Then again with all the money the US government owes to China you never know this might be a way to allieve the burden…

How would that work? America buys too much from China. Buying more won’t help.

The J10B seems like an odd choice to test the avionics and radar of the J20. Considering the size of the J20, will its intended future radar fit into the nose of a J10B? I would have thought the J11 or other Flanker derivative would be more suited to test the avionics, subsystems and radar of the J20, considering the similar size of the 2 aircraft?

Well, simple really. CAC and SAC hate each other’s guts. SAC is not going to release a J11 for CAC to test their new toys on, and even if they did, I doubt CAC would be happy about letter SAC get that close to their newest toys.

The J10B would be used to test out the ‘back-end’ of the radar. The J20’s would get a bigger antenna, but the integration work would be a lot quicker and smoother if the back-end systems has already been thoroughly tested, debugged and improved.

However, the J10B may benefit from the latest avionics, radar and other technologies being designed for the J20. Not necessarily the exact same systems, but a downsized radar and other systems to fit into the J10B airframe. A process similar to the J10 radar and avionics being downsized for the JF17.

That would make sense if the J10B came after the J20. Of course it won’t be the exact same bits of equipment, but the J10B could easily be used to test and develop the key technologies and theories underpinning the new generation radar and avionics.

Once you have cracked the key technical bottlenecks of being able to make the different systems work individually and as an integrated whole, upsizing it all to fit into a much larger airframe with more power and space would be a doddle in comparison.

The first few J20 prototypes will be used for aerodynamic testing, so that will keep all the airframe guys at CAC busy analyzing the data and developing refinements. The aircraft will be so stuff full of testing equipment there would not be a chance to test the avionics suit on the planes.

That leaves all the radar and avionics guys a bit idle while the airframe guys work out what the final configuration would be and the manufacturing guys make some pre-production airframes. Only then will the avionics guys get to put their wares on the J20, but that could easily be 5 years down the line from now or more.

In the meantime, they could focus their time and energies developing, testing and refining the core technologies on the J10B, then applying the lessons learned from that experience on what will go into the J20. That way, the first batch of radar and avionics to go into the plane will already be fairly mature tech and should have a lot less integration and performance issues than if there were putting it all together for the first time. That might shave a good few years off of the development timeframe. On top of that, the PLAAF gets a pretty damn fine J10B out of if.

Since money is not an issue, there really is no downside to doing things this way that I can see of.

guys, i found some interesting stuff:
a new stealth jet concept design, submitted by Hongdu Aviation Industry (Group) Corporation, China

Looks pretty cool, but is that a picture depicting the folding wings moving in flight? Kinda like massive canards for wings? Not sure how that will help RCS and drag.

At 20.5 meters long, it is in the same class as the J20, which is already flying. I have serious doubts about China fielding a hi-lo 5th gen mix. I cannot see the PLAAF agreeing to a second heavy stealth fighter at this stage. Hell, this would be the 3rd if SAC’s attempt turns out to be real.

Looks like its never going to happen, which is a bit of a shame as there are very interesting and unique design features.

If they made this as a J10 sized single engine plane, the PLAAF might be tempted to front the funds to build so scale models or maybe even a tech demonstrator to see how the new concepts work.

As it is, it hasn’t a hope of ever making it off the computer screen.

SAMs are also pretty static, even road mobile ones.

With a pure SAM defense, you have to spread your SAM assets across the entire territory you wish to defend. That thins out your coverage and makes it easier for the enemy to concentrate their forces to overwhelm a small section of your defenses and achieve a breach.

With fighters, you have the tactical flexibility to also concentrate your own forces to counter any enemy attack, as well as the mobility to move in and rapidly plug any holes the enemy might have been able to punch in your SAm screens.

Fighters are also not affected by terrain. If you rely solely on SAMs, the enemy may be able to greatly limit the movement of your SAMs by taking out key transport hubs such as bridges and tunnels etc.

With the introduction of stealth aircraft, I think these will benefit small, weaker nations far more than already powerful ones.

Now, a small fighter force of stealth fighters will no longer be a mere formality to brush aside as was the case with Serbia’s poor Fulcrums. Stealth fighters would be ideal for hit and hide tactics, especially the STOVL F35B. Take off with a few AAMs from a tennis court if you have to, get guidance from SAM radars or even its own radar to take out a strike package or force multiplier like AWACS, Growler or tanker, and then land before the enemy could respond without giving away where you are operating from.

