The J-20 IS the CORNERSTONE of CHINA's Air Force but...  Long Format - video Dailymotion

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00:00hey welcome this is a long format video of all our previous production about the

00:05J-20. I'm doing this because YouTube is not very kind with older videos but

00:10there are no particular updates about the aircraft save for the fact the

00:14Chinese are ramping up the production and an increasing number of units is

00:18swapping their old aircraft and or in some cases even J-11s for the J-20.

00:25The dual seater prototype keeps flying but still we don't know any detail about

00:31this new variant. So with no further ado here is the J-20. Enjoy!

00:55so here's the thing we don't know much about the J-20 and probably we won't

01:20know much for a while however there are several analysts that are following its

01:26development and now there is enough open source intelligence to have a

01:32reasonable discussion even without Hotties hacking into Chinese computers

01:38the beginning of the development started in the 90s the first flight

01:43happened in 2011 the first delivery started in 2017 the first combat

01:50brigade was formed in 2018 but in 2019 the J-20B started being delivered since

01:59then it is estimated that two more brigades have been equipped with the

02:03aircraft which this would mean probably between 120 and 150 units yeah I know it

02:12seems a lot but Chinese do everything very quickly so it's probably not

02:18impossible anyway we don't know the mix between the two versions and exactly

02:23when I am preparing the video here it appears the first good look at the dual

02:30seater version

02:33the configuration is twin-engine Delta Canard with a long and slender lifting

02:43body this is an interesting configuration from an aerodynamic point

02:47of view since it has the potential of still enjoying the advantages of Delta

02:53Canard but also being quite efficient because the aerodynamic surfaces are

02:58kept relatively small the aircraft seems long very long with the wings

03:06placed so far back one might actually question the fact that the aerodynamic

03:11center is actually on the back of the center of gravity which is something

03:17necessary because the design is a relaxed stability design however if you

03:23observe the aircraft's planform and you keep the canards and the lifting body in

03:28consideration probably doesn't seem so far-fetched the aircraft gives the

03:33impression of being long if seen from the side because the canopy is very

03:37small and also the vertical stabilizers are quite small and the vertical

03:42stabilizers are quite small because they are divided in two sets of two there are

03:47two classic stabilizers above the aircraft canted outwards but also two

03:53smaller fins below the aircraft pointing outwards as well from the

03:59overall proportions it seems a very long aircraft but in fact it is shorter than

04:04the Suhoi 35 or the Suhoi 57 well not by much but it is shorter the

04:11canard configuration seems to be a relatively classic loose couple canards

04:16which should provide a good maneuverability together with the

04:20leading edge through the extensions of the small Delta wing overall this

04:25configuration should be relatively resilient to departure however it seems

04:31that the aircraft is not capable of post stall maneuvering and even the maximum

04:38angles of attack are not that extreme as we have seen in other modern fighters

04:50analyzing an aircraft structure from the outside is always a game of

04:55conjectures but we love it so let's do it structurally it seems that the

05:00aircraft is built with a single central torsion box with the bulkheads changing

05:06shape to accommodate the engines and the wingspars are probably blended with the

05:11rear bulkheads the weapons bay is between this central box and the canards

05:18and since the weapons bay is an opening the structural rigidity is actually

05:26compromised by the opening either for torsion or for bending since the canards

05:32impose aerodynamic loads to the structure placing the canard in that

05:37position means that either there have been some weight penalties to add

05:43material to restore the rigidity or maybe there are some limitations to the

05:48use of the canards for example a heavy asymmetric maneuver can place a heavy

05:54torsion load on the structure and basically bend or twist the aircraft

06:00half of the weight of the aircraft is aluminum about 30% is titanium and only

06:0520% is composites so despite the fact that it is a relatively modern design it

06:11is not one of those plastic planes the J-20 seems to be covering some sort of

06:16rather absorbing material but the whole structure is definitely designed with

06:21stealth in mind we have the classical ridge on the forward part of the

06:24fuselage there is plan for alignment there are no straight angles so all the

