Taiwan needs an upgrade path for their Mirage and with Rafale out of the picture it seems strange for France to high ball. France loses big if they lose the customer. I’m guessing France retains rights over resale of the airframe and thwarts reselling them. This whole sorid story cannot have a happy ending.

There is a third party interest at stake here, the Russians. They will not let the Chinese develop a strategy that removes them as a theater threat without launching a counter move. How long can the Chinese develop nuclear missiles with their hands tied to a treaty with Europe and the U.S.? I don’t think Russia will be able to stay honest in nuclear treaties with NATO when they have a neighbor working against any such limit. And with Russia’s Navy in such small numbers, will they allow a similar imbalance in this arena?

What’s the story on the Angolan MiG-23?

Both the South Korea K-FX and Chinese J-20 chose similar canard designs for their stealths. Let’s keep everything in perspective. There will be no less than three stealth fighters in the 2020 time frame. China, Japan, and South Korea will all complete the ground work for a stealth fighter in the next decade. Japan will not only have their own design, but they will likely field the F-35.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_qn2M0fyLEeo/TG7F1N0IXmI/AAAAAAAAAG8/r_b1ha9wyqw/s1600/kfx-201.jpg

And China is supposed to be using TVC just like the Japanese ATD-X. It looks like China’s will be the biggest of the three. J-20 should have 50% more thrust – and therefore ‘power’ – to work with over both South Korea’s K-FX project 201 (KAI) and Japan’s ATD-X Shinshin (by Mitsubishi). Japan’s demonstrator is supposed to be small, actually only similar in size to their F-2 fighter. (The Japanese final design, depending on their perceptive need at that point, may be larger like the J-20.) South Korean doesn’t have near the progress that Japan or China has made in their programs. And it appears that Japan will have all the pieces in place for a plane far in advance of the others, BUT the government isn’t providing the necessary funds to actually fly one.

J-20 probably set off a minor arms race in North East Asia. But when it comes down to it I think none of them will have a huge arm up on any other. In reality, the J-20 will probably far exceed the others in raw quantity therefore overcoming any shortcomings it may have in other areas. But since Japan will also have the F-35 supplementing their ATD-X the larger quantity claim may be dubious at best.

The ‘reason’ behind it is that it’s the lower tech equivalent to the Toyotas (armed with MILAN) rushing tanks on both sides in Chad. Of course they are entirely out of context, but the Iranians probably ran with the spirit of the idea.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War

China doesn’t have the ‘big picture’ support to compete against the Russian consortium. The J-20 is a prototype demonstrator. Our X-plane fleet has more export potential than the J-20 at this point. Until China can deliver the whole package they’ll be considered pretenders in the game.

Thanks, paralay. By your scale you suggest a roughly 75 foot long aircraft, which is within a foot of what I was guessing by the size comparison with the people standing around it.

I’ve been trying to fit the notion of the AL-31F into this picture but the scale of the actual engine doesn’t seem to fit. These engines seem slightly larger than what I see out there called the AL-31F. The size of the exhaust nozzles fits in between that and the D30. Maybe it’s the WS-10A. Maybe it’s the WS-15. I just don’t trust the notion that it’s really the 117S.

TEEJ looks like he nailed it. The open weapons bay doors looked like some kind of solid axle. TEEJ’s explanation is awfully convincing considering on closer inspection someone mangled the nose when they clipped the picture out of the original. They must have decided a nose-less photoshop was more convincing.