All but makes it impossible to achieve air dominance, and can make sure a small but well trained and equipped air force can remain combat effective far longer than a considerably larger sized conventional force.

perhaps J-10B is nothing more than a test bed for J-20 tech? just like that F-16 with DSI intakes.

the J-10B’s DSI intakes look closer to the J-20’s one than the JF-17.

Possibly but unlikely. Just look at how many J10B prototypes they have built. That is far beyond the scope for a merely technology testbed programme.

The J10B would be a superior aircraft to the J10A currently in service. The J20 won’t reach IOC until 2017-19 if all goes smoothly, and even then, China is unlikely to buy a huge number of them. This means that China would still have a huge demand for a capable and affordable fighter to replace all their J7s and J8s as well as early Flankers before the J20 comes online and probably also afterwards.

The J10B fills that niche nicely. A 4.5gen airframe with 5th gen radar and avionics. If they can adapt the J10B to take the WS15, then it will also have a 5th gen engine, pretty damn good TWR and agility and it may even be able to supercruise with a modest AA loadout. All at a price not signficantly greater than the J10A. Probably what the JSF should have aimed for. :diablo:

*shrug*

Nice try. Is Pakistan a part of the Middle East without atomic weapons? Who will enforce that all of the countries in question will stay so?! :diablo:

Pakistan is South West Asia as far as I am concerned. If it doesn’t have oil, its not part of the Middle East, did you not know that? :p

And enforcement will be done by the IAEA or even a specially established international organization. These are just semantics. If Israel made a deal as I described, Iran would take it in a heartbeat provided it was fair and honest to all sides – so not just American or French inspectors monitoring Israel or Russian and Chinese only for Iran. Have a mix and match so no-one can have any doubts about the other side getting a better deal.

Its amazing how ‘difficult’ problems can be so easily solved with only a truly fair deal. At the end of the day, most deals are so difficult to negotiated because one side always wants more than their fair share, and so nothing gets done because no-one wants to on the receiving end of such unfair deals. So we have sanctions designed to force them into capitulating and the threat of unprovoked attack if sanctions doesn’t work. And Iran is the ‘rouge’ nation. What a joke.

Israels goals are achieved so easily here. they strike, get threatened back and get military aid. they dont strike they get military aid. they can strike, slap Iran in the face, set there program back a year for minimum risk.

there no S-300, stealth fighters or anyone to save Irans day, just the bitter pill that if silly decisions have consequences

Which is why Iran is treating Israel as America’s attack dog and saying to America behind the scenes, look how ineffective those mujahadeen and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq are without any modern and effective weapons.

Now picture how that would change if we supplied them with our latest MANPADS, ATGMs, HMG, mortars, high cal sniper rifles and training.

That is why America keeps Israel on such a tight leash. And that is not to say Israel itself will not suffer any direct attacks in response. Iran has powerful allies and proxies just itching to hit Israel with everything they have and then some.

The Iranians has the resources and willpower to create an extensive, distributed nuclear programme with lots of built in redundancy. It will require a massive and sustained undertaking to root out all those facilities provided Israel even knew where they all were.

Even then any bombing will only be a temporary set back and the Iranians will re-build with even more passion and urgency and we will be back in the same position a few years down the line at most.

The surest and only way for the middle east to remain nuke free is if it was actually made nuke free.

If Israel gave up its nukes and accepted the same level of international scrutiny and verification as demanded of Iran, the Iranians would bite your hand off.

So the question is less, how do we get Iran to stop pursuing nukes when we give and wink and a nod for Israel to keep theirs, but rather, how do we get Israel to give up its nukes to make sure the middle east remain nuke free?

And there is a very simple answer to that question, if America threatened to cut off all aid and assistance to Israel and will sell the F35 to all of Israel’s neighbors (who are friendly with America of course, no Lightenings for Tehran no matter what!) not Israel, I dare say the Israelis would have a serious long look at how much their nukes means to them.

But alas, that will never happen because of how much power the Jewish lobby holds in Washington. Any US President with the balls to do something like this will be made out to be Hitler re-incarnated. :rolleyes: