While I would be happy to respond to the points you have made, a moderator has ‘fired a shot across our bows’, so we will have to bide by his decision. I will bow out of this thread with the words that the great newspaper writer H. L. Mencken used to send (on a pre-printed card) to in response to letters from outraged readers:

Dear Sir or Madam:
You may be right.
Yours sincerely

Classy move mate. 😉

Wtf did this Mig1.42 connection come from? The only thing similar is that they both had canards.

So we have people who claim the J20 is Mig1.42 ‘influenced’ when they look so completely different and have no established links, yet claim that the PAF-FA has nothing to do with the Flanker despite a very similar design philosophy and the fact that the same company made both.

Its just more evidence that people will see what they want and that baseless personal opinion is utterly worthless.

Something to bare in mind is that just launching a missile does not automatically equal a destroyed AWACS, especially using ARH missiles. Remember that even the F22s AESA radar has a capable EW function. And I would expect a modern AWACS to have something similar but more powerful and probably able to function for a useful length of time before frying the radar itself.

With that in mind, I do not think AWACS are quite that vulnerable. The likes of the Mica IR might be a different story, but probably not that relevant till the French have a stealth to get it close enough to an AWACS undetected.

Also, given how powerful AWACS radars are and the fact that the top end ones have continous 360 radar coverage, what are the chances of an AAM approaching undetected until it’s within seeker range?

And down my local camera club there are those that don’t ‘rate’ Nikon cameras and shoot with nothing but Canon, while at the other end of the bar they don’t ‘rate’ Canon but swear by their Nikons. That’s life, as the saying goes. But these are only opinions, and they don’t tell me much useful information. Watch the professional photographers at an air show and you are likely to see both brands in widespread use.

That’s comparing apples to oranges my friend. The choice of a camera between two comparable brands is down to personal preference and taste. My total lack of faith in Jane’s Chinese reporting is based on their long and consistent habit of making many many gaffs and mistakes, and posting things that clearly looks highly suspect based solely on ‘Russian sources’.

A better analogy would be comparing a Canon or Nikon to a cheap knock-off brand with a long history of getting things wrong.

There is a lot more high and medium-level contact between rival companies that you may realise. At trade shows, senior executives can be found dining in each other’s chalets, visiting each other’s exhibition stands, and taking away the other’s guy’s printed material. Senior company engineers east and west also meet each other at international conferences. The last time I met MiG designer Rostislav Belyakov, he was dining with one of the leading US fighter manufacturers. And I’m sure that went off carrying a stack of their technical brochures.

And you think any of those people got to where they are by being careless or stupid enough to reveal state secrets to the competition? Even trade secrets are jealously guarded.

Contacts only give each other so much, and the J20 and PAK-FA are direct competitors. What you are suggesting is akin to the heads of Nissan and Ford/GM giving each other the in’s and out’s of each other’s next generation flagship car designs. It makes no sense to do so, and it just doesn’t happen.

So it’s quite possible that Russian companies could have legitimately acquired drawings and photos of the J-20 by any of these routes. Illegitimate routes for this sort of information also exist, of course.

Possible, but highly unlikely, what possible reason do the Chinese have to release such information to the Russians? If a suggestion doesn’t pass the ‘why do it’ test, 9 times out of 10, that theory is incorrect. Rational and intelligent people only do things for a reason when it comes to business and careers.

And talk of illegitimate routes is pure speculation and completely unverifiable. One could argue with just as much credibility that the Chinese deliberately left a bunch of fake and misleading documents for the Russians to find. Once we start down that road I foresee the quality of discussion to nosedive. Lets best steer clear of such murky waters shall we?

Then I wonder where Russia’s Agat design bureau is getting the funding for so many new missile seekers, and why Chinese air-to-air BVR missile seekers closely resemble AGAT designs?

And this is relevant because? You will also find Russian defense contractors sourcing components and subsystems from Chinese manufactures at various fairs and trade shows. So what?

“a minimum amount of consultation?” Integration of a modern turbofan is unlikely to be trouble free unless you get the engine maker fully involved. The F-14, F-15 and F-111 showed what happens if you don’t.

Well it is minimum in terms of the design work that has gone into the aircraft. But from the way some Russian sources have been milking it, you’d think they practically design the J10 themselves.

It’s not unknown for foreign contractors to talk unflatteringly about what they perceive to be a less-experienced employer. Back in the 1960s when certain rockets were showing a clear reluctance to perform in the desert skies, a colleague who worked at the Helwan facility used to swear that his Egyptian staff were totally incompetent, and if the Ha-300 fighter ever flew, it would be due largely to the skills of the expatriate staff.