06:31four tail surfaces are canted outwards the air intakes are diverter less

06:36intakes the surface is relatively smooth panels and openings are all serrated all

06:43of these are classic stealth design features and the obvious question is

06:50why canards on a stealth design these are usually very radar reflective

06:56features because they have a straight angle with the fuselage and when they're

07:00a close couple they promote the bouncing of electromagnetic radiation between the

07:05canards and the wing in the case of the J-20 though the canards have a very

07:11prominent dihedral and the fuselage at the insertion point is inclined downward

07:19so it is impossible to say how stealth an aircraft is just by looking at it but

07:24in this case it seems that the canard problem has been at least mitigated it

07:30is also worth noting that from the side the aircraft profile is quite low this

07:35means that the surface that is exposed to the radar energy is also relatively

07:42low if compared with the overall size of the aircraft

07:52no I'm no I'm really not covering this because there is too much confusion so

07:58it seems that the aircraft is using two different types of engines and probably

08:02a third will be available from 2023 or 2025 but the names the versions and the

08:10features of all these engines are basically all over the place the one

08:15thing that seems certain is that the current aircraft doesn't have the final

08:19engine so it should be considered underpowered however it seems to be

08:25underpowered in the same way the Su-57 is now is very good but in the future it

08:31will become great

08:39we do have some official numbers derived from some signs at the latest

08:45expo where the Ju-20 has been present but that's hardly a reliable source

08:52I still think we should procure the manuals sir

08:55Otis don't you have anything else to do?

08:58no sir

08:59okay while you're here please show the specification but no more hacking okay

09:05so

09:26while some information has emerged during the years about the sensors and

09:31the systems we still have a sketchy picture

09:33for example we don't know about sensor fusions or the electronic warfare

09:37capabilities even though we know that the aircraft is equipped with an

09:42indigenous data link the cockpit is a modern all-glass cockpit with a large

09:48panoramic head-up display integrated with the helmet mounted display the

09:53helmet can be used to display the images from a distributed aperture system with

09:59four sensors two on the front of the aircraft near the cockpit and two on the

10:04back of the aircraft these dash systems are becoming

10:07increasingly common sir yeah yeah it's um it's true Otis even

10:13though the pilot's response has been lukewarm

10:17at times the configuration of the other optical

10:20systems is not entirely clear because the sources differ

10:26the aircraft has a chin-mounted optical window that really looks like

10:33the F-35 EOTS but it should house an infrared search and track

10:40because we have chinese sources mentioning

10:43an ERST and there's pretty much no other place

10:47where it could be housed some other sources mention two separate systems one

10:52called the EOTS and the other one the infrared search

10:55and track i personally think the first one is

10:57correct but we don't know for sure the radar is an AESA system credited

11:02with a large number of elements up to 2000 according to some sources

11:07and it is believed to have really good performances

11:13some analysts believe that the aircraft may have

11:16side looking and rear facing antennas but yet we have no confirmation of that

