First Pictures of Chinese Stealth Fighter 613
Frosty Piss writes "The first clear pictures of what appears to be a Chinese stealth fighter prototype have been published online. The photographs, published on several unofficial Chinese and foreign defense-related websites, appear to show a J-20 prototype making a high-speed taxi test — usually one of the last steps before an aircraft makes its first flight — according to experts on aviation and China's military. Several experts said the prototype's body appeared to borrow from the F-22 and other US stealth aircraft. The US cut funding for the F-22 in 2009 in favor of the F-35, a smaller, cheaper stealth fighter that made its first test flight in 2006 and is expected to be fully deployed by around 2014."
Someone help me out here. (Score:3, Funny)
Pictures of a stealth fighter.
If I can get pictures of it, is it really all that stealthy?
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Pictures of a stealth fighter.
If I can get pictures of it, is it really all that stealthy?
The real question is, if you think getting photos of it is relevant, then maybe you don't know what "stealth" means?
Tadah! Captain Literal shits on another joke!
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:5, Funny)
Tadah! Captain Literal shits on another joke!
How is it possible to defecate on an expression of humor? I mean maybe one could shit on a fixed representation of a joke, like a joke book, but this is on the internet, so I can only guess you just crapped on your monitor. Which seems like a pointless and self-defeating gesture if I may say so.
Or am I taking Captain Literal too literally?
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Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, pictures were leaked of the blackhawk and the stealth bomber from the US too, though it occurred later in its life.
.
Since the blackhawk is not remotely stealthy (it's a helicopter), I'm assuming you meant something different. Like maybe the SR-71 "Blackbird"...which certainly looked stealthy, although in reality wasn't.
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Like maybe the SR-71 "Blackbird"...which certainly looked stealthy, although in reality wasn't.
Not very much needed if you travel faster than the missiles anyway ;)
At that time that is :)
Cool plane, sad you've got rid of it, make a new one =P
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Cool plane, sad you've got rid of it, make a new one =P
Nothing like it will ever be built again. :( All reconnaissance aircraft from now on are likely to be unmanned.
And there's a related saying in the US Navy: The last American fighter pilot has already been born.
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Like maybe the SR-71 "Blackbird"...which certainly looked stealthy, although in reality wasn't.
If I remember correctly, the SR-71 had about the same radar cross-section as a Cessna; but a Cessna on your radar screen travelling more than three times the speed of sound would still look a bit suspicious.
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:4, Informative)
A Cessna, flying at 70,000 feet, at several times the speed of sound, with an exhaust plume three times the size of the plane. That is what gave it away more than anything: the massive, super-hot exhaust plume traveling at a few thousand miles per hour. That is what the Soviet SAMs locked in on, and could not catch.
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:5, Funny)
What, yours can't?
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That said, I'm starting to wonder about miss-direction. It does look similar to the F-22, and the US may assume it borrowed more than the look. This would mean they'll get cocky about their ability to detect it, while perhaps the Chinese are working on something very different.
I believe you are correct here. The photographs show a mockup of an F-22 taxiing alongside the new Chinese stealth fighter, which is very stealthy indeed.
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Arms/money race (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the amount the US owes to China, I am reminded of the Ankh-Morpork anthem, which goes, in part:
Let others boast of martial dash
For we have boldly fought with cash
We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes.
We own all your generals - touch us and you'll lose
See also this version [youtube.com]
Re:Arms/money race (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Arms/money race (Score:5, Insightful)
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same reason the USSR lost to the US: they ran out of money.
How many times should it be pointed out that this is a myth that exists for the sole purpose of retroactively justifying Cold War and US military-industrial complex?
USSR did not have for-profit military contractors, it kept all production, including military one, in the hands of government. It couldn't run out of money even if it tried -- it didn't need to pay anything other than employees' salary, what was usually the same across all industries for the same type of work, and nothing astronomical by any mea
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Money is just a proxy for other resources, and you can't magic those out of thin air by decree. Every ton of steel used in building submarines is a ton of steel that can't be used for making tractors, every hour a man spends mining iron ore is an hour he can't spend harvesting grain, and so on.
