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The question is not how good is the J-20 now. It is, having seen Chinas progression in 30 years, how good will it be when it enters service a decade from now?
don't kid yourself the USAF won't still be flying large numbers of F-15's with a small number of F-22's, as now, by 2020.
Originally posted by Aim64C
China's development cycle is somewhat different from America's. Setting a time table for maturation through a comparison with U.S. development is silly. China is, reportedly, looking at the 2015 time-frame for service. Which means we are not likely to see much evolution between now and then. They have about two years to debug, one year to tool up, and another year to build their initial parts inventory to start construction while teething the construction process.
This is not the same as in the U.S. - where competitors build demonstrators to win a contract for development of a production aircraft. This is the production aircraft - more or less.
Originally posted by pcrobotwolf
reply to post by waynos
. If we stopped using them for cheap labor they would collapse because they don't have the ingenuity it takes to produce products that anybody wants thats why they just paid a ton for our aircraft designs. just you wait it will happen to your country as well
Major military aircraft projects for almost all other nations demand a pooling in of resources. That is what happened with the T-50 and J-20. IIRC, it is pretty much the same in the EU as well?
Also I believe the Chinese look for a decade more to get this into series production, so they have time, and what's more: they have the 5th gen fighter development road pretty much carved out for them by taking cues (overtly and covertly) from similar western developments.
Saying that this is a a production a/c more-or-less is a little premature; I don't think we have even ascertained if this is a tech-demonstrator or a prototype. Now a/c usually do not grow new control surfaces and so externally visible changes will be very minute if at all (as with all a/c development programs) but the insides can change drastically, and there are indications that insides of this a/c are still very fluid int terms of engine and avionics.
If this aircraft is to be of any use to that PLA, it will be operational when the PLA accepts it as such, and not anytime before, whether that be 2015 or 2020. Nothing is going to happen by 2015.
Ah thats where its all wrong. If you stopped using them for cheap labour, you would collapse, not them. Its like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. And its not that they lack the ingenuity, they lack the time, the clout and the access to global resources that you enjoy; which is fair game of course, but so is everything else.
Originally posted by Aim64C
reply to post by Daedalus3
Major military aircraft projects for almost all other nations demand a pooling in of resources. That is what happened with the T-50 and J-20. IIRC, it is pretty much the same in the EU as well?
So, what makes you think this airframe is going to evolve considerably over its development cycle, considering it is such a massive endeavor to get it to this point? The EFA-2000 hasn't really changed all that much since it was first entering tests. The changes that were made were simply to get the thing to work like they wanted it to, not to seriously advance anything on the airframe.
Also I believe the Chinese look for a decade more to get this into series production, so they have time, and what's more: they have the 5th gen fighter development road pretty much carved out for them by taking cues (overtly and covertly) from similar western developments.
If they took any cues from our own fighter development, they would know that having a fighter tied up in development for a decade is hideously expensive, inefficient, and leads to an airframe that is so obsolete by time it enters service as to have negated the benefits of such a development cycle.
Saying that this is a a production a/c more-or-less is a little premature; I don't think we have even ascertained if this is a tech-demonstrator or a prototype. Now a/c usually do not grow new control surfaces and so externally visible changes will be very minute if at all (as with all a/c development programs) but the insides can change drastically, and there are indications that insides of this a/c are still very fluid int terms of engine and avionics.
Unless we're developing a second generation aircraft, here - the avionics are already fairly well set. Internal data buses are already in place with network and information sharing standards.
With the way information in modern avionics is processed, everything has to be on the same page. The radar is linked into the navigation systems, linked into IFF, RWR, ECM, etc. In the U.S. - we've developed a sort of "plug and play" set of standards that allow for you to swap out a Lockheed-developed radar for a Northrop-Grumman-developed radar with some 'driver updates' to the overall system.
China doesn't have half a dozen radar and avionics manufacturers. What they've got in there is what is going to be used. It will go through a debug process based on in-flight tests, and any further developments will be for a block upgrade to the production airframe.
If this aircraft is to be of any use to that PLA, it will be operational when the PLA accepts it as such, and not anytime before, whether that be 2015 or 2020. Nothing is going to happen by 2015.
They would be insane to choose to extend development into 2020. Moreover, assuming they have been even somewhat competent at industrial espionage; they would have very little need to extend the development cycle for so long. Most of the time spent in our own development of an ATF was chewed up in trial-and-error to determine the cost-effectiveness of different technologies. Thus - there is little need for them to dick around for ten years figuring out what they likely already know from looking at our own process.
The U.S. is the only first-world nation with the potential to be a successful isolationist nation. It would be a rough transition - but China would be hurting without the U.S. as a consumer. Moreover - we could begin contracting and subsidizing a labor market in India and South America, rather than China.
China is in an even tighter spot. Most of their economy is based around cheap labor and price-point competition lacking quality control. They are somewhere between a second and first world nation, and need to start outsourcing labor, themselves, to meet consumer demand. Considering they have been providing the cheap labor for a country with 30% of their own population - they are going to have a hard time finding some place capable of taking on their volume demand.
Which is why they are trying to gain as much leverage right now as they can. They won't have much in the way of leverage when their 'baby boomers' hit peak retirement. They realize their population control policies have sent them up a creek - and it's only a matter of time before they lose the paddle they are currently paddling with.