Chengdu J-20 - Mighty Dragon

Surbaissemaxxing · February 21, 2025, 5:51pm

Note: This aircraft is obviously meant for the far future, not now. It is still quite obscure with information.

Would you like to see this in-game?

Yes
No

0 voters

Suggestion No.57

G’day lads. I want to suggest one of China’s most advanced stealth aircraft, competing with the F-35 aswell as other nations stealth aircraft, and that is of course the Chengdu J-20 :)

Description:

Spoiler

The Chengdu J-20, also known as the “Mighty Dragon”, is a fifth-generation stealth fighter jet developed by China during 2010’s, but has possible design origins since the 1970’s. The J-20 has a sleek, angular design that enhances its stealth capabilities. It features a long fuselage, trapezoidal wings, and a pair of canards for increased maneuverability. The aircraft’s shape, materials, and coatings are optimized for reduced radar cross-section, making it difficult to detect on enemy radar systems. The J-20 is powered by twin engines, which provide it with impressive speed and agility. The J-20 is equipped with advanced avionics and sensor systems, including an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, which allows for better target detection and tracking. It also has a distributed aperture system (DAS) for enhanced situational awareness. The J-20 can carry a variety of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, housed in internal weapon bays to maintain its stealth profile. It is capable of engaging multiple targets simultaneously, both in aerial combat and ground-attack missions. The J-20 has a significant operational range, allowing it to conduct missions deep into enemy territory without the need for mid-air refueling.

History:

Spoiler

The history of the Chengdu J-20 can be traced back to China’s aspirations to develop advanced fighter jets capable of matching or surpassing those of other leading military powers. In the 1990s, China initiated the J-XX program, with the intent of making their own 5th Gen aircraft, as other jets like the F-22 and F-35 were already a thing.

The Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAIG) was selected to lead the development of the J-20. The design phase began in the late 1990s, and by the early 2000s, CAIG had created several prototypes. The J-20 project benefited from technological advancements and lessons learned from previous Chinese fighter jet programs, possibly including the J-9 project.

The J-9 project, initiated in the 1960s, was an ambitious endeavor to develop a high-performance fighter and interceptor. Although the J-9 project was eventually canceled due to various technical and logistical challenges, it laid the groundwork for future Chinese fighter jet designs. Notably, the double-canard configuration explored in the J-9 project later influenced the design of the J-20. The J-9 project only made it to the windtunnel stage.

The J-20 made its maiden flight on January 11, 2011. Over the following years, the J-20 underwent extensive testing and refinement, with various prototypes being produced and evaluated, such as testing different engines with various capabilities, some even featuring TVC (Thrust Vector Control), however, for the base J-20 they have settled for the WS-10C engine.

The aircraft’s design and capabilities continued to evolve, incorporating lessons learned from the earlier prototypes. By March 2017, the J-20 was officially introduced into the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.

Armaments:

Spoiler

PL-15E “Abaddon” AAM (6x internal)

PL-15 “Abaddon” AAM (4x internal, 8x external)

PL-10 AAM (2x shoulder bay, 2x external)

Thanks to new findings, it was found out that the J-20 has a “beast mode”, making it carry up to 18 missiles, those being 6 internal PL-15E, 8 external PL-15, 2 internal shoulder bay PL-10 and 2 external PL-10 missiles. Yea, to say the least, that’s a lot.

Type 1475 (KLJ-5A) AESA radar

EOTS-86

EORD-31 IRST

Drop tanks

Countermeasures (2 images below will be shown, one without cover and one with cover)

Specifications:

Spoiler

The J-20 is around 21.2m long, has a wingspan of 13.01m (with a wing area of 73 square meters), and a height of 4.69m. The J-20, due to its size, is also quite heavy, being around 17000kg heavy while empty, with a gross weight of 25000kg and a maximum takeoff weight of 37000kg. Due to this, it is powered by Chinese made WS-10C engines, powering the aircraft with around 142 to 147kN of thrust wet.

Stealth:

Spoiler

The stealth of the J-20 is still publicly unknown, but there are research papers from Chengdu talking about the stealth with canards (Shoutout to @InterFleet for posting the pdf in the J-20 discussion thread). Researchers from the China Aviation Industry Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute studied the RCS of canard-configured fighter aircraft. They found that the canard layout can be as stealthy as conventional layouts after suppressing or eliminating specific scattering features. The study suggests four key principles for stealthy canard design:

The canard wing’s edge should be arranged to reduce RCS peak values, utilizing the main wing’s stronger peak values to cover smaller ones from the canard.
The trailing edge of the canard wing should be chamfered to reduce aerodynamic drag and RCS.
Absorbing wave structures should be applied to the wing’s edges and wingtips for low-frequency and high-frequency stealth.
High-frequency absorbing coatings should be used in the gap area between the canard wing and the fuselage to suppress gap scattering, with careful consideration of coating size and placement.

The researchers used the multi-layer fast multipole method (MLFMM) to calculate RCS and conducted experiments to analyze edge scattering and gap scattering effects. The study concludes that with these design principles, the canard configuration can be effectively applied in high-stealth aircraft design.