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China’s J-20 stealthy prototype “is at the heavy end of the fighter scale, leaving ample room for medium and light platforms” as follow-on stealth designs to issue from Beijing’s aerospace industry, says Douglas Barrie, senior fellow at The International Institute for Strategic Studies. These follow-on aircraft may also be the vehicles for developing more all-aspect low observability. He notes that the J-20 appears optimized for stealth in the forward sector which would provide an advantage for beyond-visual-range air-to-air engagement or engaging surface targets with standoff weapons. The Chinese aircraft sports two lateral divertless supersonic intakes that includes a fixed-configuration bump...

Chinese officials recently unveiled a new, high-tech stealth fighter that could pose a significant threat to American air superiority - and some of its technology, it turns out, may well have come from the U.S. itself. Balkan military officials and other experts have told The Associated Press that in all probability the Chinese gleaned some of their technological know-how from an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999. Nighthawks were the world's first stealth fighters, planes that were very hard for radar to detect. But on March 27, 1999, during NATO's aerial bombing of Serbia in...

Only two years after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ decision to end production of the F-22 Raptor at 187 aircraft, the program may be poised to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. When Gates made his decision, it was on the assumption that other countries -- notably Russia and China -- would not develop their own fifth-generation fighters for at least another decade or more. Yet, even as the Secretary met with his counterparts from the Chinese military, that institution announced the first test flight of the J-20, their entrant into the fifth-generation fighter competition. In addition, Russia has...

China's military conducted the first flight test of an experimental stealth fighter Tuesday, apparently without informing the country's civilian leadership in advance and only hours before Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met with the Chinese president to discuss improving military ties. The test flight of the J-20 fighter seemed to represent a snub of Gates from China's military establishment during his three-day visit to Beijing and to deepen questions about how much control its civilian leadership exercises over the armed forces, which have often taken a harder line on improving relations with the U.S. When Gates mentioned the test in...

Chinese President Hu Jintao confirmed the country had on Tuesday conducted its first test-flight of a stealth fighter jet, which could narrow the nation's military gap with the United States, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said after talks with Hu. Gates said Hu told him that the maiden test-flight of the advanced J-20 fighter jet prototype was not timed to coincide with Gates's visit and had been planned earlier. "I asked President Hu about it directly, and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a pre-planned test. And that's where we...

Stealth jet quietly slips into history F-117A fighter retired after 25 years Cutting-edge design cloaked in mystery Nov. 2, 2006. 12:54 PM BILL TAYLOR FEATURE WRITER Almost as furtively as it flew above war zones from Bosnia to Baghdad, America's F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter has retired from active duty. The years had snuck up on it. Though it remained cutting-edge contemporary in many people's minds, the Nighthawk had hit the quarter-century mark. At a discreet "Silver Stealth" ceremony at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico this week, some of the people who built, serviced and flew the plane marked...

After months of tough negotiations, Israel and the US have agreed on a framework for Israeli involvement in development of the next-generation Joint Strike Fighter, the most lucrative military aircraft program ever. A memorandum of understanding is expected to be signed in the coming days in Washington, possibly on Friday, an Israeli official said. Some European partners in the program had resisted full Israeli participation in the development of the stealth fighter jet, which is expected to be functional by 2012. Israel last year was also late in applying for participation in the project, complicating the talks. As a result,...