People's Liberation Army Air Force : News & Discussions

[Rajput Lion]

Yikes. Well I guess 3 engines it is which now leads me to believe it is more of a strike fighter.

The other one is not getting much love but that look like a pure fighter. Can't wait to see their long range stealth bomber rumors are they may unveil it soon.

Initially I too thought so but doing some research led me towards some interesting insights. The 3 engined one is actually more air-to-air oriented and also hasn't got an EOTS cube beneath the chin. The twin-engined one, though more maneuverable, has got one below the chin, so slightly more multi-role oriented.

The 3-engined one has huge size/width/weapons bay and ability to fly high/fast/supercruise along with superior combat persistence and endurance. It's no dogfighter, but PLAAF never wanted it to be. However, thanks to its huge weapons bay, it may take air-to-surface cruise missiles easily as well.

Its primary target is going to be your fighters along with your bases like Guam, so better watch out.

 

[South block]

 

[Innominate]

Initially I too thought so but doing some research led me towards some interesting insights. The 3 engined one is actually more air-to-air oriented and also hasn't got an EOTS cube beneath the chin. The twin-engined one, though more maneuverable, has got one below the chin, so slightly more multi-role oriented.

The 3-engined one has huge size/width/weapons bay and ability to fly high/fast/supercruise along with superior combat persistence and endurance. It's no dogfighter, but PLAAF never wanted it to be. However, thanks to its huge weapons bay, it may take air-to-surface cruise missiles easily as well.

Its primary target is going to be your fighters along with your bases like Guam, so better watch out.

They already have the capability to take out our bases in Guam with ballistic missiles. It's cheaper and they have plenty of them and are hard to take down I think this aircraft is to take out US tankers and AWACS. J-20 would not survive an attempt but this aircraft can likely carry the heavier and much longer range AA missile internally and will be (in theory) more stealthy than the J-20.

 

[randomradio]

View attachment 39244

So it's basically like the Rafale, without the third engine.

 

[Parthu]

JH-XX essentially seems to have the same length of main bay as the B-21, though the Raider's bay is wider with more, smaller sections to the side.

Either way it's much larger than J-20's bays.

 

[Hydra]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1873547691827007857

 

[randomradio]

View attachment 39245View attachment 39246

As an aside, this should be the first time I've seen Indians rethink the gap with China on a massive scale, when the J-20 came along, Indians think your engine is not good, so you are not a fifth-generation aircraft, India's su 30 and Rafale aircraft can fight or even exceed, when the sixth-generation aircraft appear, No rational Indian is still denying the gap with China


A person who has relations with the PLA made the explanation, I think said is very interesting

Not correct. Our environment and the capabilities required for it are different. What you have developed is very difficult for you to use in the same environment.

There is a significant gap in terms of specs, but during an actual fight a lot of these extra capabilities are quite useless. Depending on the terrain, there are such things like too much range, too much speed, too much maintenance etc.

For example, you need very high agility to deal with flying through gaps in the mountains, you need easy maintenance and turnaround to maintain a high sortie rate. Since the battlefield is small, these other qualities become more important. That's why Sweden and Pakistan decided to use single-engine jets to compensate for the difference in mass and capabilities on the other side; Soviet and India resply. And this difference increases even more because PLAAF has to operate out of Tibet, 4500m above sea level.

So what I'm saying is PLAAF is dedicated to match and defeat US forces, not Indian forces. But for India, aircraft like Rafale and AMCA will still be extremely effective against PLAAF because both designs are dedicated to defeat Chinese forces.

That's why the J-35 will be more effective against India than J-20 or J-36, but only if the J-35 is able to match Rafale/AMCA's qualities. That's also why the US had planned to develop 2 types of NGADs, one would have been China specific and the other would have been Russia specific.

Lastly, China's actual capabilities in terms of avionics is still unknown. And when we talk about engine electrical generation capacity, if Chinese tech sucks, then that's not really good news for China. We have a general idea about Western systems, for example, LCA Mk2 will generate the same amount of power as a Su-27/30. The new Rafale should easily be able to generate two to three times that, perhaps more. And European next gen aircraft could generate as much as 1 MW. With similar tech AMCA could also generate between 500 kW and 1 MW. If WS-15 generates 120 kW, then you can imagine why J-36 will need 3 engines. Then China has to develop a new engine that can generate 1 MW. So 3 engines doesn't mean anything without hard data.

