Israel already has nuclear weapons.

China has now come forth and stated officially that they oppose nK’s nuke test. If nK alienates China then they’re pretty much done with, as China may cut off energy supplies heading to nK.

nK signed an agreement in 1994 not to produce nukes, and are a signatory of the nuke non-proliferation treaty. It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the world decides to respond to this.

Also, it has now been announced that a 4.2 magnitude “seismic event” was detected. Makes for a bigger bang.

The NK can blackmail Beijing for the usual food, fuel and arms. It’s a lot easier to dump a nuke on Beijing than it is on Tokyo for one thing, at least from Pyongyang’s perspective.

This might open a new ballgame, and if Pyongyang crosses that line, might lead to the PLA sweeping down from the north without any warning.

Isn’t this why Rafale and Typhoon make use of compisotes?

You use composites to make the plane lighter. The problem of composites is you need more routine visual inspections to spot for cracks. They also tend to warp and other things under temperature variations so you need a lot of testing under different temperature conditions. The USAF left their B-2s in the open in their base in Guam to subject them under extreme weather variations for example.

I doubt that the Rafale and the Typhoon could reduce their RCS significantly. They are simply not low RCS designs no matter what. You need to reduce your RCS to 1/16th from your original figure to get a 50% reduction in range. A plane with 3m RCS vs a plane with 2m RCS has no practical and tactical difference with today’s radar.

Sorry to break the silence. I do believe that the Tejas does have lower RCS. Chinawhite, was inclining otherwise. All evidence supports that the Tejas with a smaller size, much larger use of compisotes and eventually RAM paint have a smaller RCS than the J-10 which is mostly more metal, and has sharp angles like the canards and intakes.
This article supports that the J-10 has a fair amount of metal.
http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=page3he5.jpg

Composites alone do not reduce RCS as most like to believe. Air itself is not radar transparent either.

And while composites do allow more radar waves to past through, the radar waves only bounce on the internal things like black boxes, airframe and engine components.

Please note that the F-22 also has intakes, and the movable front leading edge slat in the wing—which all fighters have—are as potentially and theoritically RCS hazardous as any canard.

Rounded surfaces produce major radar highlights, so these too are as big as RCS hazards as right angle surfaces.

RCS reduction is not about absorbing radar or letting them pass through, its about reflecting them away from the emitting source. Thus in theory, its completely plausible to make a low RCS design that is all metal, no RAM, and all you do is facet away the radar reflections from the emitting source.

I always enjoy the debates regarding the latest fighters…..”the f-22 is too expensive,” “the Rafale can totally out maneuver the f-18,” “the f-18e/f is a dog,” “the f-14 is unreliable,” etc, etc. With that in mind, I was wondering why no one ever mentions the Mitsubishi F-2 among the elite fighters.

The F-2 seems to me to be a much better update of the F-16 than the E/F was of the F-18. The F-2 is almost as big as an F-15, yet retains the maneuverability of an F-16 and has modern electronics (including AESA). It has, or should have, the famous Japanese quality of workmanship. It’s bigger than a Gripen, and is almost as big as a EF Typhoon or Rafale. I would think the F-2 would be a formidable enemy for any aggressive Chinese fighter.

I would welcome any comments regarding the F-2.

The problem of a plane as big as an F-15 while carrying only half the number of engines is that performance is going to blow.

When you have an F-16 that weighs a ton more than an F-16 Block 50, and yet they have the same engine, that’s not going to perform well.

Furthermore for a 100+ million dollar plane that can’t fire any AMRAAM or equivalent, uses the old Sparrows and Sidewinders for its armament, that blows. A Super Hornet can pack as many as 8 to 10 AMRAAMs all over its belly and wings. And the Super Hornet still costs less.

Just pick any recent F-16 in the region, whether it’s the Block 52 of the ROKAF and the RSAF, or even the Block 20 of the ROCAF (based on Block 15OCW—the most maneuverable F-16 variant of all), they’re all AMRAAM capable, lighter and faster.

To partly amend these problems the plane is in need of radical surgery, like getting an engine upgrade (the F100-132 from the Block 60 as a start) but in 2004, they have closed the contracts which means the plane isn’t going to be developed further, and only contracts signed before 2004 will be allowed to be fulfilled and no new contracts will be added since then. That will end production anywhere between 76 to 100 aircraft.

The J-10 does not interest me for Zhuhai and I expected them not to show it either. What’s more important is whatever the avionics they will display this time, because that gives you a far better gauge of the state of the Chinese aviation industry.

Don’t know much what you can learn from the F-16 and apply it to the J-10, at least in aerodynamic lessons. If Chinese engineers went to study the F-16 (actually Pakistan is far from the only Chinese friendly nation with F-16s), I gather it would be more for the FC-1.

Aerodynamically, the J-10 seems to me like taking lessons from different aircraft.

The J-10’s dihedral canards are likely inspired from the Lavi’s, which also featured such.

But the J-10’s intake, complete with upper struts, can only be taken from the MiG 1.44, the only other plane that has similar braces and intake design.

The J-10’s bent anhedral wings is found in neither Lavi or MiG 1.44 but the Typhoon and the X-31.

The J-10’s loadout design, especially the location of four hardpoints in the fuselage, is straight out of the Mirage 2000.

The J-10’s forward edge wing slats is very similar in design to the Gripen’s. They’re both set halfway the length of the wing and when extended, produces a sawtooth edge. Generally, the planform and wing aspect ratios of the J-10 look more like the Gripen’s, when you see the planes from the upper view.

The F-16, the former yardstick in performance still had a hard time to beat the Gripen in competitions. The lower price by similar performance gave the edge for the F-16s, when it comes to the technical base of the 70s compared to those of the 80s.
The Gripen has a ferry-range of 3000 km like the Su-30MKK f.e.

Ferry ranges include the maximum number of tanks you can fit on an aircraft. Unfortunately for the MKK it does not fit tanks.

I wish people stop using ferry ranges because it is absolutely useless for any kind of performance comparison. Give me flight radius instead using internal tanks only.

L/D ratio of current active canard designs (Lavi/Gripen/J-10/Typhoon/Rafale) surely beats F-16 (no specific data, only what I heard). Lower wing loading, greater negative stability, better high AoA management also compound to make the planes more maneuverable.

But when it comes to sustained turn rates, payload, acceleration, climbs and dives, I’m not sure how the Gripen would come close to an F-16. Sheer power and high thrust to weight ratios often account for themselves.