More thoughts on the unveiling of the Chinese J-21 stealth fighter

Bill has some interesting thoughts about China's new J-21 stealth fighter over on Aviation Week's Ares blog.

Bill also points to this piece of history from another source:

In the past year (2009) alone, Lockheed Martin found “six to eight companies” among its subcontractors “had been totally compromised – emails, their networks, everything” according to Lockheed Martin chief information security officer Anne Mullins.

He sees the F-35 if the short-take-off-vertical-landing (STOVL)was not a requirement. STOVL design requirements have caused numerous problems with all 3 F-35 variants.

It will be interesting to see what mission sets China expects out of the J-21. I still think this design is complementary to the J-20 for achieving regional air supremacy.

It is obvious that the compromised U.S. data has born fruit. If it were me designing this thing, I would have built the center section around the F-22 main weapon's bay. It is a better bay for performance aircraft.

I suppose the coming months will see how far these assumptions go.

China puts out the welcome mat for Panetta visit--a new stealth fighter

U.S. Defense Secretary Panetta will be visiting China this week. The NY Times has a short summary of the pivot to Asia such as it is.

Or maybe his visit is about Chinese communist bullying in the region.

China has put out the welcome mat already. Chinese internet sources have shown this photo of the new J-21 stealth fighter prototype.



The J-21 gives the appearance of a pure air-superiorty machine, that would be more in the area of the F-22 than its' predecessor, the J-20.

The absense of rearward facing low observable nozzles on the J-21 could be:

1. They haven't figured that out, and that this of course is a prototype waiting on other design issues.
2. They don't want to spend that much on the airframe and consider something like "affordable stealth" (frontward facing and easy to maintain...like the F-35) good enough for the missions it will perform.

David and others consider the idea that China may only be able to afford either the J-20 or J-21. I'm not so sure. I would put my money on the J-21 being more air supremancy with some possible light strike ability, and the J-20 carrying more (longer range) strike capability yet being able to do interceptor duty.

A balanced approach in capability planning: backed up by tankers, airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and on their own turf, a credible integrated air defence system (IADS).

China's long game is steady. When matched up against a country over $16T in debt that has seriously de-skilled defence-thinking, China should be more than secure about defending their local interests into the future.

Threat picture

A related briefing slide showed an image of all three F-35 variants, along with the image of another aircraft resembling the Chinese J-20 stealth fighter listed as a "current and future threat".

Funny. The J-20 may be a threat. But it is doubtful that the F-35 will be able to do much about it.

Rating U.S. and China defense industry

So apparently the U.S. defense worker still has an edge. This is according to some that continue to cheerlead with great abandon about the quality of U.S. military wares.

These same kind of people think that China is 10 to 15 years away from having a credible threat air power. While communist China’s thievery of intellectual property knows no bounds, China has a few advantages going for them.

Consider this in the area of defense projects. Their work force doesn’t cost as much. Ours does. They are not in massive debt. We are. They have massive amounts of engineers. We do not. K thru 12 education in the U.S, where the potential engineer starts; is a shambles. They are continually growing engineers. We are not. They have a strong work ethic. Our workers have other activities during the day.

And U.S. industry must think so too. Why else do they try and employ anyone but a U.S. worker while they off-shore anything that isn't nailed down? U.S. aerospace industry representation in communist China is huge.

So when will China have the kind of high-end jet engines needed to power the J-20? Sooner than we think.

Add to this that our carrier air wing (today and the future) is obsolete vs. high end threats. We have sold out Taiwan so as not to make the communists mad. We have prevented F-22s from being sold to Japan; so as not to make the communists mad.

Continue to dream. Maybe it will all just go away.

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New APA paper--China's J-20 fighter has the potential to be a VLO design

Air Power Australia (APA) has just released a lengthy preliminary study on the low observable potential of the Chinese J-20 fighter aircraft. Some parts of it can only be understood by engineers.

The parts that can be understood by a non-engineer reveal the following.

1.The U.S. leadership has very little credibility in their statements about the potential threat of this aircraft. One may believe that the J-20 does qualify as a “capability surprise”.

2.The U.S. does not know the current ability of Chinese engineering skill in the area of low observable materials (radar absorbent skin and radar absorbent material).

3.The rules of low observable aircraft design are shaping, shaping, shaping and material. The APA paper looks at the shaping of the J-20 aircraft. The APA paper also takes a look at the potential effects of known radar absorbent material with the J-20 design.

4.APA has determined that the J-20 has the potential to be a very-low-observable (VLO) design if China can make it so. In this area of concern, the J-20 design has growth potential.

"In conclusion, this study has established through Physical Optics simulation across nine frequency bands, that no fundamental obstacles exist in the shaping design of the J-20 prototype, which would preclude its development into a genuine Very Low Observable design."

All of this is important because the U.S. has ended production of the F-22. Out-going U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates theory that the U.S. will have several hundred “fifth-generation” fighter aircraft in the 2020’s holds no water. In any event, if the J-20 is successful, it will be produced in a number that will make the 120 or so combat coded F-22s just not enough to secure future U.S. air superiority needs.

Some will say the authors of the APA paper don’t have access to the classified information involved in such programs. This is true. However, just because a program is classified, does not mean the engineers get to ignore the laws of physics.