Summary = “J-20 is draggy, and underpowered, so it has to be designed as interceptor”. No, an
interceptor cannot be draggy and underpowered.
Maneverability would depend heavily on weight, a 3 ton difference will turn J-20 from a flying brick to a decent dogfighter. Without empty weight, all speculations are baseless. However no matter how light J-20 is, one thing is far more certain: With less thrust, similar/greater drag, and lack of variable inlets, J-20 will have way lower (kinematic) top speed to T-50.
Plus, J-20 has no features to prioritize top speed. Canopy, fixed inlets, big canards, all moving stabilizers and AL-31 engines do not belong to a high speed oriented design.
Since we are speculating, my mk1 eyeball inspection says main wings are located way too at the back, that “canard”s will need to generate substential lift to balance the aircraft. As such, J-20’s aerodynamic layout is more like tandem wing to a canard-delta. This, combined with all moving vertical stabilizers, tells me J-20 is more oriented towards high maneuverability than people think.
And what about energy recovery? Are we going to go slow and High alpha? Or is it a high energy fighter. How well do the engines do in s Su-27 with a heavy weapons load, and tanks? Like I said again the plane could still be decent, but I suspect a F-18/F-16/ sized fighter would fly circles around it.
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