Posted on 03/10/2012 6:49:38 PM PST by U-238
New pictures of the China's J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth fighter have surfaced and are making their way across military blogs.
This newest round of photos show the J-20 in the skies somewhere over mainland China.
The prototype is said to be using the Saturn AL-31 turbofan engine developed by the Russian's for their Su-27 air superiority fighter.
Reuben Johnson at The Washington Times reports the Chinese may be as much as 10 years away from producing an original stealth engine to slip into the J-20.
In the meantime, they'll have to take comfort in the fact that while the F-22 Raptor may be more agile and made entirely in the U.S., the Dragon carries more fuel and weapons than Lockheed's fighter.
The J-20's development is also moving along much faster than anyone had expected. Back in 2009, Gen. He Weirong, deputy commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force said in a TV interview that the J-20 wouldn't be operational until 2017-2019. That estimate will likely be revised if work continues at the current pace.
Bill Sweetman at AviationWeek points out that for all its headway, no one is yet sure what the J-20 is for. He speculates that given the aircraft's size and weapons bays, it may be used to "threaten intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets and tankers, by using stealth and speed to defeat their escorts."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Unless I’m missing something, Apple products are still engineered in American, only built in China. The sad reality is that we couldn’t run an Apple plant here in the US if we wanted to. The regulatory/union environment wouldn’t allow it.
I agree with you 100% in being concerned - I just think we see the cause for concern in entirely different terms.
Manufacturing (workforce) is a 20th century path to economic power - resources and energy are the issue and path of the current era. Food, water, oil, mined materials, etc.
Ever notice how we’re always caught unaware by how the PRC has ‘unexpectedly’ developed something or another thing, faster than our intelligence had thought?
Our intelligence is done by people with an interest in selling us down the river with ‘free trade’.
We are being betrayed, by those whose job it is, to protect us.
“Apple products are still engineered in American, only built in China.”
-
What does that mean exactly?
“engineered in America”.
The factory is in China. The automation is in China. The skilled labor is in China.
The tooling is in China.
“engineered in America”.
Baloney.
“MADE IN CHINA”.
Exactly.
Everyone whines about how people don’t “buy American”, but we have made industry nearly impossible in this country with all the taxes, legislative overhead, bureaucracy, litigation, union activity, environmental regulation, never mind our own government deliberately jacking up the cost of energy.
We cannot mine. We cannot drill. We cannot build factories. We cannot employ people.
And it all stems from an overreaching, mountainous bureaucracy of federal, state and local government that is mounted on a one way ratchet that is only allowing them to get bigger, fatter, more bloated, more liberal and more restrictive over time.
It isn’t that America doesn’t have a capable workforce, manufacturing know-how or ability to leverage technology to produce goods and products. We aren’t being allowed to increase and grow industry. It is NOT an accident.
What investor, with good money is going to invest in a factory here in the USA with the accompanying taxes, environmental regulations, union/government meddling etc. when they can invest in a place like China where the government says “Just give this person and that person this much money, and we will stay out of your way. You won’t have unions protesting and making court challenges. You won’t have the Sierra Club protesting and blocking you in court. You won’t have the government agencies crawling up your butt. Just pay the tribute and your can build and prosper.”
There was once a time in this country where our way of business had a huge advantage over countries whose business environment was lubricated with bribes and payoffs and whose products were less cost competitive because we could get the raw materials here and didn’t need to pay shipping costs from making it elsewhere.
Our country has, since WWII, developed huge, encrusted growths of tax-fed, legislative, bureaucratic barnacles on the hull of our industrial ship, to the point our engines cannot develop enough thrust to drive us through the water.
The Chinese are not dumb. Even if we are do the engineering in the USA today, the Chinese engineers are learning or have learned what we are doing.
I think we have gone past the tipping point. If we don’t restart manufacturing here, then we won’t be able to tip it back the other way.
The pathetic union and welfare leaches will soon suffer incredible hardships when we have used up all the credit our forefathers fought hard to collect. Unfortunately, most of us and our children will suffer along with them.
