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.

The Chinese engineers felt the need to add DSI to everything lol.

in any case, does it need to be super maneuverable or have a high top speed? its exact roles and goals are still not clear. The link provided above was just guestimates and speculation, not anything official.

Truth is, we need T34s of the sky rather than Tiger tanks. Yes, clean sheet designs for such would be great BUT we don’t have those. The closest we have in the East are F7s, J8s, JH7As, Mirages, F-5s, f4s, MiG-27s, Su-24s… Etc all progressively getting older (except for some of the Chinese models)..

faulty analogy, more like is it more worth while to waste money upgrading t-34s or move up to T-54s in an era that is beginning to introduce T-62s

Of course there are many options for LIFT, however, the FC1 may just be the right deal for Turkey.

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[/quote]
There is a 2 seater planned and likely to be available by the time frame being considered -2020.
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in other words, there is no 2 seater version built or being built, let alone one designed for LIFT. Its still a paper project that for some reason.. Turkey should go for despite your acknowledging there’s plenty of LIFTS out there..
you haven’t even mentioned one practical reason why Turkey should choose a non-existing JF-17 for their advance training needs.

I imagine Turkey will need to replace LIFT T-38s at some point not too far into the future. If we are looking at around 2020, the FC1 two seated may just be the plane for it. I imagine a barter deal could be arranged. Would be really cool to see the FC1 in TuAF colors.

um lets see..
1. Turkey has its own aviation industry. They’re more likely to build their own LIFT than buy outside. They’re trying to move forward, not backwards with a 3rd gen aircraft designed for third world air forces
2. Even if Turkey wanted to buy it, NATO got its panties tied up in a knot when the Turks tried to purchase Chinese missiles
3. China has FTC-2000 and the L-15
4. And if none of those sinks in. There is no 2 seat LIFT FC-1. Unless you want them to fly that little model

Do you believe that countries have their own specific artistic style, when it comes to planes? Or are military design only about capabilities? If you saw advanced designs from each country could you tell by the mold line?

for airliners, you can usually tell what is a Boeing and what is Airbus by the nose.

for McDonald’s dougie

they had two JAST models

a conventional tail one

and a yf-23 style one

they then took the design after they lost and evolved it further as the x-36

its official,

France will give full refund to Russia for the two Mistral class ships as well as removing some parts.

France will keep the two ships

so what will happen to the ka-52k and all those sailors?

Since there is not much news to discuss around the T-X program, may I propose a short digression around the visionary Mako project?
Will the T-X be shaped similarly? What the experience from the defunct EADS project could tell us regarding what the USAF won’t try to duplicate (reading the KPP)?

Reminder:
Mako HEAT was a minimal airframe, high powered trainer concept in line with the long history of small British jets (Vampire, Gnat, Hawk) that have long attracted some strong interest in the Eu Industry.

Some extensive RCS reductions were added to the program to mature the Industry around this technology with a minimal A2A capability as an alibi.

Sadly, the pertinence of initial design goals of a high AoA trainer and High G was wasted by the induction of A2G capability. Intends were to capitalize on the High Specific excess power inherent of the maneuverability and low cost design.

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Today, a short time after GD withdrawal from Alenia’s T-100/M346 submission, fact is that we can trace back that result to the day of the Mako termination.

Of course 20 years separates the design but some question remains that could be debated:
– would EADS have competed for the T-X and what could have been its chance with a then fully matured design (let’s say that service entry in Eu could have been in early 2010 factoring-in AirbusM tradition with unexpected delays)?

– Would the T-X program have ever existed? What could have been the odds that the USAF could have procured directly some Mako as part of a series of offset or some cooperations linked to the buy of F35or F18E/F by Eu partners (Gmb/Fokker/Alenia/Bae)?

– Wouldn’t have this strategy led to more financial resources in overall for the Eu industry and the different states (200 ordered in the 25-to 35M$/unit price range) ?

And on another ground:
What could be the main design differences between the future T-X and the Mako?

The mockup:
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The student’s desk
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Source:

http://www.globalsecurity.org

MAKO is sexy and all, but I don’t really see the benefits of having semi-stealth features (with its performance penalties) on a airframe intended for training.