The Chinese aircraft industry strives to provide the air force with the most modern technology. Now, in the interests of the PLA Air Force, the development of the fifth generation Chengdu J-20 fighter is underway. The existence of this aircraft became known several years ago. The project is still at the stage of testing and development of prototypes. It is not yet clear when the new equipment will enter the troops. Recently, some changes have been made to the aircraft design, which may affect the timing of the project.
The appearance of the J-20 fighter to a certain extent surprised specialists and the interested public. Chinese designers are known for their love of copying someone else's technology and using foreign developments. However, the J-20 outwardly differs significantly from modern foreign fifth-generation fighters. In its appearance, layout and other main features, you can find some features that make it look like one or another foreign model, but in general, the Chinese fighter looks like a completely new development. This suggests that the specialists of the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation (CAIC) did not simply copy foreign developments, but decided, taking them into account, to create a completely own project.
In the context of the latest Chinese fighter aircraft projects, the American F-117 aircraft, shot down in 1999 by the Yugoslav military, is often mentioned. According to some reports, the wreckage of this machine was transferred to Chinese specialists, who studied them and used the obtained data in their new projects. For obvious reasons, China is in no hurry to confirm or deny this information.
The first reports of the start of the Chinese fifth generation fighter project began to appear more than ten years ago. Until a certain time, such rumors were not confirmed. Only at the end of the last decade, the Chinese military confirmed the existence of such a project, the development of which was continuing at that time. The construction of the first flight aircraft was carried out in 2009-2010. The first flight took place on January 11, 2011.
Outwardly, the Chengdu J-20 fighter is not similar to existing foreign models, but some of its features resemble the development of American and Russian designers. So, the nose of the fuselage, the cockpit canopy and air intakes are similar to the units of the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35 aircraft of the American design. At the same time, the aerodynamic configuration of the J-20 is very similar to that used in the Russian MiG 1.44 project.
The J-20 fighter has a high-positioned trapezoidal wing with a span of about 13-15 m, shifted towards the aft fuselage. On the trailing edge of the wing there is a mechanization consisting of flaps and elevons. Due to the absence of tail stabilizers on the fighter, the front horizontal tail is provided, located on the sides of the fuselage, immediately behind the air intakes. The tail unit of the aircraft consists of two keels and two ventral ridges. Keels and ridges are installed with a camber outward.
The aircraft has a total length of about 22-23 meters. The fuselage has a classic layout for modern combat aircraft. In the bow there is a part of the electronic equipment and the cockpit, and the stern is given over to accommodate the engines. In the middle part of the fuselage, there are internal cargo compartments with holders for weapons. The Chengdu J-20 was created taking into account the maximum reduction in visibility for enemy radars, which affected a number of features of the appearance, including the abandonment of a large number of external hardpoints in favor of an internal cargo compartment.
According to some sources, the J-20 aircraft has a dry weight of 17.6 tons and a maximum take-off weight of up to 35 tons. The exact weight of the permissible payload is unknown.
The J-20 fighter is equipped with two turbojet engines. According to some sources, the first prototypes of the aircraft received the Russian-made AL-31F engine. Production aircraft should be powered by Chinese-designed Xian WS-15 engines. Such engines with an afterburner thrust of at least 150 kN should provide the aircraft with relatively high flight characteristics.
Earlier it was reported that the J-20 aircraft should develop a maximum speed of 2100 km / h, climb to an altitude of 16 km and have a range of about 3400 km. Due to the change in the type of engines used, the characteristics of prototypes and production equipment can seriously differ.
The aircraft is equipped with a tricycle landing gear. The front support is retracted in the fuselage by turning forward, the main ones fit into the side niches of the fuselage. All three racks receive one wheel each. In this case, the wheels of the main struts have a larger diameter in comparison with the nose. It is noteworthy that the landing gear doors have characteristic jagged edges designed to scatter radar radiation to the sides. Similar units are used on modern American-designed aircraft.