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, if you have the reserve currency (USD, currently) actually you can magic things out of thin air. You simply print more notes, buy from overseas and until the rest of the world realises that your "reserve" currency is backed by basically fuck all, you're home free.
Unfortunately seeing as the US has been doing this since vietnam, people are finally catching on and going to start dumping their USD like crazy (i.e., buying back all those assets/resources your citizens purchased with monopoly money)
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Uh, no. First, lets touch upon the literal version of the claim: "did the USSR run out of money". Yes. The USSR traded with other countries in the world not under the soviet system. They had an imbalance of payments and little to no holdings of foreign currency.
Second, lets consider the statement as euphemism for economic devastation in the USSR. This how this idea is usually meant, and its not usually not expressed simply as "they ran out of money".
The USSR initially built a lot of "guns" and a lot of
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My understanding of the argument is that this meant that because the USSR economy had to maintain a high war footing to keep up with US and NATO spending and developments (something like 30-35% of its industries compared to 20-25% of US industries),
That was not anywhere close to the official numbers. US "economists" believed that USSR is "hiding something" and produced ridiculously inflated estimates of military budget because they expected it to be somewhat similar to how US military spending works. US military-industrial complex was happy to see it because it justified US military spending, and actual state of USSR economy was of a purely academic interest.
other areas of social development suffered and gradually standards of living etc fell behind which led to political and social dissatisfaction, hence the downfall of the system.
I lived there, and my standard of living was higher than in US now (despite being an engineer
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC, The Bear was a literal, exact replication of a US aircraft, except for Russian tags and imperfections from inferior manufacturing capabilities.
Do you mean Tu-95 Bear? If so, you must be confusing it with the earlier Tu-4, which was a direct and literal copy of B-29, and Tu-85, which was an evolutionary development of Tu-4. But Tu-95 was a brand new design, and pretty unique at that (fastest turboprop aircraft ever by a large margin even today - 'nuff said).
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Far more likely its based on stolen US plans.
For what?
There is no US stealth fighter design with that size or characteristics.
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:5, Informative)
Far more likely its based on stolen US plans. This has previously happened several times in the past. The Russians are very well known for stealing US aircraft plans and making it their own. IIRC, The Bear was a literal, exact replication of a US aircraft, except for Russian tags and imperfections from inferior manufacturing capabilities.
Given half a chance and if they think they will benefit from it everybody steals everybody else's tech... get over it. But the idea that the Soviet aircraft industry was based on stealing the plans of US aircraft and producing rivet for rivet copies is complete and utter crap only a faithful Fox News watching Glenn Beck fan would believe. This myth originates from the fact that the Soviets did produce a rivet-for-rivet copy of the B-29 and called it the Tu-4. The Tupolev Tu-95 is a very distant descendant of the Tu-4 and has nothing in common with the B-29/Tu-4 what so ever. The Russians did steal some technical documents relating to western aircraft and equipment (Concorde for example), they more commonly engaged in reverse engineering with famous examples being the R-13 missile which was a clone of the AIM-9B Sidewinder (but with a Soviet designed IR seeker) and allegedly portions of the avionics suite of the MiG-23 which reportedly benefitted from tech salvaged in Vietnam from US F-4 fighters. Mind you the Soviets are not in any way alone in this. It is often conveniently forgotten that much of the first generation of transsonic US jet fighters benefitted hugely from research data obtained by the US from nazi-german aircraft manufacturers as well as the expertise of ex-nazi engineers some of whom were war criminals. The same goes for the US space and missile program and submarine design. It's easy to point out the resemblance of aircraft like the Su-27 and MiG-29 to us designs like the F-15 but there is practically nothing common between those Russian designs and the F-15 other than a passing resemblance. The most you can argue is that the F-15 may have influenced the Sukhoi and MiG design teams in some way but that's about it, other than this they are totally different and unrelated designs.