11:23in the same way there are several panels on the J-20 that could be antenna

11:28housing but their function is actually unknown

11:32chaffs and flares dispensers are mounted in the fairings at the root of the

11:38vertical stabilizers and in the same fairings there seems to

11:42be even more antennas that we can only

11:45suppose that are related to the electronic warfare and the

11:49radar warning systems but again their exact function is unknown

12:01the aircraft doesn't have a cannon and all the armament is stored

12:06in the ventral main bay and in two smaller side bays

12:10there are four underwing hardpoints but they have never been seen

12:15carrying anything other than fuel tanks for ferry flights

12:20the main role of the J-20 seems to be air superiority and the weapons of

12:24choice are the PL-12 medium range and the PL-15

12:29long range missiles four units can be carried

12:33in the main bay we know that the Chinese have achieved supersonic payload

12:37separation so definitely these missiles can benefit

12:42from a launch at high speed the new PL-21 which is a

12:46long range air breathing weapon seems also to be

12:50compatible with the J-20 the two side bays

12:54house one PL-10 each it is a infrared guided short range weapon

13:01there is a curious detail here the side bays

13:05close immediately after exposing the weapon leaving it

13:09hanging from the side of the aircraft just before the launch

13:13the air-to-ground weapon seems to be limited to the

13:17smaller representatives of the LS family these are pretty much the standard

13:23guided bombs in service with the Chinese air force

13:26these are gliding bombs and there are various versions

13:30either with inertial guidance gps guidance or laser guidance

13:35you may have noticed that the panoply available to the J-20 is actually

13:40relatively limited from this relatively limited variety of weapons it seems

13:45justified the assumption that the J-20 is designed

13:50to snipe at the high value assets of the western air forces like the oaks the

13:56electronic reconnaissance aircraft the tankers

14:00and so on it really seems reasonable that the main mission of the J-20

14:05is to attacking the typical force multipliers available to a modern air

14:11force and another possible target to snipe at

14:15long distance are the air to ground assets of an

14:19attacking force which won't be capable of defending

14:22themselves at long range in both these scenarios the

14:26capability of getting relatively close to the target

14:30thanks to stealth but also using long range weapons

14:33well just makes sense in the same way makes sense to use the aircraft

14:37to attack high paying ground targets with precision guided weapons which is

14:43basically also the mission where stealth actually shines and the flip side of

14:48this approach is that the actual air combat is probably best left to the

14:53flankers and china has a lot of them

15:04stealth yes stealth again yes because stealth is the obsession of so

15:11many air forces but it is also the obsession of so many

15:16enthusiasts but the point of view is different yes

15:20because the enthusiast wants to know if an aircraft is more stealthy than

15:24another so today we are having a look at the

15:28chinese J-20 let's start

15:38yes Otis it is indeed a game rule number one

15:42it is not possible to numerically assess how stealthy an aircraft is

15:46just by looking at it you need to make proper simulations

15:51to have a quantitative measure rule number two

15:54however if we look only at specular reflection stealth

15:58we can assess if that specific geometry is there

16:02or not so no diffraction no radar absorbing materials no infrared

16:07rule number three well it may seem that we are ignoring a lot

16:11but geometry is the main contributor to stealth

16:15and it is the only one that you can really see clearly

16:18from the pictures radar absorbing materials have evolved a lot since

16:23their first aeronautical use but they still are

16:26not the main contributor to stealth rule number four since the united states

16:33are the country that has invested the most

16:37on stealth today we are comparing the J-20

16:41to the F-22 and the F-35. J-20 cockpit F-22 cockpit as you can see

16:48the profile is similar so the performance of the

16:53canopy should be similar both for aerodynamic and stealth

16:59canopy stealth is important because radar radiation entering the canopy

17:05will bounce around inside the canopy and then it will be reflected

17:10outside magnificated so in absence of a canopy capable of

17:17reflecting the energy itself the cockpit is quite a big reflector

17:23second element this edge on the side of the aircraft

17:27which is common to pretty much every stealth design

17:31we'll see better from a different point of view the radome interface with the

17:34aircraft is not perpendicular with the axis of

17:38the aircraft this is a stealth feature radar antennas

17:42since are good emitters are also good reflectors if the radome is

17:48inclined in this way the radiation coming horizontally will be

17:53reflected away this serration exists because the rim

17:58of the fuselage around the antenna is quite a powerful

18:02reflector we may imagine that on the F-22

18:07there is a different solution not based on serration

18:10but rather on radar absorbing material from this front of view we can

18:14see quite clearly the fuselage edge in both aircraft this is a typical

18:21stealth feature it has several functions but it also

18:25splits the fuselage side into two sections

18:30inclined in different ways if radar radiation

18:34is coming horizontally which is the case for

18:39most of the times and in general it is the case

18:43for any far away emitter then it is specularly reflected away from the

18:50direction where it is coming because here we have the

18:55emitter but in general we also have the receiver

18:59so the radar radiation is reflected away from

19:03the receiver and the same is true for the J-20 that has

19:07a similar configuration as we can see here

19:11in literature you find bistatic radars as a way of defeating stealth a bistatic