And criticism of aircraft like the B-21 is meaningless. If that's what important people in PLAAF think, then that shows they are way behind the technology curve. Any given air space is too big for constant surveillance. If you can't see the B-21, then you will never know where the B-21 is even if it's flying right above your head, then speed becomes irrelevant to defeat it. If China plans to rely on speed, then they are not confident in their stealth designs.

You can see why information released by China is always questionable. We do not know the actual capabilities of engines and avionics, and we do not know why they'd prefer speed over stealth like the US and Russia.

 

[LX1111]

Not correct. Our environment and the capabilities required for it are different. What you have developed is very difficult for you to use in the same environment.

There is a significant gap in terms of specs, but during an actual fight a lot of these extra capabilities are quite useless. Depending on the terrain, there are such things like too much range, too much speed, too much maintenance etc.

For example, you need very high agility to deal with flying through gaps in the mountains, you need easy maintenance and turnaround to maintain a high sortie rate. Since the battlefield is small, these other qualities become more important. That's why Sweden and Pakistan decided to use single-engine jets to compensate for the difference in mass and capabilities on the other side; Soviet and India resply. And this difference increases even more because PLAAF has to operate out of Tibet, 4500m above sea level.

So what I'm saying is PLAAF is dedicated to match and defeat US forces, not Indian forces. But for India, aircraft like Rafale and AMCA will still be extremely effective against PLAAF because both designs are dedicated to defeat Chinese forces.

That's why the J-35 will be more effective against India than J-20 or J-36, but only if the J-35 is able to match Rafale/AMCA's qualities. That's also why the US had planned to develop 2 types of NGADs, one would have been China specific and the other would have been Russia specific.

Lastly, China's actual capabilities in terms of avionics is still unknown. And when we talk about engine electrical generation capacity, if Chinese tech sucks, then that's not really good news for China. We have a general idea about Western systems, for example, LCA Mk2 will generate the same amount of power as a Su-27/30. The new Rafale should easily be able to generate two to three times that, perhaps more. And European next gen aircraft could generate as much as 1 MW. With similar tech AMCA could also generate between 500 kW and 1 MW. If WS-15 generates 120 kW, then you can imagine why J-36 will need 3 engines. Then China has to develop a new engine that can generate 1 MW. So 3 engines doesn't mean anything without hard data.

And criticism of aircraft like the B-21 is meaningless. If that's what important people in PLAAF think, then that shows they are way behind the technology curve. Any given air space is too big for constant surveillance. If you can't see the B-21, then you will never know where the B-21 is even if it's flying right above your head, then speed becomes irrelevant to defeat it. If China plans to rely on speed, then they are not confident in their stealth designs.

You can see why information released by China is always questionable. We do not know the actual capabilities of engines and avionics, and we do not know why they'd prefer speed over stealth like the US and Russia.

Rafale fanatics, that's all, you think Rafale is the future, I can definitely say that Rafale fighter in China's rating is very low,
Now Rafale is bragging about what it has, bragging about its awesome-sounding electronic warfare system, that's all
You don't even understand the main concept of a fifth-generation fighter. I don't think I'm interested in teaching you how a sixth-generation fighter works

 

[randomradio]

Yikes. Well I guess 3 engines it is which now leads me to believe it is more of a strike fighter.

The other one is not getting much love but that look like a pure fighter. Can't wait to see their long range stealth bomber rumors are they may unveil it soon.

J-36 is definitely a strike fighter. A few months ago we had received reports that the Chinese were developing a large J-16 successor. It uses at least 27+T of dry thrust with 3 WS-15s, that can carry a lot of weight. It would put the MTOW at 65+T. If we assume the engine is currently interim and will use more thrust, then we could be looking at almost 75T.

And its main weapons bay seems to be at least 6 m long, that's enough to carry large cruise missiles. Although the goal must be for achieving a much greater range. Plenty of fuel for high speed cruise time too.