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I think it is even evident from the picture that this is a mediocre copy. The F-22 uses thrust vectoring and computer control to overcome the lack of horizontal tail surfaces. But here they have added canards (smaller control surfaces forward of the wings). That is a total disaster in terms of stealthiness. It's like a car that looks like a BMW but has none of the interior luxuries -- i.e. all the important stuff.
Another example -- one of the big advantages of the F-22 is supersonic cruise (no afterbu
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They are slowly moving away from that in case you haven't noticed. 6th gen fighters will likely be mostly UAVs. There are a lot of advantages to having humans in the sky that are not so easily dismissed. Communications can be jammed, whereas a manned plane at least has some chance of carrying out a mission in such a situation. In fact, it wouldn't take much tech to likely ground UAVs, but that's really just a game of cat and mouse. Also you make heat seeking missiles sound like some kind of foolproof techno
Re:Do fighters still matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because missiles are extremely bad at patrolling airspace. War isn't about blowing everything up - it's about blowing the right things up, at the right time.
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Having humans in the air helps with stealth. A UAV on its own will need occasional human guidance to tell friend from foe. That means radio links. Which means the stealth is broken.
Re:Do fighters still matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been at least 50 years since heat-seeking missiles were invented. They can hunt down a fighter with far more accuracy than a human pilot can, they can withstand much higher accelerations, they are much cheaper than a manned fighter plane.
Why do they insist on manned fighter aircraft?
Because to date, every attempt to replace manned, and in fact gun-armed and dogfight-capable, fighters with missiles or "missile truck" aircraft has failed miserably. At some point a combination of SAMs and UCAVs may replace fighters, and manned combat planes generally, but we're not there yet -- or more precisely, we have no evidence that we're there yet. There's only one way to really put it to the test, of course, and nobody wants to go there.
Re:Someone help me out here. (Score:4, Interesting)
I seem to recall that pastel colors make for the best aerial camouflage, but the pilots protested flying pastel blue and pink planes and so the military went with grays and blues.
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The US's current grey paint scheme is the result a a fair bit of testing about best color given the various conditions that the planes might find themselves flying in. (Day, night, clear weather, clouds, etc, etc).
As I heard it pastel pink was considered specifically for the F-117 stealth "fighter" because it was less visible in cl
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If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a missile.
Er.. something like that.
Hacking Pays Off (Score:3)
Looks like the YF23... This is the start of Cold War II..
Re:Hacking Pays Off (Score:5, Insightful)
Except the Chinese and American economies are too interlocked to repeat something like the that. Its hard to say what Sino-American relations will look like in the future, but I don't think the Cold War is a particularly good model.
Re:Hacking Pays Off (Score:4, Informative)
Except the Chinese and American economies are too interlocked to repeat something like the that. Its hard to say what Sino-American relations will look like in the future, but I don't think the Cold War is a particularly good model.
How about a hot war? In the early 20th c., it was widely and loudly proclaimed that the economies of the great European powers were far too dependent on each other for any serious conflict to take place. They might play ego games with each other by building lots of battleships, sure, but anything worse than the occasional naval skirmish, or brief land war in some far-away colony, was unthinkable And, um, we know how that worked out [historylea...site.co.uk].
Re:Hacking Pays Off (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hacking Pays Off (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's a very basic assessment of a very complex situation, and one which isn't necessarily correct.
The way I see it, if a war is obviously started by China or as a mutual, gradual escalation, without it being obviously and/or openly about the debt currently owed to China by the US, the US is going to have no problem gathering allies, nullifying said debt, and beating the crap out of China in any sort of war. That'd free up the US economy and cause significant growth, while not impacting the US credit rating.
If, on the other hand, the US is an aggressor, or the war is openly about the debt, then the Chinese have the upper hand, and would surely win - if not in the actual war, in the economic effects of the US having a plunging credit rating.
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Re:Hacking Pays Off (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting... (Score:2)
The article says it would be a contender for the F-22, and calls it the world's only fully operational stealth fighter. Why don't the f-117 or even the f-35's count?
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Neither the F-117A nor the F-35 are fighters, but bombers. They had to be sent in at night to prevent visual spotting, as they couldn't be escorted in by fighters.