The composition of the electronic equipment of the new fighter was not disclosed for obvious reasons. There is reason to believe that the aircraft is equipped with a fly-by-wire control system with multiple redundancy, and also carries a modern sighting and navigation system based on the latest Chinese and foreign developments. Probably, an onboard radar with an active phased antenna array and a number of other new equipment are being created or will be created for the J-20 fighter.
The first photographs of the prototype J-20 aircraft showed that there were no pylons under the wing for hanging weapons. In addition, hatch flaps were visible on the sides and bottom of the fuselage. Like the latest foreign fighters, the new Chinese aircraft will carry weapons in its internal compartments. This will reduce the fighter's visibility to enemy radar and thereby increase its combat survivability. Perhaps the serial J-20 will be able to use an external suspension to perform various combat missions. The presence of a built-in automatic cannon is still a matter of controversy. There is no evidence in the photographs that the J-20 will receive or lose such a weapon.
The first prototype of the fifth generation Chengdu J-20 fighter took off for the first time in January 2011. Over the next few months, Chinese specialists studied the systems and tweaked them. In the spring of 2012, the second prototype came out for testing. To date, four aircraft have been built, with some differences from each other. The existence of the fourth prototype became known only a few months ago. The published photographs showed that the new aircraft has a number of noticeable and serious differences from the previous aircraft. It was probably built according to a revised project.
The fourth prototype differs from the previous ones in the layout of a number of components and assemblies, as well as the location of some parts. So, in the area of the main landing gear, the fuselage received a noticeable narrowing, but the distance between the engines increased slightly. The length of the two tail booms has increased. The doors of the chassis compartments have been seriously redesigned.
The general aerodynamic design remained the same, but the wing and empennage were improved. The shape of the root inflow of the wing and the upper flap of the air intakes has changed. In addition, the keels and the forward horizontal tail have been slightly improved. Apparently, all these adjustments were made in order to improve the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft and increase its flight data.
The visible changes suggest a change in the composition of electronic equipment or a transition to a new stage of testing using a full range of avionics. There is a protruding fairing of one of the systems under the nose of the fuselage. It is possible that the head of the optical-location station is located in it. New units in the rear of the aircraft suggest that the fourth prototype received a missile detection system.
At the end of November, the first flight of the fifth prototype took place. The available photographs of this aircraft with tail number "2013" lack any characteristic details by which it can be distinguished from the previous fourth prototype. Perhaps the fifth aircraft is intended to further test new ideas and solutions implemented on the previous prototype.
There is very little official information about the J-20 project in the public domain. According to the old tradition, China is in no hurry to share information about its latest developments, which is why it has to rely only on various assessments, which may be far from the truth. For example, there is an opinion that the main armament of the J-20 will be air-to-air missiles of several types. With regard to weapons for striking ground targets, such capabilities of the aircraft will be limited. An argument is made in favor of this assumption regarding the size of the internal cargo bays. Large missiles and air-to-surface bombs simply cannot fit into them.
Thus, the new Chinese fighter can be considered an analogue of the American F-22, which also has limited capabilities for attacking ground targets, which were sacrificed to increase the fighter potential. However, the two aircraft are similar only in purpose. The exact characteristics of the Chinese J-20 are still unknown, which is why no serious conclusions can be drawn.
Testing and development of the promising J-20 fighter continues for almost four years. Any information about the imminent completion of the tests has not yet been reported. In this regard, the assumption is often made about the start of serial production of new aircraft no earlier than 2016-17. Such a long test duration can, to one degree or another, confirm two versions of the future fate of the project at once. She can talk about the imminent completion of checks and improvements, after which the aircraft will go into series, or testify to the complexity of the project, which leads to its delay.
The complexity of the current work should be noted, since within the framework of the J-20 project, CAIC is developing a fifth generation fighter. Even the world's leading aircraft manufacturers take significant time to develop such projects. Therefore, the current state of work on the J-20 aircraft does not look surprising or unusual. China is quite capable of successfully completing the development of a new fighter for its air force. However, there is no exact data on the new aircraft, which does not allow us to talk about its real characteristics and capabilities. It is quite possible that the production J-20 aircraft in their characteristics will be noticeably inferior to foreign technology, with which they must compete.