Anyway, it's a really troublesome fighter for the USN to deal with. I do not know if the F/A-XX with its lower range will cut it.

 

[LX1111]

Not correct. Our environment and the capabilities required for it are different. What you have developed is very difficult for you to use in the same environment.

There is a significant gap in terms of specs, but during an actual fight a lot of these extra capabilities are quite useless. Depending on the terrain, there are such things like too much range, too much speed, too much maintenance etc.

For example, you need very high agility to deal with flying through gaps in the mountains, you need easy maintenance and turnaround to maintain a high sortie rate. Since the battlefield is small, these other qualities become more important. That's why Sweden and Pakistan decided to use single-engine jets to compensate for the difference in mass and capabilities on the other side; Soviet and India resply. And this difference increases even more because PLAAF has to operate out of Tibet, 4500m above sea level.

So what I'm saying is PLAAF is dedicated to match and defeat US forces, not Indian forces. But for India, aircraft like Rafale and AMCA will still be extremely effective against PLAAF because both designs are dedicated to defeat Chinese forces.

That's why the J-35 will be more effective against India than J-20 or J-36, but only if the J-35 is able to match Rafale/AMCA's qualities. That's also why the US had planned to develop 2 types of NGADs, one would have been China specific and the other would have been Russia specific.

Lastly, China's actual capabilities in terms of avionics is still unknown. And when we talk about engine electrical generation capacity, if Chinese tech sucks, then that's not really good news for China. We have a general idea about Western systems, for example, LCA Mk2 will generate the same amount of power as a Su-27/30. The new Rafale should easily be able to generate two to three times that, perhaps more. And European next gen aircraft could generate as much as 1 MW. With similar tech AMCA could also generate between 500 kW and 1 MW. If WS-15 generates 120 kW, then you can imagine why J-36 will need 3 engines. Then China has to develop a new engine that can generate 1 MW. So 3 engines doesn't mean anything without hard data.

And criticism of aircraft like the B-21 is meaningless. If that's what important people in PLAAF think, then that shows they are way behind the technology curve. Any given air space is too big for constant surveillance. If you can't see the B-21, then you will never know where the B-21 is even if it's flying right above your head, then speed becomes irrelevant to defeat it. If China plans to rely on speed, then they are not confident in their stealth designs.

You can see why information released by China is always questionable. We do not know the actual capabilities of engines and avionics, and we do not know why they'd prefer speed over stealth like the US and Russia.

By the way, there are Rafale fighters so-called good at drilling gullies, my God, you do not watch the news? Are there still few news images of Chinese aircraft using low-altitude penetration in Tibet? What's so special about Gust? He's got a terrain warning system? Is this a difficult technique? Something available in slightly more expensive cars these days

 

[randomradio]

My friend, I doubt your state of mind,

You are not thinking completely.

What your friends stated in your post is how the Rafale was designed. The design philosophy is the same. Rafale was designed for stealth, supercruise, large payload, and EW, except it was designed in the 1980s with 2 small engines whereas the J-36 was designed the same way but with larger range and payload with 3 large engines. It's just a size difference, same design philosophy. The same comparison can be drawn between aircraft like B-2/B-21 and GJ-11, where the design philosophies are the same.

And Rafale has no EW specific version, all aircraft are capable of the same amount of high-end EW. Which means, this aircraft does not require support from Growler or equivalent.

So while US, Russia, UK, and China are out developing dedicated EW aircraft, the Rafale provides all capabilities necessary on its own. The French defense ministry rejected the need for a dedicated EW aircraft to support the Rafale, specifically due to the development of the upcoming version.

The earlier models of Rafale are definitely not competitive with the J-20B though. Rafale F3R/F4 have the software, weapons and computers, but not the hardware and electrical power to compete with next gen jets until the new one arrives in 2030; new engine and all new avionics.

 

[LX1111]

You are not thinking completely.

What your friends stated in your post is how the Rafale was designed. The design philosophy is the same. Rafale was designed for stealth, supercruise, large payload, and EW, except it was designed in the 1980s with 2 small engines whereas the J-36 was designed the same way but with larger range and payload with 3 large engines. It's just a size difference, same design philosophy. The same comparison can be drawn between aircraft like B-2/B-21 and GJ-11, where the design philosophies are the same.