That said, this sucker looks like China scored big and managed to jack the plans for the F-35. Go go Corporate American network security policies.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
The F-35 is not an air superiority aircraft, because it is a versatile airframe that can take on many roles, one of which is air superiority. In its air superiority role, it would prove more than adequate against anything known today except the F-22.
The F-35 trades off not being quite as potent as the F-22 in air-to-air combat for being useful after the first two days of combat.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Informative)
The article says it would be a contender for the F-22, and calls it the world's only fully operational stealth fighter. Why don't the f-117 or even the f-35's count?
The F-117 has been retired, and the F-35 isn't operational yet. Indeed, there's a growing scandal about the lack of progress in flight testing (as well as the emergence of weight and exhaust heat problems) for the F-35, and it's likely at that at least one version... probably the STOVL "B" version... will be canceled. And it's possible that the whole project will be canceled.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
"And it's possible that the whole project will be canceled."
Not likely, the F22 project was cut back because it was not deemed acceptably exportable technology, the F-35 is and already has a bunch of export customers set up, and even helping to fund the project such as Australia and Britain.
It may well be scaled back in capabilities but it will not be cancelled because it's just too important to US defence exports, cancelling it would not only be devastating financially for US defence contractors involved but it would also massively harm the US' image as a trustworthy defence exporter- why trust your military equipment future on a country that just can't deliver and ends up leaving you defenceless and out of pocket? The US just can't afford to cancel the F-35.
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Your "allies" would be just fine if you will also cancel the next worldwide economic crisis with it.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Informative)
Despite the F designation, the F-117 is an attack aircraft, not a fighter. The F-35 is a multi-role aircraft, ala the F-16. The F-22 is a true air superiority fighter, ala the original F-15. That' why we've scaled back F-22 production and ramped up F-35 production. Hasn't been much need for a U.S. air superiority fighter in the last 20 years. On other hand, we've needed lots of attack aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
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F35 isn't fully operational yet,
I can't wait to witness the power of this fully operational battle aircraft.
Is this really how fighter jets work? (Score:2)
So... more engines and bigger equals "decisively superior," based solely on some photos?
Mig 25 Foxbat may be a better comparison ... (Score:3)
Re:Mig 25 Foxbat may be a better comparison ... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the financially strapped 1960s/70s the Soviet Mig 25 Foxbat appeared and it's rumored capabilities saved the US F14 and F15 projects from significant budget cutbacks or cancellation. Perhaps the savior of the F22 and F35 projects has arrived.
I've thought about this, and the Foxbat comparison might be apt here. This will sound conspiracy theory-ish, but Lockheed is probably going to milk this for all it's worth in order to drive their own sales. "Look, ooooh, a scary Chinese stealth fighter! Better buy more of ours!".
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Dunno, man... the MiG 25 was basically two humongoid engines with a pilot and missile racks strapped on. It had the approximate combat range of a paper airplane, and from all accounts IMHO was about as maneuverable as a brick. The MiG 25's big trick was that it could move hella fast when it had to (well, for a few minutes anyway, then the gas ran out).
It wasn't the reality of the Mig 25 that saved the F14 and F15 projects back in the day, it was the rumored capabilities. By the time the defector flew the Mig 25 to Japan and the truth was revealed the F14 and F15 were operational.
Re:Is this really how fighter jets work? (Score:5, Interesting)
...For what it's worth, the USA doesn't have the resources to build F-22s either ;)
Yurt, actually, I'm in complete agreement with you. I've been in the aviation field for a long time now, both for fun and for paychecks. And there was a great article written more than 25 years ago.... Lord, I wish I could find it.... where the writer predicted that the US would eventually come to a point where it could "build a fighter with all of the electronics of the Starship Enterprise, but what good will it do us if we can only afford two of them?"