Not so much (in fact, many defense analysts rate it well below the F-22, Rafale, etc. in maneuverability). Even if you discount the engines (which are a big issue, since sustained and coordinated G turns are dependent on available thrust), non-lifting control canards (which those look like in that picture) usually act to control stall properties (the canards usually stall at slightly lower AoA than the wing lift surfaces, meaning that the canards stall before the plane does) compared to a conventional setup. If you look at the NASA research on both control and lift canards, there's a reason OUR fighters don't have them. They really don't add much to the design, and they have some significant drawbacks (see the lifting canards on the X-29 for example)...
And the fool at the top cancels our F-22 because of cost. If they, like the Japanese, decide to hit us, we are in trouble.
They are not spending all this money just to look good. Wake up before it is too late.
“Unfortunately, in this instance the treasoncat was none other than Dubya.”
Actually, it was killed in 2009 for the FY2010 budget.
A short timeline to the death of the Raptor program:
On 6 April 2009, Secretary of Defense Gates called for the phasing out of F-22 production in fiscal year 2011.
On 9 July 2009, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of F-22 production.
“The Pentagon cannot continue with business as usual when it comes to the F-22 or any other program in excess of our needs.” - Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking on the cancellation.
On 21 July 2009, President Obama threatened to veto F-22 funding.
On 21 July 2009, the Senate voted in favor of ending F-22 production.
On 30 July 2009, the House agreed to remove funds for an additional 12 aircraft and abide by the 187 cap.
President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 in October 2009, without F-22 funding.
The J-20 is a rather strange airplane.
It is big. BIG. It’s size indicates something along the lines of a strategic interceptor.....think F-101, Su-15, or Mig 25/31. It is not a “dog-fighter” or air dominance airplane.
It’s forward section.....nose cone, cockpit, is F-22 like. Stealthy at least in shape. Aft that, it’s a combination of Rafale and F-23. Canards are not stealthy no matter how much you doctor them.
It’s a weird combination. Stealthily shaped big interceptor with very un-stealthy control surfaces and design that can’t possibly fly with more agile opponents.
It is impressive of them to display this level of tech. It is not impressive of them to display this level of technological disconnect.
The J-20 is an airplane designed to fly long ranges into an AWACS range and destroy the mothership while undetected. It’s other aerodynamic problems belie it’s ability to do so
It’s a modern day “Zerstroyer” which tech does not bear out.
The canards on the J-20 are individually pivotable and retractable. Take another look at the photo in Post #26, in which the right canard is pivoted (for rapid roll) and the left canard is retracted (swept back into the fuselage).
In their last budget, the Bush administration kept the option to extend F-22 production up to the next administration, but still planned to end production at 187 aircraft.
All Gates did under Obama was to continue the policy he advocated when he was Secetrary of Defense under Bush.
In January 2008, the Pentagon announced that it would ask Congress to fund additional F-22s.
24 Sept 2008, congress passed a defense spending bill authorizing additional F-22s.
The biggest cuts to the F-22 program came during the clinton administration where it was cut from 650+ aircraft to 438 in 1994, and then cut again in 1997 to 339 aircraft.
Due to a CONGRESSIONAL “cost cap” the procurement was reduced to 277 aircraft in 2003.
In 2004, the air force reduced the procurement to the 180+ in order to implement a multi-year procurement plan to allow for the possibility of future orders beyond the 180+ aircraft.
Actually, I think it’s just the angle that the photo was taken that makes the canard look like it’s retracted.
Maybe so. I will need to see more pictures to know for sure. Perhaps there is one of the J-30 with both canards retracted.
Bah! J-30 is a typo in my last post.
You must think in Rus uh Chinese!
Agility is nice, but the whole point of a stealth fighter is to shoot down the other guy before he even knows you're there. Better sensors, and information exchange as part of superior system with other assets make the F-22 superior. Dog fights are a thing of the past.
the Dragon carries more fuel and weapons than Lockheed's fighter.
That means it will make a bigger boom when the F-22 shoots it out of the sky.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.