Where Russia is ahead is in terms of airframe design and engines, but China seems to be ahead in terms of airframe construction, RAM, and avionics. The J-20, after all, is purportedly ultra-lightweight using more advanced construction methods, Chinese radar is either at or nearly at US parity in some measures, and the Chinese have made recent, interesting advances in RAM.

The most important thing for the Russians, though, is that a RAM-coated J-20 has hit IOC and is in series production. That means that J-20s can be spared for DACT for Russian pilots whose 5th generation aircraft has not yet hit IOC. In the Chinese experience, they spent a lot of time criticizing 5th gen capabilities, but when they actually tested the aircraft, they found that 5th gen aircraft have a decisive advantage over their 4th gen counterparts.

It should be China News Agency, rather. It’s not very credible, but it’s extremely promising. The WS-15 could be delayed to 2022 or later; the Chinese need modern engines now. The Russians have the TVC-enabled AL-41F engine with reasonably good thrust ratings in the 147kN range. Loan 6-12 J-20s to Russia, on the understanding that this loan is a disguised sale for the sake of Russian national pride, and that the Russians will help work on the FCS, since the Russians have extensive experience with TVC. Get the J-20 modified for TVC immediately, instead of waiting on the WS-15, and let the Russians maintain an operational J-20 squadron for experimental purposes and to bridge the gap until the Su-57 is produced en masse. For technological security, finalize the deal about the same time as the second-generation J-20 radar is ready, so the Russians get saddled with obsolete radar. Perhaps import some AL-41s to supplement WS-10Bs while China waits for the WS-15 to hit IOC.

We can use the canard length as a reference for perspective distortion here. Versus satellite, it’s a +-1.2% difference.

Thing is, RCS thickness is constant, ignoring scale. A bigger aperture requires more RAM, true, but the thickness lost to RAM is less in terms of percentages.

This is another possibility:

I’ve been measuring the radome from the satellite image at 30 pixels. The banded area is strange; if it corresponds to the black area on the F-35’s radome, then it’s the actual beginning of the radome and we get 33 pixels instead, giving us a nice comfortable 1.41 meters width.

As to why the J-20 emphasizes radar, larger radars are supposed to be able to jam smaller radars. The APG-81 has a diameter of about 725mm, while the J-20’s radar ranges from 950mm to 1050mm. If the technology level is the same, the J-20’s radar should be able to transmit twice the power.

How do you get 55cm depth? I measure the bay as about 2-2.5 meters wide, with the bay being about 30-40cm deep, assuming that maximum depth is one-eight of the bay width.

If you use a cubic method, i.e, finding the distance from the arches of the bay to the joint, then moving it down to a line parallel with the length axis of the J-20, then moving it to the wingspan axis, you can get roughly 5% of wingspan, which gives you over 60 cm. That’s incidentally enough for the JSM. The big problem is the length of the weapons bay: if it’s roughly 4.5 to 4.6 meters, it won’t be able to fit a 7-meter long YJ-12. But if there are AShMs designed for the J-20, it should be able to carry a tolerably capable anti-ship missile.

For reference purposes, JSM is roughly 40 cm in diameter, including fins but not the wing.

This sort of sets Blitzo’s argument that the J-20’s bays are too shallow for it to be a striker on fire, and we’re back to a striker (small wing area), as opposed to a fighter-interceptor.

QuantumFX: I think it’s possible we’ve missed something wholly obvious. The funny thing is, we DO have a grid. The bloody blocks on the tarmac constitute roughly a 4×5 grid, but I’m not sure if they’re actual meter measurements.

What I’m trying to avoid is the fact that the J-16 is somewhat of an unknown quantity: the radome could have been modified to accommodate Chinese electronics, while the tailboom could have been modified likewise. Do we have ANY information on the tile sizing of Chinese airstrips? If we do, we can skip the J-16 as a measuring block and just go straight to the tarmac, which gives us clear information, independent of relative sizing.

Let’s put this another way. The J-20 purportedly, according to some Chinese general cited on SDF, will have the largest radar of any 5th generation fighter. Even with the smaller figures, the J-20 has a larger radar than the F-22. However, once you put in the PAK-FA, the figures get tricky, since with the smaller 12.88 wingspan, you no longer exceed the PAK-FA’s radome size (i.e, you’re counting on the Russians to suck).

My issue with you, latenlazy, is that for all your talk of objectivity, you’re very much a Chinese aircraft fanboy. You play the aggrieved party, and you’re right insofar as the West is often too negative on Chinese aerospace developments, but remember the time you admitted that you didn’t understand that Kopp’s RCS simulation was a 3-dimensional polar diagram, not a dispersal diagram. China has come a long way since the 80s, but it’s behind in many respects and the people on the ground know it. You’d be better off if, for a week, you repeated to yourself in front of your bathroom mirror “CHINA SUCKS CHINA SUCKS CHINA SUCKS”. You won’t end up joining the Heritage Foundation or getting financed by NED, but it’d do wonders for your objectivity.

The J-20 has many advantages over existing aircraft in terms of performance; its radar is larger, with the proper engines it will have better high speed performance, but it also has deficits, such as its roughly 10 dBsm stealth inferiority, or that it’s not likely to outmaneuver the PAK-FA or F-22 at low speeds. Nor can it run, most importantly; its rear stealth is abysmal (which is actually one of the best arguments against the J-20 as an interceptor); the J-20 is essentially little different than the PLA troops that were chained to their machine guns in Chosun, if they do not win, they die.