I think we hit that point starting with the B-2, and have continued it with the F-22 and F-35. Instead of following the American model of WWII... buy the best weapon that you can get in large numbers affordably... we've adopted the German model of WWII, which is to design the finest, most exotic weapons and make do with limited quantities of them (most people would be absolutely shocked if they knew, for instance, just how few tanks the Germans produced in comparison to the Allies. The Germans produced less than 1350 of the legendary Tiger tank, and less than 500 of the King Tiger). I think we saw how that turned out for the Germans. Americans and Russians just kept churning out Shermans and T-34's, and simply overwhelmed them. I'm very much afraid that in any future war with a peer foe (which, for the record, I think is a LONG way off), we might get smeared simply because we don't have enough fighters and ships and tanks and will be outlasted in the field. I think we desperately need large numbers of easy to use and maintain weapons, not 187 F-22's. That's not even enough to guarantee security of US borders, let alone deployment in a Korean or Eurasian war. But not even the greatest economy in the world can afford $183 million per fighter, flyaway (the CBO's estimate of the eventual cost of the F-35). That's simply insane.
Re:Is this really how fighter jets work? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a future war lasted long enough the US would still outproduce and out muscle anyone else (I'm not from the US and this is obvious even to me). Out of the biggest countries it still has the biggest economy; most internal natural resources; biggest, most advanced, best equipped and led military; best educated population (on average); most allies; and relatively attractive ideology to most of the World (meaning its allies would stick with it). Despite all the hand-wringing about it's fall (and it is interesting to see even the USAF release classified studies in an attempt to get even more F-22s, when the USAF is so much stronger than all the other countries combined) it is very unlikely that the US will not still be extremely influential into the future. The Chinese are not contenders at this point and no one apart from themselves and pariah states wants to see them dominate the rest of the World in the future.
Espionage? (Score:2)
At first glance, that looks exceedingly like an F-22 (I'm no expert-maybe specialists here can point out differences). I wonder what the odds are that this- like so many Chinese knockoffs- was designed with extensive engineering details about its competitors, gained in a clandestine manner?
China the new global superpower, and US decline (Score:2, Insightful)
When will we realize we need to spend those billions on educating new engineers and scientists,
repair our education system and bring industry back home? Do we value having $1.00 stores so much
we will slit our own throats to save 0.50 cents on plastic goods? China's power is there is no individual, there
is only the state. Need a new bridge? Seize houses. New factory? Take land. We need to realize what we are
up
Re:China the new global superpower, and US decline (Score:5, Insightful)
China's power is there is no individual, there is only the state. Need a new bridge? Seize houses. New factory? Take land. We need to realize what we are up against and adjust our outdated ideals about business.
How long can China realistically keep that up? Manufacturing in the U.S. is so damned expensive because you can't just dump your industrial waste into the nearby stream. China is enjoying a 1st world economy with 3rd world living conditions. It'll catch up with them eventually.
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USA was able to keep that up for a century, back in 19th, so why did that stop? Because the gov't found a way to crack around the Constitution and destroy foundation of the US principles.
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Re:China the new global superpower, and US decline (Score:5, Informative)
The U.S. is in decline because a lot of people think the problem is overspending on the military. It's not. Don't get me wrong; yes there's lots of pork in the U.S. military budget which could be cut. But it doesn't comprise most of U.S. government spending, nor is it the cause of the U.S.'s budgetary woes. And a good part of the reason we're in the buget mess we're in now is because people like you who think that it is implement solutions which don't address the real problem.
U.S. military spending is actually one of the few parts of government spending which has been more or less steadily declining since WWII, both as a % of the budget [urban.org] and as a % of GDP [cbo.gov]. It started climbing after 9/11, but it's still close to the lowest it's been since WWII [truthandpolitics.org].
What's killing the budget (indeed, where most of the money is spent) are the social programs; specifically, medicare and medicaid. They're projected to grow so quickly [cbo.gov] that even if you stopped all military spending, dropped it to zero , all the money that saved would be eaten up by growth in medicare and medicaid within 20-25 years. In other words, in 20-25 years we would have no military, no military spending, and our budgetary problems would be the same as they are now.