And Rafale has no EW specific version, all aircraft are capable of the same amount of high-end EW. Which means, this aircraft does not require support from Growler or equivalent.

So while US, Russia, UK, and China are out developing dedicated EW aircraft, the Rafale provides all capabilities necessary on its own. The French defense ministry rejected the need for a dedicated EW aircraft to support the Rafale, specifically due to the development of the upcoming version.

The earlier models of Rafale are definitely not competitive with the J-20B though. Rafale F3R/F4 have the software, weapons and computers, but not the hardware and electrical power to compete with next gen jets until the new one arrives in 2030; new engine and all new avionics.

Instead of writing so many words here, you should go back to the simplest aerodynamic knowledge, so that the Rafale, a close-coupled canard aircraft, has advantages in the subsonic range and low to medium altitude, and by design, it is not a suitable aircraft for supersonic cruise, of course, now Dassault says it can supersonic cruise, and as for stealth, Only the Indians think Rafale is a stealth aircraft, and electronic warfare, of course, the Indians think its electronic warfare is very powerful, but due to the lack of specific public information, I will not comment on that

 

[randomradio]

View attachment 39263

JH-XX essentially seems to have the same length of main bay as the B-21, though the Raider's bay is wider with more, smaller sections to the side.

Either way it's much larger than J-20's bays.

View attachment 39264

The second one seems overestimated. The first one seems right; 6 m long, 1.5 m more than the F-22's. And the width of the main bay is only slightly more than the engine diameter, probably the same. So at least 2 m wide.

I think a lot of capabilities are being overestimated. Its 3 engine design is just compensating for lack of sufficient technologies.

 

[LX1111]

You are not thinking completely.

What your friends stated in your post is how the Rafale was designed. The design philosophy is the same. Rafale was designed for stealth, supercruise, large payload, and EW, except it was designed in the 1980s with 2 small engines whereas the J-36 was designed the same way but with larger range and payload with 3 large engines. It's just a size difference, same design philosophy. The same comparison can be drawn between aircraft like B-2/B-21 and GJ-11, where the design philosophies are the same.

And Rafale has no EW specific version, all aircraft are capable of the same amount of high-end EW. Which means, this aircraft does not require support from Growler or equivalent.

So while US, Russia, UK, and China are out developing dedicated EW aircraft, the Rafale provides all capabilities necessary on its own. The French defense ministry rejected the need for a dedicated EW aircraft to support the Rafale, specifically due to the development of the upcoming version.

The earlier models of Rafale are definitely not competitive with the J-20B though. Rafale F3R/F4 have the software, weapons and computers, but not the hardware and electrical power to compete with next gen jets until the new one arrives in 2030; new engine and all new avionics.

Now even Dassault himself does not believe their claim of active electronic warfare stealth,
The next generation of aircraft at Dassault is still very traditional through shape design to reduce the rcs
But there is still a big tail, a big gap from the Chinese design, and the aircraft could be in service as soon as 2050

We do not use the design of Chengdu, with the design of Shenyang to compare, can only say that the sunset of Dassault has arrived

 

[randomradio]

Rafale fanatics, that's all, you think Rafale is the future, I can definitely say that Rafale fighter in China's rating is very low,
Now Rafale is bragging about what it has, bragging about its awesome-sounding electronic warfare system, that's all
You don't even understand the main concept of a fifth-generation fighter. I don't think I'm interested in teaching you how a sixth-generation fighter works

That's 'cause you lack information, which is fine. Or the IAF would have prefered the FGFA over Rafale. I used to think the same way as you did more than half a decade ago. I don't think you realize this but the IAF has access to the most information available in the world due to MMRCA and FGFA programs. We know the design philosophies in both the East and the West.

Anyway, the J-36 doesn't seem to be 6th gen, just a high speed strike complement to the J-20. And the new Shenyang fighter could just be a 5th gen carrier fighter with better qualities than the J-35. Bookmark this post for future reference, it will most likely turn out to be true.