And it is not unknown for the Russians to deliberately bash Chinese projects or try to take credit for things they had nothing to do with.

The most certainly made as much about the early production issues with kit-bashed J11As as they could. But looking at the finishing of the planes made, it would seem that SAC either made remarkably quick progress in getting their act together (and I personally don’t think SAC is that good to be able to make that kind of a turn around so quickly based on their past performance), or the production quality issue wasn’t quite as grave as the Russians made it out to be.

The Russians were trash talking the J11B to make it sound like a outdated knock-off Su27SK that could not possibly match what the Russians are offering, but the truth of the matter is that the J11B is far more capable than what the Russians try to make it out to be, and the reason is because the Chinese upgraded it with their own indigenous equipment instead of stuffing it it ‘copied’ Russian gear as was suggested.

Same thing with the J15 naval flanker, but that is clearly groundless since almost nothing is known about it. And it seems highly improbably that the people are SAC would be all that chummy with Sukhoi given their history.

Aside from the J10, the Russians have also tried to take credit for the JF17 by trying to link it to the cancelled Mig33, yet there has never been any remotely satisfactory evidence presented to make much of a case for that.

Contrary to popular belief, defence companies rarely ‘knock’ their rivals. It is not a productive tactic, and if exposed, could reflect badly on the company that did it.

So Sukhoi hasn’t been bad mouthing the J11B at every opportunity? And that’s just sticking to air force examples.

Since I am the person who posted what he claims is ‘idiotic BS’, I would be grateful if Mr Plawolf, (a self-confessed ‘aggresive member’ [sic]) would document with facts, not opinions, any factual errors in the posting in question.

A named Jane’s journalist had discussed the J-20 with his Russian sources and had quoted their opinions. All I did was to briefly summarise, as accurately as I could, a report from a subscription-only website that most forum members are unlikely to have access to. This was done simply to add more potential information to our communal knowledge.

The only way to demonstrate that the cited Russian opinions are wrong is to produce facts that demonstrate this. For the moment, those Russian opinions may be right or may be wrong.

Since I have made only a handful of postings in this thread, I would also like Mr Plawolf to document with facts, not his own personal opinions, any statements that I have made in these that demonstrate that I am a “troll and hater”.

This morning I found an excellent passage in another forum in which the thread owner commented on some of the harsher opinions that had been expressed on a controversial subject:

“You must remember that in the search for truth some mistakes will be made. I have to say, however, that no one has actually proved that those ideas discussed here were wrong, even if they think they have proved them wrong.”

Well firstly, my comments were never directly at you, apologies if you thought they were. There were a lot a negative comments posted, and I was not petty enough to keep score and just used a few examples ottomh.

Secondly, it might be an interesting exercise to have a look at the various Jane’s ‘scoops’ from Russians sources regarding Chinese projects over the years to see how many of those ‘predictions’ actually panned out and how many turned out to be pure Russian disinformation or plain wishful thinking.

I do not rate Jane’s at all when it come to Chinese military matters, and I am far from the only one.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for CAC to give any Russians any inside access to what is a direct competitor to the Russian PAK-FA. The Russians had not made much to interest the Chinese for quite some time now. The last time the Chinese accepted Russian help on one of their projects was probably a minimum amount of consultation on AL31 integration on the J10, and look how some Russians sources have been milking that to make it look like they were a critical part of the J10 project. I somehow doubt CAC has overlooked or forgotten about that.

There simply is no reason why the Russians would know any more about the J20 than anyone else, and for them to claim to know what the prototypes are made of is simply not credible.

My inclusion of that piece of information is mainly because of the very great possibility that those ‘sources’ are simply doing what the Russians have been doing for years now – bashing Chinese projects any way they can as they are starting to realize that Chinese products are becoming capable enough to be a serious challenge to the very best they can offer and so they are resorting to smear tactics to try and get a advantage on any potential export deals. And Jane’s seem to not be able to learn from their past mistakes and keep airing these baseless and frequently completely wrong Russian claims.

Someone should crank up the contrast on the picture with the reversed 2001. You can definitely seem some distinctive straight lines running down the centre and the left (right?) side.

If those are weapons bays, then that’s either a very nice coat of paint, or they got some impressive precision engineering tools to make the doors fit some smoothly that its so hard to tell even with decent quality photos.

One thing is certain, there is no space to store fuel in eighter the wings or the stabz, so i’ll guess all is stored in the body airframe.
Wonder how much volume it have and where the internal tanks are installed?

Why not the wings? The vertical stabilizers I would agree with, but the wings are not that thin, and it would be strange to say the least to not use that space for fuel storage.