The first step in fixing a problem is to correctly identify what is causing it. The Congressional Budget Office hires a lot of really smart people to do nothing but identify the causes of the budget problems, and publishes a nifty report on it [cbo.gov] about every 2 years. Please go read it. Put aside any moralistic preconceptions you may have about which parts of the budget are good or bad. Look at it purely from an accounting standpoint - which parts are decreasing and which parts are ballooning out of control? The parts that are ballooning out of control are what we need to address to fix the problem, the parts that are decreasing are a much lower priority.
Horseshit and lies. (Score:3, Insightful)
About half of the discretionary budget is spent on the military.
http://www.warresisters.org/files/FY2011piechart.pdf [warresisters.org]
The reason the United States is dying is because we aren't collecting enough taxes to pay for our infrastructure. [deptofnumbers.com] We started two wars and then dropped taxes. That shit doesn't work.
When our way of life actually was in danger during WII, we immediately raised taxes to pay for the cost of saving our country, and those rates lasted throughout the 50s, which was one of our best economic periods in
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Wait, what? The U.S. is in decline because people think that we're overspending on the military? That doesn't jibe w/ the numbers I've seen. [wikipedia.org]
Medicare & Medicaid expenditures are big -- as big as defense. But you seem to suggest that they either dwarf defense spending, or are less important than defense spending ("The U.S. is in decline because..."). One of those points is factually incorrect, and the other, I suppose, depends upon your income, age, and sadly your political leaning.
My particular perspecti
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Basically, it is not that we are spending. It is that we have not been taxing enough and the interest on the accumulated debt is crushing us.
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Using WW2 spending as the mean is deceptive to say the least.
Re:China the new global superpower, and US decline (Score:5, Informative)
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But the alternative is death panels and commyernizzum!
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Sounds like they need to do the math on what procedures are worth it and which are not. Then deny the ones that are a waste.
Re:China the new global superpower, and US decline (Score:5, Insightful)
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Truthfully, I don't know why it's so expensive. I listened to all the arguments and debates during the run up to the health care reform vote. I tried to model those factors as best I could, compared the similarities and differences to Canada and o
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The Osprey is a fantastic aircraft, and an excellent idea - it just turned out to be a fuck of a lot harder to make than anyone thought (and the numerous dumb accidents along the way didn't help much). Nothing "pork" about it - it cost a lot because it was difficult to do.
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We deserve whatever is coming and that is sad. I don't think I can defend the average american anymore. I look at this country quickly become overcome with disgust. We let this happen. We even voted the people that made it all so into power. I can't wait for people to start hitting really hard times and start wondering how we got there exactly.
Stolen IP? (Score:2)
Anyone else think China's progress on this is a result of stolen intellectual property?
Re:Stolen IP? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're playing semantics. If plans were taken without the owner's permission then it was theft. Just because IP laws have been taken to an absurd level doesn't mean that there's no reason at all to protect intellectual property.
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You're playing semantics. If plans were taken without the owner's permission then it was theft.
LLLLOL. Extending the concepts fit for individuals to nations will always create hilarious images. Like in this case:
I suggest US sue China over copyright vilolation and put China in prison.
Engines? (Score:2)
New toy to harrass the Japanese (Score:2)
So will this be a new toy with which to violate Japanese airspace, and have the Japanese in a tizzy? Then Japan could waste more resources on buying F-22's and fancy radars, which will benefit US but leave the Japanese fuming that they are paying the price for the standoff between two powers.
Return of the Gun? (Score:2)
Why the Chinese need stealth (Score:5, Funny)
When can I buy one? (Score:3)
I went by Walmart but they didn't have any in stock.
I thought everything was made in China these days (Score:3)
I thought the F-22 was built in China. Everything else is.
Heh, we're not only funding our own military, we're funding theirs too, indirectly.
Fast taxis aren't enough (Score:5, Interesting)
... to validate a combat-worthy modern fighter.
A nation that puts plastic in its baby food to fake protein levels has quality control issues that will fail a phony fighter at fifty thousand feet. Remember the failure of the counterfeit aerospace bolts it ships to the west.
You can't overcome the demanding laws of physics by proclamation, family privilege, or deceit. Consequently, China's reverse-engineered Russian fighter engines don't match up. (And Russia has refused to sell them it's F22 class power plants because they're tired of getting ripped off. )
Don't even get me started on mastering the voodoo of stealth...