19:18radar is a radar where the receiver is not

19:22co-located with the emitter this is by no means

19:26cutting-edge technology the first radars ever created were indeed

19:32bistatic radars you can also see the two aircraft are

19:36similar in the configuration of the canopy

19:40from the front two straight sides portion of the canopy straight and then

19:46with a curved connection between the two is not a

19:51bubble like in other aircraft for example the

19:54F-16 this is working in the same way as the

19:57side of the fuselage and the radiation that hits this curved

20:01path will be reflected away as well in a

20:06specular manner these two angles will be the same

20:10an extremely important feature as we can see on the F-22 we have a very

20:15shallow angle like this and the same is true for the

20:21J-20 even though the angle is not as shallow as the F-22

20:27the mechanism at work here is always the same the radiation is coming from the

20:31side and reflected away and the same as you can see maybe true for

20:36the J-20 if the side of the fuselage was vertical

20:40the reflection would have been directly toward

20:44the emitter so an important geometric stealth feature

20:48is not having vertical surfaces on the aircraft obvious consequence of

20:55this geometric arrangement is that if the

20:58aircraft is banking maybe this side of the fuselage becomes

21:04vertical and then stealth is greatly reduced so

21:09stealth aircraft tend to have their best performance in terms of

21:14reduction of radar return when they are flying

21:18straight also the J-20 has canards and as we can

21:21see the angle that the canards are forming with the fuselage

21:24is quite shallow as well normally canards

21:28are not conducive to stealth because they introduce an

21:32extra interface between an horizontal surface

21:36the fuselage and since they are in front of the aircraft which is the area

21:42where you want your aircraft to be more stealth they are normally avoided

21:46here on the J-20 we can see that some care has been put in minimizing

21:52problem of canard from this picture we can also see the

21:56shape of the air intakes J-20 has DSI intakes while

22:02the F-22 has conventional wedge intakes at least i believe they are so i think

22:08there is a mobile ramp inside here but for stealth purpose

22:14what is important is that the shape of these intakes is not

22:19rectangular but it is a lozenge this is very important because

22:23straight angles have the property to reflect optically any energy

22:31directly toward the emitter is just elementary geometry so in you will

22:38never see a straight angle on a stealth aircraft

22:42as we can see the J-20 has a lozenge shape as well

22:47this angle is acute angle is acute this angle here is shallow this angle

22:53is acute as we can see the air intakes are quite different because the J-20 is

23:00using DSI intakes so it has a small bump here

23:05it shows us that the aircraft have a different optimization the F-22 is

23:11optimized for high supersonic speed the J-20 for transonic speed even though

23:17this doesn't mean that the aircraft could

23:19breach Mach 2 however this bump on the DSI intake

23:23is actually helping for stealth since short wavelength radar for example the

23:30X-band or Q-band radars that are used by other

23:34fighters or some surface-to-air systems cannot penetrate inside

23:41the intake and be reflected or better this bump is actually

23:45masking a little bit the inside of the intake contributing to stealth

23:51not massively but it is an extra contribution

23:54in this picture we can see even more clearly the intersection between the

23:58wing and the fuselage in both this region here is very clean

24:03in both the aircraft the J-20 has this small bump in here there is another one

24:10on the F-22 here but it's small stuff another feature that is actually

24:14visible from here is this flat area a flat lower fuselage is another stealth

