Chengdu J-20 news and analysis Part III

Deino said:
That's the point ... even if we've seen indeed "such formation flights have already been displayed by the US, Russia and France a good while ago" all have been made by prototypes and/or demonstrators only and none - at least by my understanding - has reached operational status in relevant numbers.
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I don't think there's any doubt that, had the US wanted to, they could have been far ahead of where they are. We've already landed and launched large UCAV analogs from a carrier, and they've performed in-air refueling. Why we didn't do it is anybody's guess. Maybe it was another case of, "it will take China 20 years to build a stealth fighter" hubrus. It wasn't technical.
 
Sferrin said:
I don't think there's any doubt that, had the US wanted to, they could have been far ahead of where they are. We've already landed and launched large UCAV analogs from a carrier, and they've performed in-air refueling. Why we didn't do it is anybody's guess. Maybe it was another case of, "it will take China 20 years to build a stealth fighter" hubrus. It wasn't technical.
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That's for sure and I never said, it was "technical"! Indeed - maybe like Germany which reduced itself in the last decades almost to irrelevance - the reasons were more political or a lack of whatever in decision making.

Quite interesting however a few weeks ago, I was invited to speak at a drone trade fair/symposium in Vienna about Chinese drone systems and development trends. The LM team was also there to present their concepts for MUM-T / Loyal Wingman systems – especially Vectis. Of course, the familiar accusation quickly resurfaced that China is lagging far behind, currently just copying US concepts, etc. ...

My objection, that the USAF's two-stage testing and deployment program assumes that the truly large CCAs like Vectis won't fly until 2027/28, and that only after that will the integration of operational systems such as networking and control via F-22/F-35 begin, while China has already five comparable systems – and if you look at Type A & B (not even speaking about the WZ-X & GJ-X), even significantly larger and more capable CCAs available – in testing and is already training them with J-20s, a member from LM's team then confirmed in a confidential conversation after the presentation that they are well aware that the development of these systems and the operational concepts are essentially just a head-to-head race between China and the USA, and China is surprisingly ahead in certain areas.
 
Deino said:
That's for sure and I never said, it was "technical"! Indeed - maybe like Germany which reduced itself in the last decades almost to irrelevance - the reasons were more political or a lack of whatever in decision making.

Quite interesting however a few weeks ago, I was invited to speak at a drone trade fair/symposium in Vienna about Chinese drone systems and development trends. The LM team was also there to present their concepts for MUM-T / Loyal Wingman systems – especially Vectis. Of course, the familiar accusation quickly resurfaced that China is lagging far behind, currently just copying US concepts, etc. ...
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Yeah, that's just stupid. While it may have helped them get where they are faster the fact is they are GETTING there. Even if they were, say, five years behind, they are iterating faster. They have a far larger workforce, and it has more experience due to the rapid iteration and higher production rates. Even if, "China is lagging far behind, currently just copying US concepts, etc..." you have to take it seriously if only because of the volume of hardware they're turning out.
 
Scott Kenny said:
That's the F119/F135 equivalent, right?
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Yep, the problem has been mass production at the same scale as the WS-10 family, which all Chinese fighters, minus the J-35(A) depend upon.

Scott Kenny said:
WS10 is the F110 equivalent?
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Depends on the version. Its latest iteration is kind of like the Izdeliye 117S in the sense that it is a 4th-gen engine brought up to 5th-gen requirements. The WS-10C (and C2) is enough to enable the vanilla J-20 to supercruise for example.

I keep calling it a copy so that people can understand the similarities better, but when developing the WS-10, they built upon what they learned from the WS-6 program and used the CFM56 as a rough reference for the hot section.
 
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EmoBirb said:
After all the years of maybe-possibly-allegedly-perhaps, I'll wait for more concrete information
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All the evidence (as well as the credible rumor/insight mill) so far suggests that serial production hurdles have indeed been overcome, and induction in Q1/Q2 2026 should be expected. Btw, this was photographed on the same day:

There were allegedly as much as 6 production airframes with WS-15 flying, per a Chengdu local...

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Pretty sure that black one is still using WS-10C2 not WS-15. I could be wrong but I don’t know if WS-15 still has a silver collar or not.
 
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snne said:
At least the others don't have any prototype bort numbers...
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:)

G9PemuOWYAAFKo9
 
"银鞍照白马，飒沓如流星。"
"A silver saddle fits a steed of white,Like a shooting star he speeds in flight."

It really has been a full 15 years. Now we can even see such high-quality photos of the J-20.
That said, these are still early production batches, it may take years before we could get to see the newer J-20A and J-20S in their darker paint schemes.

btw, Wan Quan also mentioned on Weibo:
“There are actually quite a few ‘firsts’ in this batch of photos. Due to certain special considerations, I can’t elaborate on them for now. And of course, there are many more photos—maybe in a few years. When the new generation of aircraft is flying everywhere, I’ll share them for everyone to enjoy.”

It really makes me look forward to the next 15 years. Cheers! ;)
 
snne said:
Looks kinda fake, doesn’t it? I also wanted to share the collage, but first wanted to make sure it isn’t fake…
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Its a segment from a video posted by Chengdu AC on weibo, I thought it was real, but the close up looks like a 3d model - the bit immediately after it shows a launch from further away which looks to be genuine but there isn't much to see there.

http://t.cn/AXbdgLj4 - weibo link to the video
 
Factory Fresh J-20A/S coming out of CAC with very likely WS-15 equipped..

Yes one may argue that we can see a visible ring, but Chinese commentators have stated that the petals are visibly longer and defined, like the WS-15 than like the previous WS-10C variants.
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Nx4eu said:
Factory Fresh J-20A/S coming out of CAC with very likely WS-15 equipped..

Yes one may argue that we can see a visible ring, but Chinese commentators have stated that the petals are visibly longer and defined, like the WS-15 than like the previous WS-10C variants.
View attachment 799537
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Only the primer one here has WS-15s ;) Others are old photos.

TwoTribes said:
Higher definition images. From AVIC Weibo.
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Sorry to one-up but here's a 4K version:
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