In short, we'll see what they have when it's super-cruising at altitude with working combat systems: Not when its taxi-ing at seal level.
High-speed taxi test? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they looking at different photos than what were published? The side-view photo certainly doesn't appear to be a high-speed test. Hard to tell with all the grain, but I would expect some blurring of the background and/or jet exhaust if it was traveling at high speed, but you see neither in those two photos. For all I can tell it could be a mockup sitting still on the tarmac. Not to say the Chinese haven't conducted high-speed tests of it, I just disagree with the claim that these photos show any evidence of it.
Other [guardian.co.uk] Photos [aviationweek.com] seem to have the same issues - that might be some heat waving in the Guardian photo, but tough to tell.
Claiming that this could be a prototype fighter that challenges the F-22 based on these photos is just ridiculous, and one would think a writer for Jane's would know better. It is quite possible, as China has really made no secret of the fact that they are pursuing aviation technology very aggressively (and I do seem to recall reports of large portions of engineering data for the F-22 being stolen a while back. My mistake - apparently it was the F-35 [wsj.com]), and no doubt they are working on bringing their high-tech fabrication technology up to speed. But there is a very big jump between putting together a stealthy-looking mockup (all that can really be determined from the photos) and producing an effective combat system, from airframe to FCS to weapons systems and avionics. Like I said, I don't doubt that this is their goal, and I don't doubt that they will be fully capable of it within a relatively short time, but a couple of photos really doesn't prove (or even really suggest) much of anything.
Copy (Score:3)
Rumor has it the canopy from the Chinese fighter will fit an F22 without modification but ranks lower in crash safety tests.
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:5, Informative)
Cobra maneuver:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHoBDW56CI [youtube.com]
Draken (01.55 02.05 02.13):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHoBDW56CI [youtube.com]
No such thing in the JAS 39 promotional video :/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNWpK9Qe4vk [youtube.com]
37 Viggen going backwards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fye_2AipFTA [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11-osaKapEI [youtube.com]
I don't know why it was odd that a Swedish one happen to be able to do it. Just because it's not Russian or what? =P
Regarding Viggen development (en.wikipedia):
"In 1960, the U.S. National Security Council, led by President Eisenhower, formulated a military security guarantee for Sweden. The U.S. promised to help the Swedish militarily in the event of a Soviet attack against Sweden; both countries signed a military-technology agreement. In what was known as the "37-annex", Sweden was allowed access to advanced U.S. aeronautical technology which made it possible to design and produce the Saab 37 Viggen much faster and cheaper than would otherwise have been possible.[5]
According to the doctoral research of Nils Bruzelius at the Swedish National Defence College, the reason for this officially unexplained U.S. support was the need to protect U.S. Polaris submarines deployed just outside the Swedish west coast against the threat of Soviet anti-submarine aircraft.[5]"
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:5, Interesting)
I love this story from the Australian International Air Show, for 1995:
"The 1995 Avalon airshow was held on March 21-26. The show was largely stolen by the visiting Russian contingent of Anatoly Kvochur, his specially modified SU-27P Flanker and Il-76 tanker aircraft. Aerial inflight refueling was displayed as well as Kvochur's world famous flying routine with the Flanker which involved the "Cobra", knife edge and extremely low level passes. The final display on the Sunday show saw the Flanker cruise down the Avalon runway at approximately 15 feet AGL. The RAAF and USAF were reluctant to compete with the Flanker and there was no solo F/A-18 Hornet aerobatic display this year. The USAF flew the F-16 Falcon with external drop tanks fitted which they said limited the aircraft to a "3g max" display. Kvochur won the award for best flying display this year."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_International_Airshow#1995 [wikipedia.org]
Uncle Sam was too scared to even show up! Ha!
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm, I guess we should start taking Chinese espionage seriously?
No, we should be taking the Chinese seriously. Every time one of these articles come out, there's a large contingent of people who dismiss it as "They're just copying", "It's still not a challenge to what we have" and, my favorite "These commies will never catch up to us."
