Soon china would start making stealthy toys, that is the fate of well guarded Stealth technology. Photos surfaced on web on sunday suggest...
While previous Chinese aircraft were generally copies of a single foreign design, China’s J-31 appear to draw on multiple foreign sources.
J-31’s general configuration and contours resemble those of Lockheed Martin’s twin-engine F-22 Raptor, F-35 and Sukhoi T-50.
The J-31’s twin-engine configuration could indicate higher take-off weight than similarly-sized foreign aircraft like the F-35.
The twin-engine design could also reflect design inefficiencies that would increase the net weight as compared to U.S. airframes of similar size or even lack of trust in the reliability of engines currently available. A single-engine design such as the F-35 for naval operations implies an extremely high degree of confidence in engine reliability.
Some observers suggest that twin-wheel nose landing gear indicate at a carrier operation fighter for chinese Navy.
Just how stealthy is these J-31, and for that matter, the slightly older J-20 is ? Even US is struggling to maintain its stealth fleet, due to its complex design, high maintance to flying hour ratios etc.
Stealth design does not merely relies on shape, instead special radar-absorbing materials (RAM), like radar absorbing paints, coatings, Infrared heat signature suppression, AESA radar, silent electronic gear plus extreme high speed and altitude performance all combine to form the ability to evade enemy defenses unnoticed. It’s hard to say whether China has mastered, or even attempted, these techniques to perfection.
