Did China steal its first stealth fighter?

China has a long and established history of borrowing (or outright stealing) designs, technologies, and even entire aircraft from its competitors, and evidence suggests the nation’s premiere stealth fighter, the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon, is no exception.

The J-20 was the world’s first non-American stealth platform to enter operational service, effectively ending Uncle Sam’s 34-year monopoly on low-observability that stretched all the way back to 1983. As the J-20 entered service, many within both the United States and Russia accused the People’s Republic of China of stealing their stealth fighter designs to hurry their own jet into service.

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[theanalogkid]

There's a lot more to building a viable stealth aircraft than just looking like one.

[blahahtheelder]

A person I know well told me stuff he wasn't supposed to. He was stationed on a aircraft carrier and said that russian ships use to follow behind them, the carrier task force, just out of the leagaly designated distance. He asked why they would do that and was told for intelligence gathering. One of the things they use to do to that end was sift through jettisoned debris, ( it was the early 80s and dumping garbage overboard was still a thing), to look for anything useful. Apparently our upper brass knew this and would from time to time feed them corrupted information . Just good enough to get them excited that they found a secret tech but with fatal flaws that would take them forever to figure out thus draining resources.
I cant help but wonder if we dont still do the same thing but digitally.
"Oh geez ! You hacked us ! I guess you have our secrets now "😉

[isocuda]

It's a F-3522 Su-1.44 Flanktor that uses several different design philosophies mashed together, which just like in motorsports.... you usually can't just mix and match things together effectively.

[alihasanabdullah]

One thing I do not understand is how in military forces it's fine to bomb, shoot and destroy but it's somehow 'unethical' to copy.

[marloyt]

The J-20 is like if the F-22/F-35 and the Mig 1.44 mixed together

[gaussmanv]

One down side to stealing all of your tech is that the other side knows its weaknesses

[briancrane]

An Indian Air Force colonel said that the Russian-made radar in his MIG could see the J-20 at long range!...NOTHING special! Just because you SAY a jet is "stealth" doesn't means that it is! [I suppose it's "stealth" compared to a B-52...]

[PaulStewartAviation]

The Mig 144 looks like the least stealthy jet ever made. It’s odd that they didn’t want to integrate low radar observability into a new 5th generation fighter.

[kevinc]

You can't just jam together two completely different blue prints into one stealth fighter. US and Soviet designs from two completely separate lineages with each one designed based on the available technologies and manufacturing techniques that are available to either country. You cannot simply replicate that engineering expertise and manufacturing know-how even if you are given the complete blue prints (let alone some hypothetical and likely incomplete stolen plans).

We are talking about stealth fighter operating at Mach 2. Even a tiny change to configuration of the plane would lead to huge differences in performance characteristics. The configuration difference between the F22 and the J20 are greater than the difference you see between most 4.5 gen fighters. Think about the Boeing 737 Max. It is basically a 737 with bigger engines, yet this simple change to a tried-and-true platform eventually caused 2 planes to crash.

People also overestimate the ability of hackers to obtain information, as if they are magicians. Lockheed Martin isn't some inexperienced contractor on their first rodeo, do you really think it is possible for the blue print to be stolen when they don't want it to be. Yes a Chinese national stole some 600, 000 files relating to the program but this program probably generates tens of millions of files, do you really think Lockheed Martin would be so lax as to allow the most important files to be hacked? We are talking about the United States here, the land of NSA and PRISM.

[AlvinYap]

Japan's Shinshin, Korea's Kai KF-21, India's AMCA all uses exactly the same aerodynamics with F-22, yet you claim China's totally different canard delta wing layout as copy? WTF

[pastorrich]

Kelly Johnson? Absolutely!! Check that box. All of this tech is interesting, to say the least, but useless without being used to advantage and fielded in force. That requires funding and thanks to the state of the global economy one has to wonder just how much delay is being built into the development programs of these systems? And what of access to the components and parts to make these things go? Your reporting certainly does get me thinking and your perspectives are provoking. Keep 'em coming! (Five Stars)

I would love to see an in-depth video on Kelly Johnson, his life, career, and how he thought about engineering advanced aircraft.

[rodgercastro]

If you position the wings on the j20 forward and place the carnards as horizontal stabilizers the jet does bare a striking resemblance to the f22

[Jake-mibj]

Canards are the dumbest thing you can put on your stealth fighter. Completely negates the point of a low radar cross section

[LOLBTLOLBT]

the real issue for us is the capability of producing the fighter, you can give the whole design to india or iran or russia, it won't even matter much bc they aren't able to produce it

[MattRiddell]

The only thing I would question is why they were unable to reach engineering tolerances on the 747 (or 737 or whichever it was) and then were able to reach significantly higher requirements on these? I guess maybe if the documents explain processes more than just a teardown? I would have thought there would have had to have been assistance from somebody with a lot of experience with tooling actually being in 中国 (China) and assisting with the process.

[MardukTheSunGodInsideMe]

It's simple, I see a Sandboxx video.. I watch a Sandboxx video..

[legomacinnisinc]

The lawnmower analogy definitely made me chuckle

[monkeyking-self-proclaimed]

Oh my goodness, the Honda civic is a copy of a Ford focus. They put four wheels underneath the frame. The muffler is in the back and engine in the front. Don't get me started. Like Honda thought Ford was too stupid to realize the windshield wipers were mounted on the front of the windshield. Let's not forget the two identical side mirrors, they are mounted exactly on the same spot. Oh, they even copy the front and rear bumpers.

[msamov]

Yes! do a special on Kelly Johnson. In fact, make it a multi-part for each aircraft he directly had a hand in - thanks! Good stuff as always.