Can we realize that the Chinese are on a nice technology curve that is bound to intersect with ours within our lifetime? And that their plans include putting China back into the center of the world, where they believe it rightfully belongs? Maybe the F-35 will be enough to counter any threat from the Chinese for the next 20 years. But after that, we better make sure we have the technology edge, because we sure as hell won't have the manpower or economy edge.
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:4, Insightful)
They may be just copying, but the implications of "just copying" apparently haven't sunk in yet.
If they are able to acquire that much of our technology, then they've acquired the rest of it too, as has every other country to which we've outsourced our technology manufacturing. 10 years ago, I ranted about how outsourcing was not just an economic problem for geeks, but a major national security risk. At that time, I was still naive enough to believe that the folks who owned defemse technology companies gave a damn about the United States.
Well, the national security risk is there in the photo, and it's clear that those executives who were willing to sell out their country for next quarter's earnings and a bigger bonus didn't, and don't, give a rat's patoot about the USA. They can live quite comfortably in any country, after all. Why should they care? Let the peasants get bombed.
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the Soviets once said "Sell the Chinese a fighter and 5 years later they have a fighter factory". The Chinese are determined to become the next super power and they have a huge pool of science and engineering talent to pull from. Some of whom were trained in Europe and the US. They have a good feel for the US and and Europe's capabilities and want to surpass that. I personally do not underestimate them.
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The problem is they don't invent any of it. They simply negotiate smartly to steal the existing technology with little to no improvement. The problem with military equipment like a fighter jet is that the US doesn't export the technology, even to very friendly countries like Britain and Israel. It's built in the US and the export versions are sufficiently degraded to the point that the receiving countries frequently install their own systems because the export US versions are shit.
So what the Chinese have,
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Might look interesting but it's not the airframe that's important anymore, it's the electronics because dog fights don't exist anymore, the missile technology is so good that fighters just launch missiles while the target is still over the horizon and invisible.
That's not really true. The technology is there and almost certainly works as well as advertised, but there's almost always been a requirement for the pilot to positively identify the enemy before firing upon it, and that usually requires visual confirmation. Very few air-to-air kills have been made at beyond visual range, for this reason.
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:4, Funny)
Good idea - then we'll only have to dig half as far to get there.
Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score:5, Interesting)
>>Can we realize that the Chinese are on a nice technology curve that is bound to intersect with ours within our lifetime?
Well, their strategy in this regard is quite smart. They are sitting on a long pile of dollars, which, you know, some companies would like to get. So they will buy stuff from western companies with the following deal: we'll buy the first few outright, the next few we'll buy from you but assemble in China, and the next few you'll turn the plans over to us, and we'll build it ourselves but pay you a royalty. They've done this with high speed trains, nuclear reactors, and so forth. Very very cheap way of bypassing the need for doing the R&D themselves.
And the West loves it, though it's essentially shooting itself in the foot.
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Re:Cue Wild Speculation (Score:4, Insightful)
Diversion of the Brahmaputra... the Ganges... etc.
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And this is the #1 reason why Tibet will never be free from Chinese rule. Supporters of Tibetan independence have... some goodwill through human rights on their side. China has the need to control the main water sources in Asia on its side.
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Why? it's not liek the Chinese can't use conventional aircraft. Unless Tiawan has a much more sophisticated army then I think they have.
Taiwan has an extremely sophisticated army compared to the PLA, but the sheer numerical inferiority dooms them. Even apart from this, they wouldn't be able to maintain air superiority anyway: by prevailing doctrine the first sign of a war will be China shredding every single runway in Taiwan within 3 minutes using the 1000s of missiles already pointed at them. So Taiwan's only chance really is guerilla warfare against sea reinforcements using shore-based anti-ship missiles...
This is about pretending to be able to make the same technological achievements as the west.
Look at the thing. It looks horrid and out of date. I can see the seems for christ sake.
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Aside from the fact that that kind of comment is potentially offensive, TFA has images of Chinese drones at a Chinese airshow last year: Image [wsj.com]