Generations are a marketing gimmick by the U.S. MIC and don’t have any substantial meaning - arguably a 4 vs really cutting edge 4.5 gen fighter is as much of a difference but the nomenclature has already been in use so they have to add an additional .5 to the generations.The reason this form factor is interesting is because it meets the general requirements of NGAD specifically - a stealth plane that is large enough to conduct long range ops in over pacific ranges, which means about the size of an F-111.
Die F-18 is not a stealth airframe. The F-117 can be considered the first "true" stealth aircraft. It‘s not a fighter so I don‘t see how that is relevant.
> Die F-18 is not a stealth airframe.
RCS an order of magnitude lower than legacy Hornets.
> It‘s not a fighter
***F***-117. Maybe not an air-superiority fighter, but a fighter nonetheless. Assigned to fighter wings, etc.
F-18‘s radar cross section is around 1m^2, compared to around 0.0001 of the F-22. That‘s multiple orders of magnitude lower, they are not in the same playing field.
The F-117 had zero fighter capabilites. No radar, no air-air missiles, no gun, no countermeasures. I don‘t know why it was named that way, it should‘ve been A-117.
> F-18‘s radar cross section is around 1m2 compared to around 0.0001 of the F-22. That‘s multiple orders of magnitude lower, they are not in the same playing field.
Do you agree with the folks who see the SR-71 as one of the first operational stealth aircraft? It has stealth shaping features such as the chines, it has RAM in the leading edges, etc. It has an RCS 10x larger than the F-18E. Your claim was that it doesn't have a "stealth airframe", when it clearly does.
> The F-117 had zero fighter capabilites.
The F-111 was never used in an air superiority role either. It had the capability to carry AIM-9, but rarely did even in combat.
> No radar
Neither did the early F-5s. And despite the F- fighter designation, those were also never used in an air superiority role by USAF. They flew tactical air support. Most early Mirage fighters also had no radars.
> no air-air missiles
Again, see actual usage of F-111s.
> no gun
Are F-4B/C/Ds not fighters? Nor F-111s? What about F-35Bs and Cs?
> no countermeasures
Stealth *is* their countermeasure.
> it should‘ve been A-117 or B for that matter.
Right. You, not the USAF, are now the authority. Must feel pretty good.
With the SR-71, they tried to
first stealth elements. Given that the plane was developed in the late 50‘s, it‘s not surprising that it couldn‘t match later technology.
The Super Hornet is an improved design, not a plane built from the ground up to be stealthy. The fact that it doesn‘t have an internal weapons bay basically disqualifies it already.
The F-117 simply had no means to shoot down enemy planes. This was my point. Yes, some jets didn‘t have this or that for multiple reasons, but the F-117 had literally zero options to engage enemy aircraft.
> The Super Hornet is an improved design, not a plane built from the ground up to be stealthy.
Other than general shape, they are an entirely an new design from the legacy Hornets. Even the pylons are different. Go look at the actual mold-lines of the airframe, and you'll see the shaping for stealth.
> The fact that it doesn‘t have an internal weapons bay basically disqualifies it already.
Nah. They obviously felt it was worth it to proceed with the stealth improvements, so obviously saw the benefit of the additional cost. They even looked at stealthy weapons carry, but didn't proceed due to cost.
> The F-117 simply had no means to shoot down enemy planes.
Depends [who you talk to](https://theaviationist.com/2020/06/03/f-117s-had-an-air-to-air-capability-with-secondary-mission-to-shoot-down-soviet-awacs-former-stealth-pilot-says/). F-111s mostly deployed without the Sidewinders, and never had an air-to-air role anyway. They too were attack aircraft through and through.
There is a long story to the designation but it’s not really a fighter in all but fake-ish name.
Was summarized/told well in an old comment on this sub:
“The captured MiGs used in Constant Peg were logged as F-112-116 (F-111 was the last fighter made before the reset) and the F-117 was flown from the same airfield. Therefore when a spy saw the log books they would think it was another MiG instead of a new fighter. Payload and size it is closer to a fighter than a bomber.”
“The F-117 had similar pilot work loads useful to the pilots to maintain their currency while working with heavily restricted F-117 use, and served as a successful deception against the Soviets (giving the unit a plausible reason for existence). Three months after the F-117 went public, the A-7s were retired.”
Basically it was a replacement for the A-7 but called F-117 to confuse the Russians as it was still too secret after being deployed. And deployed to fighter wings to keep up the same ruse.
