Chinese Stealth Fighter shows improvement on US technology

This is pretty interesting, and it'll be interesting to see if the US copies China on this one.

Stealth fighters rely on internal weapons to remain stealthy. However to launch said weapons, it requires having bay doors open, which both reduces maneuverability, and increases RCS significantly. Both the F-22, and the F-35 open the doors, and stick a rail out into the airflow, the F-35 on a trapeze, and the F-22 on an canted trapeze from a side bay. One way to help with this issue is to use a Lock On After Lock weapon, like the AIM-9X, which can be fired quickly, and then lock onto a target.

The Chinese have come up with an entirely new way for their new stealth aircraft. They use a rail system that extends out, and down so that the weapon is held clear of the door, allowing the door to close, and leaving the weapon exposed. This way there is very little damage to the RCS or maneuverability of the aircraft, while at the same time, having plenty of time to allow the missile to lock onto a target.

However, China might have found a clever solution to the problem, as the latest images of the J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth fighter jet, emerging from the Chinese Internet, seem to suggest.

Indeed, the second prototype of the aircraft features a missile deployment device on the side weapons bay which extracts the selected air-to-air missile and then closes the door to keep the reduced RCS.

Simpler and probably cheaper than the use of LOAL missiles, the J-20′s deployment device shows that Chinese engineers are not simply copying U.S. tech: if not improving it, they are at least troubleshooting some of the issues already faced by their American counterparts, with some clever ideas.

theaviationist.com...

That's a pretty simple and ingenious solution to the problem. Kudos to the Chinese.

Cool!

I am never convinced by statements that tell me how far ahead the USA is. In some areas, yes, in others probably not.

China could have Mach 10 rail guns by now and we would remain oblivious until it rained down on top of a carrier.
Tech in the US is built to make money! Tech in China is built to defend the country.

A lot of it is like the old story of NASA spending $1 M on developing a pen that worked in space, and they did it! The Russians used a crayon.

P

The main problem with 'stealth' is that as soon as you engage an enemy you light up like a xmas tree, I can't see this changing that. Interesting concept though which may be worth exploring.

Raptors strength as a platform is kill from a distance and the group engagement ability. The weakness is that again allied pilots will lose the ability to dogfight, which IMO is a backward step as stealth tech evolves. However Raptor is a good platform to evolve as a remote drone .

reply to post by Zaphod58


Well that's what you get when you steal new US technology before it is even implemented. Some day the US should plant some technology with a nice Easter egg inside. Or maybe they just did.

reply to post by current93


We experienced this in Vietnam with the F-4, dump your ordinance, run like hell, and pray for the best.
Yep, backwards imho.

A large difference would be that in the case of the F-35, the missiles are capable of LOAL. The doors are only open (creating drag and increasing RCS, as you said) for a few seconds to expose the missile before firing.
The solution exhibited on the J-20 is likely the result of not being able to feed data to the missiles and a need to expose the IR seeker, for example, in the airstream to acquire the target and then launch, which may take several seconds. Having the doors close with the rail exposed greatly minimizes that liability. The airflow around the fuselage/rail/missile is much less turbulent (and easier to model) than the chaotic airflow resulting from an open bay. It's pretty ingenious, actually.
I'm not sure the US will ever emulate it, because they don't need to keep the doors open as long, and by the time you get within range to uncage an IR missile, your RCS probably isn't a significant factor in the fight, but it doesn't mean it isn't clever.

reply to post by pheonix358


Pencils were hazardous to crews if a tip broke. And the United States never spent a million dollars developing a pen, just an urban legend. It was privately funded.

China is bound to make improvements on aircraft. Just like in any industry, you improve on an idea.

reply to post by _Del_


Prior to the decision to equip the F-22 with the Scorpion HMCS this would have actually been good for the F-22. That was one of the complaints the pilots had, was that even with the AIM-9X they couldn't take full advantage of the missile's HOBS capability without a helmet mounted sight. This would have allowed them to, as you said, keep the missile in the slipstream longer and give them a better chance at getting the shot. Now that they're finally getting an HMCS installed, it's not as big an issue with the Raptor.

reply to post by current93


That's just it though, the whole point of stealth is to hit your targets and disappear. If you were in the position of having to leave weapons doors open to launch, you weren't able to do that. This way, the door opens and closes quickly, meaning there's a very short RCS bloom before and after you launch.

Originally posted by Laxpla
reply to post by pheonix358

 

Pencils were hazardous to crews if a tip broke. And the United States never spent a million dollars developing a pen, just an urban legend. It was privately funded.

China is bound to make improvements on aircraft. Just like in any industry, you improve on an idea.

edit on 27-3-2013 by Laxpla because: (no reason given)

I did say it was a story! I never mentioned pencils. Pencils are hazardous, crayons not so much which is why the Russians used crayons.

