gambit
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The internal combustion and jet engines are probably the two most inhospitable environments we have produced to date that we exploit for long term use....I would like your complete Opinion the the J-20 analysis including China current Engine Achilles heel problem.
For the internal combustion engine, we have an explosion powerful enough to deny a human being the use of a hand or foot confined inside a metal chamber that we turn into mechanical motion via a moving device called a 'piston'. The entire contraption must be durable enough to start and stop upon our whims and under varying temperatures. It must be made to suffer our abuses, from fuel grades to how we physically handle it.
Now multiply that a thousand folds for the jet engine.
How effective is the J-20 regarding its role as a tactical air superiority platform depends on its engines. We are not talking about smooth and stable movements on the throttles like an airliner but abrupt detent to detent and everywhere in the middle of those detents. The responses must be instantaneous. We must have durability but this is not the same as reliability, the latter is about maintenance that may not be under ideal hangar-ed environments. The list of engineering issues is long.