 

[randomradio]

By the way, there are Rafale fighters so-called good at drilling gullies, my God, you do not watch the news? Are there still few news images of Chinese aircraft using low-altitude penetration in Tibet? What's so special about Gust? He's got a terrain warning system? Is this a difficult technique? Something available in slightly more expensive cars these days

It's the whole package.

Think about it. The IAF knows about Western designs and Russian designs, they must have known about your new jets well before we did, but still want Rafales.

 

[randomradio]

Instead of writing so many words here, you should go back to the simplest aerodynamic knowledge, so that the Rafale, a close-coupled canard aircraft, has advantages in the subsonic range and low to medium altitude, and by design, it is not a suitable aircraft for supersonic cruise, of course, now Dassault says it can supersonic cruise, and as for stealth, Only the Indians think Rafale is a stealth aircraft, and electronic warfare, of course, the Indians think its electronic warfare is very powerful, but due to the lack of specific public information, I will not comment on that

The French publicly revealed that the Rafale's RCS is as small as a sparrow's. It was mentioned by a VP of Dassault. It changes a bit with external payload, but its continuously improving. It used to be 0.1m2 1.5 decades ago with weapons, but was improved half a decade ago to that of a sparrow, and will see further improvement with the new version.

Close-coupled or not, it can achieve mach 2. And it can supercruise at mach 1.4 with a drop tank and 4 missiles or with 6 missiles. Typhoon manages a bit higher speed with 2 drop tanks, mach 1.5.

The new version will come with a more powerful engine, so a definite increase in supercruise speed. Plus all new avionics architecture that combines all functions into one system while drastically increasing the number of antennas. Definite increase in RCS too. Maybe it will achieve sparrow-class RCS with external payload.

Even if you don't want to believe it, imagine it's true. Would that explain why the IAF would prefer Rafale over FGFA? Or whether it will be competitive with the J-20 or not?

 

[randomradio]

Now even Dassault himself does not believe their claim of active electronic warfare stealth,
The next generation of aircraft at Dassault is still very traditional through shape design to reduce the rcs
But there is still a big tail, a big gap from the Chinese design, and the aircraft could be in service as soon as 2050

View attachment 39268
We do not use the design of Chengdu, with the design of Shenyang to compare, can only say that the sunset of Dassault has arrived
View attachment 39270

What's interesting is Dassault would prefer SCAF is canceled and a modernized Rafale be developed for 2050+, with a new more advanced jet at a later date.

They are probably hoping that the elections in 2027 could change the president, and the new president can end the program.

 

[screambowl]

Pic of rear of plane shows all three exhausts are the same which contradicts all the speculations about a third, completely different RAMJET engine in the middle.


View attachment 39249

So they also had thrust to weight ratio problem or perhaps to power artificial intelligence supported avionics, which require huge power intake.

And by 2025 China will achieve major breakthrough ( close to achieve) in basic AI theories which will assist industrial upgrading and not just that. Cross media sensing and computing theory, Autonomous coordination, control and optimized decision making theory to assist intelligent navigation in complex environments.

Without the integration of the above technologies, it can't be considered as 6th Gen aircraft.

And to integrate all of the above you need huge amount of power supply, that comes from third engine, or aux power unit?

So in my opinion, the first full fledged 6th Gen fighter will arrive by 2028-2029.

 

[randomradio]

Initially I too thought so but doing some research led me towards some interesting insights. The 3 engined one is actually more air-to-air oriented and also hasn't got an EOTS cube beneath the chin. The twin-engined one, though more maneuverable, has got one below the chin, so slightly more multi-role oriented.

The 3-engined one has huge size/width/weapons bay and ability to fly high/fast/supercruise along with superior combat persistence and endurance. It's no dogfighter, but PLAAF never wanted it to be. However, thanks to its huge weapons bay, it may take air-to-surface cruise missiles easily as well.

Its primary target is going to be your fighters along with your bases like Guam, so better watch out.

It's like a hybrid interceptor/light bomber. Perhaps supersonic release of long range AAMs and AGMs at tankers, AWACS and ships as the primary targets.