You miss the point though. The military expenditure of the US is wasted to a large degree because of the need for huge profits and the need for everything to have a technical solution that makes more profit for someone. In this case the Chinese have made a cheaper and better system.

P

reply to post by pheonix358


pheonix358, "Tech in the U.S. it to make money and in China to defend the country"?

Bro, give your head a shake. The whole development of China has been about "making money". Period.

As far as military tech, sure China doesn't have oversite committees, can pour a fortune into specific programs without us being aware of that program or the degree of success of it. It's been my biggest worry about China for a number of years now.

Physical evidence suggests they are NOT at the same level as the U.S. and the U.S. military-industrial complex has given us the best military in the world. (that's how they make their money, LOL)

Your NASA eg is valid but I'm sure if we had access to everyone else's "gov't" spending, we'd find similar, if not worse egs there as well. We have a little bit more open access to our gov't than anyone else...anywhere.

Rail guns? Sure...but what are we sitting on that not even we know about?? Can't leave that one out.

China also is among the best in non-nuclear sub technology-along with the Euros. Better than our tech as we don't use em...probably should.LOL.

If there's one area that we still lead is R+D for military purposes...I think...at least before Obama...

reply to post by current93


So what if you light up like a xmas tree? It's whether you stay "lit up" that counts. The bay doors open and close in less than a second, from the videos I've seen. OK, you get a lock....then you loose it again.The Raptor changes his location in a hurry and the enemy is back to square one.

Lose our dog fighting ability? Where's that coming from? The Raptor destroys the F-15, which has never lost in a dog fight, is considered "dead-even" with the EF , supposedly, the best wvr fighter???

No better platform in the world, period. Drone? Garbage!

reply to post by Zaphod58


Just tell them to turn upside down if the radar is from the ground. If you are talking about air-to-air, and you are preparing to fire on the enemy, that means he is in front of you not behind or underneath or above. Dogfighting is WWII stuff, outdated as are A/C carriers.

OK. So I don't keep up on so-called modern systems in aircraft. We gave that F-22 and F-35 stuff to the Chinese to keep them occupied as we build our fleets of black triangles. Ooops! Of course, most of you guys don't want to go there.

Below link has images and a video clip.

LINK

If having munitions exposed outside the aircraft is stealthy, then what's the point of internal stores?

I'm having difficulty understanding how opening the door twice, positioning the weapon where it is exposed to radar, and then firing manages signatures any better than opening the door, firing, and closing the door, especially considering the LOAL abilities of the AIM-9X.

And from some unofficial photos it appears this mechanism is always protruding out from the weapons bay doors. How low observable will that be?

reply to post by Pants3204


Because until a week or two ago, the AIM-9X, even on the F-22 would have to be exposed long enough for the seeker to see the target at times. Which would have meant long periods with the doors open. Yes, in this the doors open twice, but they're short enough openings that it wouldn't hurt you.

Even with LOAL the AIM-9X requires some general steering to the general direction of the target, which until they decided to add the HMCS to the F-22, the F-22 didn't have if another Raptor wasn't in the area that could help out.

reply to post by Zaphod58


That makes sense to me, but I'm still puzzled how anyone could regard this solution any better at mitigating radar returns. How is the method of exposing the seeker head long enough to lock by moving the entire missile out of the bay door any better than opening the doors and hanging the missile out on a trapeze until lock? If anything the more complex mechanism is more prone to cause maintenance issues, and may have questionable reliability.

reply to post by Pants3204


Because if you sere in a big WVR fight, and have to leave your bay doors open for five seconds, that is five seconds with a huge RCS, and limited maneuverability. When the doors are open on the F-22 they are pretty much limited to gentle turns, and no high G maneuvers.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Do you have a source for that? I find it hard to believe the doors aren't stressed for maneuvering...

The AVEL was designed specifically with a long stroke to make a safe weapon release through the boundary layer even in maneuver. I'm fairly sure weapons release can be attained safely at 7g from the AVEL, but I can't find a link for you at the moment. It would be odd (not to mention pointless) if the doors weren't stressed similarly. On the side bays, it seems even more likely to achieve a safe release because the Sidewinder is coming off of a rail. Again, I can't imagine the doors not being stressed for maneuver here either.

Even if they weren't, weapons release take less than three seconds from door open to door close, so again, I'm not seeing this as a huge liability unless you need to uncage your IR AAM outside of the bay. Clearly the Chinese haven't quite conquered the non-trivial problems involved in that.

Whatever limitations on maneuvering are going to be from the newly imparted drag with the door open. I don't think you're going to get enough disturbance from an open bay to limit you to "gentle turns."