24:21feature because with the same logic that we have

24:25described before it reflects radiation away now in this

24:29picture you can see the aircraft while it is rolling and so

24:35the side of the fuselage is vertical in this case the reflection

24:39will be specular and toward the emitter so

24:43if the aircraft is banking is less stealth

24:46we can also see that the two aircraft have pretty much the

24:50same configuration the same tunnel between the engines

24:54which i believe it is a concession to aerodynamics this

24:59should reduce drag at subsonic speed at least it seems so

25:04you can also notice the difference in the nozzle configuration

25:09the F-22 has the well-known B dimensional nozzles

25:13J-20 has classical nozzles we'll we'll get back to this

25:17later from this point of view we are also seeing another

25:21typical stealth feature which is the inclined vertical empennage which is

25:27true for both aircraft as you can see the F-22 has

25:32bigger vertical empennage than the J-20 and this is due to the

25:38fact that the J-20 also has these fins down here

25:44so the total vertical surface is splitting

25:47two on the F-22 but it's splitting four on the J-20 again the mechanism is

25:54always the same radiation from this side reflected away

25:57now notice how the F-35 is different from the J-20

26:01here in this region that we said it is critical

26:05we have a very clean interface a very clean side on the F-35

26:09is exactly the opposite we have this structure here which is curved

26:14actually that well don't know exactly what it is will contain

26:17something and also the rest of the fuselage

26:20is sort of rounded here which is good for aerodynamic reason probably

26:26better than the flat surfaces on the J-20

26:29but is definitely less stealthy from a geometric point of view

26:34if you have a curved structure and some radiation impinging

26:38well you will have reflections away obviously

26:41perpendicular to the curved surface but you are guaranteed

26:45here there will be a point where the reflection will be

26:49straight toward the emitter which is exactly what we don't want

26:53this is the reason why we try to limit this

26:57kind of curved surfaces now the consideration

27:00behind this type of rounded shapes used on the F-35 is probably that the

27:07F-35 uses rather absorbing materials to a much

27:12larger extent as the J-20 or the F-22

27:16the rather absorbing material is actually integral

27:20with fracture so these materials probably

27:25reduce the amount of energy being reflected much

27:29more than on the J-20 or the F-22 so basically the designer can get away

27:34with a geometry that is not stealthy

27:38however this is conjecture from this point of view we can see another

27:43feature that is typical of stealth which is

27:45platform alignment on the F-22 we can see that

27:50this line is aligned with this line this line

27:54is aligned with this line and even the serrations and

28:00air intakes are pretty much aligned in the same way

28:04what is the logic? pretty much the same as usual

28:08all the aerodynamic surfaces and the serration corners will reflect

28:15the energy toward a single direction and they won't spread the energy back

28:21toward the source so there will be one direction here where the aircraft

28:28is not stealth but it will be just one direction if there is no receiver here

28:34well the aircraft is not going to be spotted

28:38on the J-20 we can see the same this line here on the canard is pretty

28:45much aligned with the leading edge in here and

28:49this line on the canards it aligned with this trailing edge here and the same is

28:55true for the serrations as usual if we make the

28:59same comparison with the F-35 we can see the usual

29:04platform alignment on the F-35 too what's noteworthy though are these

29:09bumps on the lower side of the wing of the J-20

29:13and these are absent from the F-35

29:17these bumps obviously contain the hydraulic actuators of the aerodynamic

29:22surfaces here on the trailing edge of the wing

29:26in the J-20 these are not hydraulic these are

29:30electric and it is a very interesting technology because they are small enough

29:35to be entirely contained within the thickness of the wing so there are no

29:39bumps and these bumps actually being rounded surfaces do have

29:44some radar return another interesting difference that you can see in this

29:48picture is the difference between the nozzles of the

29:51two aircraft on the F-35 there is serration there's nothing like that

29:59on the J-20 also considering that this area here where we have the

30:05intersection of the vertical surfaces with the fuselage

30:09is relatively dirty we can probably expect the J-20 to have a lower

30:16level of stealth from the rear aspect should be excellent from the side it

30:22should be excellent from the front but here from the rear there are probably

30:26some more reflections so if you are interested to learn more

30:29about the J-20 there are several other videos on the channel

30:33where we discuss the aircraft and they're going to appear here beside

30:37me thank you very much to all those who are supporting the channel on Patreon

30:41or by being a member and from today there is a new way to support the

30:46channel if you are into aircraft as much as i

30:49have i want to draw your attention to Air Models

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31:09i invite you to visit the link in the description or in the

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31:28much for watching and see you next time

The J-20 IS the CORNERSTONE of CHINA's Air Force but... Long Format

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