It was never meant to be an A-7 replacement. Ben Rich's book explains that the A-7s were a cover, and available due to being retired from other units. They were used to keep the pilots current on flight hours, to practice deployments, etc.
The Air Force has a history of disliking the A- designation. Since WW II, the USN developed the A-2, A-3, A-4, A-5, A-6, A-7, A-12, and F/A-18. The USAF was forced to adopt the A-3, and A-7. Out of spite, or whatever other institutional bias they have, they changed them so much as to be almost entirely incompatible with the Navy versions. Congress also forced the A-10 on them by threatening to give the role to the Army, overturning the previous agreement on division of roles. All the other post-war USAF A- aircraft are modified cargo or training aircarft, etc.
And yet both were treated as fighters by USAF. They were in fighter squadrons, pilots went through the same schools as fighter pilots, not wi bomber pilots, trash haulers, etc. Again, not air superiority fighters, but officially fighters nontheless.
Its still not a fighter you plank, maybe just MAYBE its a fighter flight school because its a similar type of aircraft, but no, that couldnt POSSIBLY be the case. I can call you smart all day long, doesnt make it true. Just like the USAF called the nighthawk a fighter, doesnt make it true, you absolute specimen
> Its still not a fighter you plank, maybe just MAYBE its a fighter flight school because its a similar type of aircraft, but no, that couldnt POSSIBLY be the case.
Again, F-111 was also a fighter to the USAF, despite never flying air superiority or interceptor roles. Same for F-5.
> I can call you smart all day long, doesnt make it true.
I'm blushing.
> Just like the USAF called the nighthawk a fighter, doesnt make it true,
Ah, yes. Now you are the official arbiter of what is and isn't a fighter in the USAF. All those USAF folks got it wrong. So embarassing for them. Better go tell them.
> you absolute specimen
Ah, yes, the ad hominem attack. The last resort of the person losing an argument.
Unless you have TS classification or gets invited to a signal chat you don’t exactly know what exactly passes as “stealth” though, and it’s not exactly like in video games where you have a slider bar on how small your RCS/“stealth” trait are. Are the Chinese and Russian fighters as “stealthy” as the U.S.? Across what spectrums and how are the enemy radars optimised for your side’s stealth fighters? Does your side have the enablers and electronic warfare to allow your stealth fighters to be more effective? Does your fifth gen fighters have the legs to get to the better and the internal stores to keep it fighting for long enough without an aerial tanker showing everyone where your fighters are? etc etc. A very good EW suite carried on a very new 4.5 gen fighter or an accompanying aircraft if used really well could jam the radars to produce a similar (if not really comparable) effect that blinds the enemy instead of needing all your planes to blend into a a silent EM environment. Setting aside all the new non-radar modes of early warning (something as simple as a network of microphones that the Ukrainians are using to real time satellite detection.) Modern air defense networking are smarter than what they were even 20 years ago, it’s not just whether you get a ping off the target any more; venture capitalists are probably overhyping it but machine learning is supremely good at finding the faintest of signals in the noise, and many early application of ML were in defense and intel. Just to use one example that we know about last year a paper was published that gave new predictions of where MH370 crashed by processing the very subtle ways point-to-point HF transmission across the planet were being affected by a single airplane.
I love that people are arguing and making points on what is what, when the term 5th gen was literally coined up by Lockheed Martins marketing and completely changed from the F-22 to the F-35! Omitting the sustained supercruise as a key 5th gen trait since the F-35 doesn't have it.
What he was saying is accurate. There isn't really a definition of what makes a 5th gen and now 6th gen planes. And originally the term was used to market the f22 and f35.
Lockheed Martin's original definition included supercruise (ability to cruise supersonically without afterburners) which the F-35 doesn't do (because it's not part of the design(
Marketing do be changing.
Like I remember how Honda advertised the original Odyssey saying that hinged doors are for people… sliding doors are for cargo…..
2008 is incredibly unlikely for a manned fighter prototype/demonstrator 2018 would be a lot more believable.
2008 would have been achievable for an unmanned aircraft though
They look fake to me. The color and lighting of the plane look weird (i.e. the bottom of the plane seems to have a weird reddish tint while the photos are otherwise tinted blue and the bottom of the plane seems more brightly illuminated compared to the rest of the pictures in the photos), and the bottom completely lacks any detail where the control surfaces and engine nacelles should be. It could be that whatever camera took the photos was just shit quality, or it could be Chinese propaganda to make it seem like they've been working on this design for much longer than they actually have.
