localoca
and you have shown the world, that you are just another fanboy who hates the PAK FA because its Russian, and thinks the J-20 is better just because it is chinese.
Now lets see what the US thinks about the J-20.
The Air Forces recently retired intelligence chief warns the U.S. to pay close attention to the Chinese stealth fighter that took to the air last month, saying the aircraft could turn into a formidable opponent.
The Chengdu J-20 took off Jan. 11 and flew for about 15 minutes over an airfield in the southwestern city of Chengdu. Lt. Gen David Deptula said the fifth-generation fighter may turn out to be a very, very formidable aircraft if the Chinese can effectively harness active electronically scanned array radars, engines and stealth.
The J-20, like the F-22, would be able to cruise at supersonic speeds at very high altitudes, Deptula said. But it would also carry more weapons, including three types now under development: air-to-air missiles with longer ranges than their U.S. counterparts; anti-ship and anti-surface weapons; and, potentially, weapons to destroy U.S. satellites.
Such a plane might be used against U.S. refueling planes and large sensor aircraft such as the E-3 Sentry and E-8 JSTARS, he said.
The emergence of both the J-20 and the Russian fifth-generation fighter, the PAK-FA, indicates that a U.S. advantage is slipping away, Deptula said.
The United States has owned a monopoly on stealth for the last 25 years, and now, as both the Russians and Chinese acquire that same capability, youre going to see that advantage we used to hold disappear very quickly, and that is going to have a very significant effect on our current operational plans, Deptula said. The first flight of the J-20 needs to be a wake-up call to the strategic complacency of those in the United States who assume continued air and naval dominance in the Pacific.
The J-20s appearance also should cause prudent decision-makers to reconsider the closure of the F-22 [production] line, Deptula said.
Lockheed Martin officials said they are on track to deliver the 187th and last Raptor, with tail-number 4095, in April 2012. Following Air Force orders, the company is working to preserve the tooling and knowledge necessary to restart the production line, said Jeff Babione, Lockheeds F-22 general manager, in an e-mailed statement.
Deptula also said the J-20 should prompt the U.S. to begin work on a replacement for the F-22, noting the Chinese jet would enter service in five to seven years, when the Raptor will be more than 15 years old.
Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, Arlington, Va., said the J-20s appearance is consistent with that of a long-range strike aircraft designed to further Chinese goals of denying U.S. forces access to the western Pacific.
But he said the J-20 appears to have a particularly small radar cross-section only from the front, somewhat like the U.S. Navys F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
Having stealth in the forward aspect and not having it on the sides or the back would be consistent with an aircraft designed to strike distant ships at sea or nearby countries like Japan, he said.
Thompson said he doubts the J-20 is an air-superiority fighter similar to the F-22, but given the geographic asymmetry of our circumstances, perhaps a long-range maritime strike aircraft is more worrisome to us than something like an F-22.
Analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, Fairfax, Va., poured even more cold water on the J-20.
Its a kludge, or a machine thrown together from mismatched parts, he said. Ive never seen so much hysteria."
Aboulafia shares Thompsons view that the Chinese lack the systems integration skills and the technology for a true fifth-generation fighter. In particular, he said, the Chinese have difficulties developing engines.
Aboulafia said the J-20 might not even be all that stealthy from the front, thanks to its canards, which reflect radar energy as they rotate during flight.
The U.S. may be overestimating the Chinese aircraft, just as the Air Force overestimated the Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat during the Cold War, Aboulafia said
I think Joseph Nye said it best in Foreign Policy [magazine] this month: There is an American tendency to overestimate them, and Chinese hubris based on self-overestimation, he said.