There could be two prototypes as well, writing for Janes International Defence Review on December 13th 2010, a week prior to the "leak" (here) Reuben F Johnson stated:
Meanwhile, rumours from China's Chengdu Aerospace Corporation (CAC) and the adjoining Aircraft Plant No 132 suggest that a flight of a Chinese-developed fifth-generation fighter prototype would take place by the end of the year. Reportedly, two airframes (numbered 2001 and 2002) have been assembled at the 132 plant.
10 comments:
Congratulations to the PLAAF for such technological achievement. This is a clear indication that corporations such as Boeing and Northrop-Grumman are providing valuable data into the design of the J-20 (see the X-32 and YF-23 and note certain similarities). In the end, the ultimate goal of these corporations is to maximize the profits of their stockholders, thus doing business with China is an excellent deal indeed.
US companies providing technology to china to make a 5th gen opponent to F22 and F35? are you on crack !
Andreas
For a start it looks more like the F-35 than the X-32 or YF-23.
Secondly, it looks like this because hackers stole the designs of the F-35 almost two years ago:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html
Two years is more than enough time to take the stolen data and use it to design and build a prototype aircraft. The Pentagon denied it at the time, but the similarities between this new design and the F-35 (particularly the nose and front fuselage) cannot be ignored.
Its a great achievement by the CHinese! Ppl can say whatever they want about the J-20 but the bottom line is that China is now apart of a very elite club of only 3 countries in the world that can build a stealth fighter. Performance-wise, we'll never know and lets hope we'll never find out. But I am sure it is up there if not better than the F-22s and T-50. Some say there are only 2 prototypes, I assume that there are already a few of these jets in full operational status. The CHinese wouldn't show off something without already tested it and knowing that it is fully functional. Otherwise, they lose face which means the world to them. I would guess that they have probably flown a few covert ops to foreign air space to test the stealthiness of this Jet!
This is bomber sized, not fighter sized. I say it's a bomber with marginal fighter capabilities.
..And I predict that this will crash on it's maiden flight and we won't hear about THAT for awhile.
That is an F-22 canopy, what's up with that? The nose looks very F-22 as well. The air intakes look a lot like the F-35 prototype, not the production model. The rear looks a lot like an Su-27 with a delta wing, not very stealthy looking. This looks to be a hybrid of new and old world technologies. I would still like to know where they got the F-22 canopy. No other Soviet (I know this thing is Chinese, but lets face it.....) fighters have that kind of clean, frame-less canopy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yinming/5345562121/in/photostream/
2 new pics
More details of the J 20 here
http://asian-defence-news.blogspot.com/
More details about Chinese navy and airforce
http://asian-defence-news.blogspot.com/
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