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.