it, we need it too—otherwise we can’t counter their threat.” But limited by their own capabilities, the end result usually turns out to be a kind of “monkey models” ,sometimes even worse.
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I'm sorry you are either extremely ignorant on Chinese industries or you are one of those who are unable to accept the Chinese as anything but idiots who can't innovate.

Also do you even have anything to even back half the stuff you are claiming. I'm actually so curious where do you see the lack in quality? Chinese electronics are world class and have world leading telecommunications systems while they could produce CF up to T1100 level and are working on T1200 class. Mantaince cost and reliability are not public data so you legit just pulled that out of nowhere.
 
linbug said:
The pattern is always the same: on the outside, these systems resemble certain Western models. But look closer, and you’ll see major gaps in design quality, materials, engines, electronics, reliability, durability, and maintenance costs. This isn’t just coincidence—it’s the product of China’s military research system. Design bureaus survive on government funding and leaders’ trust, so to prove their worth, they keep a close eye on Western developments, borrow from those pioneers’ work, and then propose something similar.
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What the hell are you talking about? Show me please tri-jet Western steatlh fighter, like the one Chinese demonstrated.
 
The history that PRC has of 'acquiring' technology from around the world can be difficult to get past. Looking at the tech around cars and you will see that 'getting past that view' is the only way to take seriously the challenge the PRC IS and do something about meeting that challenge.
Being a dinosaur or a tall flightless bird is not going to get anyone anywhere.
 
Dilandu said:
What the hell are you talking about? Show me please tri-jet Western steatlh fighter, like the one Chinese demonstrated.
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This is a fun topic, so I think it’s worth jumping in. First off, that “monster” has nothing to do with sixth-gen fighters. To me, it’s basically just a bomber meant to hit U.S. carrier groups and bases from beyond the first island chain—a pretty clumsy answer to the B-21.

Honestly, I was kind of happy when I saw this plane. It shows that the post–Cold War “tech dividend” is pretty much used up. Three engines, a huge intake on the back—these conflicting design choices are a sign of limited tech, where they’ve had to give up the best solutions just to meet strategic needs. The Soviets went through this kind of thing over and over.

The J-20 is without question the closest China’s aviation industry has gotten to world class. But from here, the gap is only going to grow wider, a replay of the Soviet story.
 
@linbug in my eyes it's kinda disingenuous to make such claims. The chinese are running circles around anyone with regards to battery technology, UAV development, they are arguably leading the missile race, with only the Russians fielding comparable systems while the US and EU are stuck in the 1990s for whatever reason with regards to their thinking.

But the topic at hand is rotorcraft (or VTOLs). And yes, Chinese rotorcraft development leaned heavily on European designs (Z-8/18), Russian assistance (Z-10) or US bought designs (Z-20). However each of these examples became it's own distinct thing in the end. The Z-8L has nothing in common with the Super Frelon, the Z-10 evolved past it's Kamov assisted roots and the Z-20 may superficially look like a UH-60, it's internally not only full with domestic Chinese systems, it's arguably more modern too. Rotorcraft are rather complex machines and globally there are only a handful of established players who can deliver military grade rotorcraft. The Chinese moved from license production and assistance to essentially completely different and bespoke models in a mind boggling pace. No matter how you try to cut it, you can't belittle such progress.

Coaxials and Tiltrotors are novel pieces of tech, but let's not pretend like the US patented and is synonymous with coaxials.

Just look at that Raider, with its coaxial rotor, it's side-by-side seating and control surfaces at it's tail, phew, clearly a knock off of the Kamov helicopters. I bet it's all plastic inside

(sarcasm off)

It's quite honestly more surprising that it took China this long to look into tiltrotors, which have plenty of use cases for their military needs. To be fair though the Osprey might have served as something of scarecrow for that concept. While coaxials are something where both the US and China are late to the party.

Also, people moved past calling the J-36 a bomber within approximately two weeks after it's arrival, don't hold on to it.
 
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linbug said:
This is a fun topic, so I think it’s worth jumping in. First off, that “monster” has nothing to do with sixth-gen fighters. To me, it’s basically just a bomber meant to hit U.S. carrier groups and bases from beyond the first island chain—a pretty clumsy answer to the B-21.

Honestly, I was kind of happy when I saw this plane. It shows that the post–Cold War “tech dividend” is pretty much used up. Three engines, a huge intake on the back—these conflicting design choices are a sign of limited tech, where they’ve had to give up the best solutions just to meet strategic needs. The Soviets went through this kind of thing over and over.

The J-20 is without question the closest China’s aviation industry has gotten to world class. But from here, the gap is only going to grow wider, a replay of the Soviet story.
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If that's your opinion on the J-36. What about the "J-50" that was spotted? Twin engine heavy fighter, cranked lambda wing, all moving wingtips. Are there signs of limited tech in this example?
 
We in the west should remember that much of our rocket, missile and jet aircraft initial development came from "our" German scientist. The first US ballistic missile was a V2. Probably much the same for Russia. I am sure there are some here who can enumerate any number of historical examples of countries having started a capability from what they observed from other countries.

Verbal badminton has yet to do much more here than, at best, take up space, at worst, people get banned.

My 2 cents.
 
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More likely the gap becoming wider in coming years as PRC. pulls ahead of the west technologically

However back on topic, it should be Interesting to see what new Chinese VTOL. aircraft and rotorcraft emerge over the next year or so and which are developed into service types (will we
we see an F-35B equivalent ?)
 
@TsrJoe - Agree but given the number of programs they have already begun, I might expect to see a VTOL version of one of the fighters tested, more so than yet other new start aircraft. Then again there is always fan-in-wing and ducted fan yet to appear.
 

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