Whatever the answer is about these particular photos I find the timing of all the 6th gen "leaks" suddenly coming out recently to be kind of suspicious. Like I'm expected to believe China has been doing broad-daylight testing of these things since 2008 and yet only in the past few months has any photo or video of them shown up on social media? Seems pretty weird. Also it seems weird they'd still be doing preliminary types of basic functions testing with these aircraft (as indicated by the fact that the only leaks we've seen of it show it flying around at low altitude with its landing gear extended despite not being in the act of taking off or landing) if they had actually been flying with them since 2008. My conspiracy theory is that the CCP is having these leaks and propaganda pushed right now to make the American people more hesitant about getting involved in any forthcoming Asian conflicts (i.e. China going for Taiwan) and/or increase domestic support and morale from Chinese citizens in anticipation of a forthcoming attempt to take Taiwan.
Saying it’s legit without a shred of credible evidence to support the photos doesn’t really make it legit in any form. I guess it’s only as legitimate as people wish to believe.
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2008 would seem like a really long dev timeline, especially by Chinese standards. If it really was 2008, maybe a sub-scale demonstrator for flight control testing?
Maybe, that depends on how closely the two planes are related and what stage of development each one is in. The YF-22 prototype first flew in 1990, and the first production F-22 flew in 1997, but the production F-22s were in testing until 2005.
17 years is a long time between demonstrator and prototype, but not out of line from demonstrator to production
Yeah I checked the sunset time at 2008/8/19 around Chengdu and it's more than an hour before 9 pm.
But it's still inconclusive because cameras don't see things like human eyes do, especially when environment is dim.
[https://www.douyin.com/note/7465679231796792634](https://www.douyin.com/note/7465679231796792634)
One of the images was also featured in a 2014 Xinhua article titled "Fake Military Photos We Fell For" [http://www.81.cn/jmtt/2014-08/20/content\_6103184\_31.htm](http://www.81.cn/jmtt/2014-08/20/content_6103184_31.htm)
You gave me an idea, 2008/8/19 was indeed Tuesday but the sun set way before 21:00, yet the sky looks pretty bright. Should have been rather dark.
Sunset: 19:41:48
Dusk: 20:06:35
That's one suspicious point.
You gave me an idea, 2008/8/19 was indeed Tuesday but the sun set way before 21:00, yet the sky looks pretty bright. Should have been rather dark.
That's one suspicious point.
||
||
|Sunset:|19:41:48|
|Dusk:|20:06:35|
You gave me an idea, 2008/8/19 was indeed Tuesday but the sun set way before 21:00, yet the sky looks pretty bright. Should have been rather dark.
That's one suspicious point.
||
||
|Sunset:|19:41:48|
|Dusk:|20:06:35|
I am…extremely skeptical that this is directly the J-36. Could be a project that provided some reference for the J-36, but the idea that this aircraft has been flying 2008 seems unlikely. Like 2010s/early 2020s is entirely believable, but 2008 just feels impossible.
This appears to be a single engine aircraft while the recent Chinease aircraft is a tripple engine. That, and the age, suggests this is another project altogether. Though, one likely wiht a direct liniage to the recently photographed aircraft.
There's a single large bulge taking up the majority of aircraft's middle with a predominant single exhaust and what appears to be a matching inlet in the front. All of which suggest it has a single engine.
That is a single exhaust nozzle and single exhaust trail. Look more closely at the image right below the date. You can see a single dark core of exhaust coming out of the circular exhaust nozzle.
Recessed exhausts is something the recent Chinese aircraft seems to have.
This aircraft appears to be a technology demonstrator, which you see the US do all the time. Those tend to be single engine aircraft because it reduces cost and isn't directly related to what's being tested. Based on the shape, I'm willing to bet this is an early precursor to what was just unveiled.
This might have been the test platform for the overall shape and controls.
This is clearly a demonstrator/prototype and quite possibly a drone. The exhausts point to a twin engine design which is a massive difference. It’s not abnormal for flying prototypes of aerodynamic designs (in this case VLO design as well). The flying aircrafts we see now for the next gen fighters are probably more akin to the relation of J-20 Prototype seen in 2011 to J-20 LRIP.
China has dozens of projects on the go, that could have just been a tech demonstrator for a later project, like we've seen around the world for a long time. doubtful they are the exact same thing.
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