A ? Though question persist & will do so for time to come, i think right NOW most would agree that there is SOME/MORE substance to china’s 5G fighter project than-lets say-before the release of these pics. But my question is not about that substance. Rather what is the chinese motivation? The release of these pics & their pace is mind boggling-surely they could have kept it under wraps-when compared with other defence projects. So what’s different this time?

Any theories?:-)

There’s a general trend of being more open with military projects. China is becoming more confident of it’s place in the world, and showing off it’s successes let’s the world know China should be treated like a great power.

I think Chinese leaders are tired of the US not treating China as an equal, of building regional coalitions and doing wargames like they expect to patrol off China’s coast forever, of the EU arms embargo, of people who still holds the obsolete paradigm that China’s military industry would remain perpetually third rate. I think they want to send the message that they can’t be contained, so show some respect.

This is much more valuable than secrecy of various projects, which to be honest we would expect the world’s intelligence networks to know a great deal more than us internet watchers. JXX probably has been photographed from space for years.

How could you possibly remain stealthy living at Mach 2?

They should call it Terror Bird. It’s positively scary looking.

It remains to be seen if the ventral strakes are a fixed part of the design. At this point the prototype still don’t have it’s final engine or a developed fly-by-wire. It’s possible the strakes function as training wheels at this point.

There are just reports that the “Wei Long” (meaning Powerful Dragon) had its maiden flight this morning !

Deino

EDIT: Not yet. High speed taxi only, nose wheel lift off but no flight.

I was going to say, how is it possible with visibility zero?

It looks bigger than it is because the bottom quarter of the ground crew bodies are blocked from view, and your eye’s are tricked to thinking these are full length people around a massive airframe. The aircraft doesn’t look any bigger than a Flanker. The Flanker is significantly larger than the F-22 (which is already smaller than the F-15) but not unreasonably so. I’m guessing no more than 22 meters.

Look how big the Flanker looks compared to a standing man.

It’s true. A little censorship is essential for art.

Reminds me of the YF-23.