I hate falsification of history.

Rich coming from an Englishman.

The history of the British (English) empire is one of falsification.

hm yes you are right.
there is a belief in china if you throw your money at something and mimic something successful, you can do it too.
but some things, especially engineering and social stuff, take time, no matter how much money you throw at it.

Thats the thing about “lessons learned”…

… you have to make the mistake to learn the lesson.

[Unfortunately, all too often now in the “western” OEMs, while engineers have somewhat* of a grasp of the risks – and an appreciation of the scale of the task and the myriad of things that can go wrong – the program clowns in charge of schedule haven’t a f__king scooby – hence why all aircraft programs are late.]

*even then, we frequently underestimate it and many don’t sufficiently automate their tasks so it can be re-run quickly when (and its inevitable) the input data turns out to be wrong and has been updated!

IMO, production in 2027 is optimistic if a prototype flies in 2024-5. There is simply too much weapon integration to accomplish, unless Japan follows the F-35 development model and buys into “concurrency”.

Well… depends if they let smart engineers run the program their way or let the program “managers” have their way.

By decoupling flight critical code from mission code (a la GripenNG), by using the flight test vehicle as a software testbed for FCS, sensors and external weapons, by not allowing requirements creep and by rigourous structuring of the software interfaces much of the work can be done pre-production flights.

The main one is obviously decoupling of mission code from flight code.

Not saying its easy, or even that it will happen… just that it is definitely possible.

As the MS-21 is tangible and not from fairyland

You’ll not be able to fly on it this side of 2020. The whole program was on its ass a couple of months back with prime contractors downing tools and all sorts of external (read: foreign) expertise being brought in to bring it back from the brink.

MS-21 is more advanced than C919, reflecting the lead the Russians currently have in “aerodynamics, structural design, engines, metallurgy, composite material science and systems integration”.

But the C919 is more likely to be actually flying first, and produced much cheaper, also reflecting better “production philosophies, manufacturing processes and feedback loops”.

How is the Superjet getting on? There is more to making planes than having a load of fancy stuff at TRL6 or 7 in the R&D departments.

what do you guys think?

Where do the weapons go with the removal of the pylons?

In a hypothetical Foxhound replacement with internal carriage, I suppose you’d expect increased fuselage length for internal volume increases while keeping cross section down and variable cycle engines (or a variation on the SABRE engine concept).

I would also be inclined to believe they’d stick with the 2-crew option.

if a VHF radar after modification only manage to detect F-117 at about 37 miles , how could you expect a L-band or xband radar to do any better

Algorithms and processing power are much improved these days, as is raw radar power….

For instance, the P-18 power output is ~250kW, whereas today you’d be looking at 1MW+ at peak.

Possibly.

From the outside, I’m guessing the Russians would retain a lead in aerodynamics, structural design, engines, metallurgy, composite material science and systems integration.

The Chinese would probably have better production philosophies, manufacturing processes and feedback loops for lessons learned.

Hmm aren’t we a bit far from original question?

Its called “mission creep” :dev2:

Anywayz – I think we have our answers. In terms of aircraft available to the USAF, your looking at a B-1.

In terms of any possible aircraft, the MiG-31 may be a better option with the Tu-160 being a much better option.