It’s gonna be a long 3 months
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It seems to have 3 engines, still, can’t even confirm the photos are real, although the videos look, well, good enough to be real.
February 24th, 2025. Today in RR&D we argued over whether cereal counts as soup. Where update.
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We’re talking about the new “sixth generation” Chinese aircraft right?
The photos are definitely real, nothing about them seems fake. But just because China has an aircraft that looks like that and flies doesn’t mean they have a fully-operational sixth-generation fighter.
It could be an airframe prototype or a technology demonstrator. Or it could be the real thing!
If I’m following the discussion correctly, people seem to be debating whether or not it’s real because of the larger implications for the international aircraft arms race. I’m not sure if what I’m about to say is a hot take, but this might matter a lot less than people are claiming it does. Again, just having an aircraft flying that looks like this one does is not evidence that China has overtaken the US technologically. The US counterpart could just have better opsec than this one, or is at a different stage of the development process. On the other hand, it could be that the institutional bloat of the US MIC has finally allowed China to overtake them, or maybe tech got stolen. We can’t know either of those things for sure. All we can say for sure from those photos is that China has an aircraft that looks like that.
Well we did see the prototypes from SAC, which resembles the prototypes shown in Zhuhai air show. Although still, two distinct prototypes seen on the same day, quite unusual. My take is at least we know China is indeed going with a next gen, and to me this confirms the development, rather than anything else. Also, on a less serious note, looks just like a Christmas tree.
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I think I just took psychic damage
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Well, I caught up on this entire days discussion, and i’ve come to the conclusion that we need to remove Eurofighter.
Reading Jerry & Tommy cope was a far more civilized age of RR&D. We gotta go back. Don’t know when you’re living in the good times until they’re over.
Mad to think people spend all their time on forums during Christmas…
300 unread over night
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The American dorito plane gaijin give you.
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Overcooked dorito.
WTF, what does it taste like, burnt?
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That’s what it looks like, yeah.
Don’t know kind of want to try it to see if it does.
The whole “China stealing/copying other nation’s tech” reminded me of this.
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XB-47 when
Id imagine given how the ho229 just works the game should handle most flying wings
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The thing is they can question Will Roper. As no one is full proof, but considering the possibilities:
Spoiler
He’s fully telling the truth: It doesn’t mean inherently that the US is ahead as who knows when China secretly flew these planes (maybe 4 years ago as well) or if they did at all.
The other possibility in my opinion is (as I don’t think he’s lying)
He’s missing some context/twisting things slightly:
What would be his motivation for this? Well as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force he has a role in acquisition and probably is motivated to get the necessary funding for these programs.
For example the Zumwalt went quite a bit over budget and were they completely truthful in order to get the extra funding from congress? I doubt it.
Or say the Ajax programme (I knows it’s UK but hear me out) we can see this happening currently where it’s getting good press about recent trial performance. Yet it probably needs a bit more funding and definitely more time before it enters production.
This could seem more likely as NGAD is a complex programme that needs steady and significant funding. And with the end result far out in the future it will make some in congress sceptical. All 6th gen’s face this issue on some level see Tempest, maybe the US are effected less.
TLDR: The statement doesn’t mean anything, nor do the videos suggest that China are near any milestone in development; the prototypes could be barebones for all we know. But the videos do gives much more info of what 6th gen could look like for China then any statement and hence are far more interesting.
it’s not that easy to steal tech through these kind of way. like ICE_Coffee said. it’s because Raytheon and Lockheed Martin contract some of the parts to Chinese factorys, which may cause information leakage, and China may analysis the information to know some of the performance and find ways to against it easily, or mix in some spy/bad parts, and clearly this is not wanted.
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Not even that, the pure confirmation that China does indeed (besides the models shown at Zhuhai every two years) have a 6th gen program is good enough for me.
I agree with that point of funding motivation. I mean US military going over budget is actually expected by congress at this point. Just look at the amount of enquiries done towards US military on their budgets in congress these last few years. I think they really have to show a bit more ‘progress’ even if it means a bit of info leaked on their potential progress for the funds.
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Please no… especially after that interesting 2025 decal showcasing the F/A-18 Hornet and the Su-30, that’s 100% a hint
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