The U.S. media has begun to smear China's military technology again, and this time it is aimed at the J-20, the strongest fighter of Blue Star!
The U.S. "National Interest" website published an article titled "China's J-20 Fighter: A Nightmare for the U.S. Air Force?", which conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the technology of the J-20 fighter and finally concluded that the J-20 is inferior to the American F-22A fighter and F-35 fighter in stealth performance, so it is difficult to compete with the American 5th generation fighter.
Relevant reports from the US media
The US media pointed out that the J-20 fighter joined the Chinese Air Force in 2017, but this fighter has maintained a high level of secrecy, so the outside world cannot spy on the real performance of the J-20 fighter. However, the US media believes that this is a manifestation of the J-20's technical performance is not good enough, because the J-20 fighter is significantly weaker than the Western 5th generation fighter in terms of radar reflection area and engine, so the fighter has weaknesses. As for the field of avionics, the US media believes that the J-20 is equipped with a Type 1475 active phased array radar, although the radar has a long search range, but its stability is insufficient and it is not perfect enough.
J-20 in the Mounted Troops
So is the US media's statement correct? Is the J-20 really short in stealth capability and power? Next, the author will analyze it. First of all, let's take a look at the stealth performance of the J-20; according to the American media, the stealth problem of the J-20 fighter mainly comes from the canard wing and the infrared suppression of the engine. Let's talk about the problem of canard wings first, canard wings will indeed have a certain impact on stealth, but that is when the aircraft uses a conventional aerodynamic layout, and then add a pair of canard wings, it will affect stealth;
American F-35 stealth fighter
The reason is that whether an aircraft is stealthy or not depends mainly on the number of protrusions on its surface and the direction of radar reflection. The simpler the shape of the object and the fewer protruding objects, the more stealth it is. For aircraft, various types of wings are the largest protrusions on its surface, including vertical tails, flat tails, canard wings, main wings, etc., which are all protrusions on its surface. Therefore, reducing the number of airfoils in the aircraft can play a role in suppressing the reflected beam of the radar. For example, the B-2 stealth bomber even retains only the main wing, canceling the vertical tail, flat tail and other wing surfaces; another example is the sixth-generation fighter, whether it is the NGAD of the United States or the FCAS fighter jointly developed by France and Germany, all adopt stealth means of reducing the wing surface.
American B-2 stealth bomber
It can be seen that from the 6th generation fighter, maneuverability is no longer a special consideration, after all, reducing the wing surface means that maneuverability is weakened, and the stealth indicator has become the most critical indicator. So as far as the J-20 fighter is concerned, it adopts almost all the stealth shape designs that can be imagined, such as the V-shaped vertical tail, the diamond-shaped nose, and the front and rear edges of the wings are parallel to each other, etc., which make the radar beam reflect in 4-6 main directions, and there is almost no radar beam reflection in most directions. At the same time, the J-20 uses a lift-up layout, and there is no more wing surface than the F-22A and F-35, because the J-20 does not have a flat tail, so it is at the same level as the F-22A and F-35 in terms of appearance stealth.
The J-20 has certain power shortcomings
Secondly, let's take a look at another often mentioned shortcoming of the J-20, that is, the power shortcoming. In this regard, the first batch of J-20 small-batch production models used the Russian AL-31FN engine, and later from the second batch began to use the domestic WS-10B engine, the maximum thrust of the engine is 14 tons, 0.5 tons less than the thrust of the AL-41F engine of the Russian Su-57 fighter, and 1.5 tons less than the thrust of the F-119 engine of the American F-22A, in fact, the gap is not big.
The new batch of J-20 began to be equipped with WS-15
And the current new batch of J-20 has already used the WS-15 engine. After the use of turbofan-15 engine, the single thrust of J-20 has reached 16~18 tons, and the total thrust of twin engines has reached 32~36 tons, and the power is very considerable. As for the infrared suppression of the engine, we can see that the WS-15 engine and WS-10B engine are assembled on the J-20 fighter, and a tail nozzle cover is added to play a role in heat insulation;
The US media's smear of the J-20 is groundless
Finally, since there are no shortcomings in stealth and power, the J-20 fighter is equipped with advanced avionics equipment such as three-sided phased array radar, EODAS synthetic aperture system, EOST integrated photoelectric observation and sighting system, so it is stronger than F-22A and F-35 in battlefield situational awareness. Therefore, the actual combat effectiveness of the J-20 fighter on paper surpasses that of the F-22A and F-35, and it is still the world's first advanced fighter, so the American media should not be so "sour"!