J-20 to debut at Chinese air show amid reports of possible larger variant
Richard D Fisher Jr, Washington, DC - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
03 November 2016
China's J-20 'fifth-generation' fighter will make its public debut at Airshow China 2016 being held from 1-6 November in Zhuhai.
Built by Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC), the multirole J-20 will perform at least one fly-by during the show, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on 28 October.
"The development of the J-20 is progressing as scheduled, and it is expected to further boost the fighting capacity of the Chinese air force," said Shen Jinke, spokesperson of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), who added that the J-20 "will help the air force better fulfil the mission of safeguarding national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity".
The statement comes as an English-language version of a 2013 report emerged on Chinese online forums in early October suggesting that China may be considering building a larger variant of the J-20.
Published in the
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics , the paper was written by six authors, including Yang Wei of the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute, who is the J-20's chief designer.
Entitled 'Aircraft vulnerability modelling and computation methods based on product structure and CATIA', the paper offers illustrations of a single-seat twin-engine canard-configuration aircraft based on the J-20.
However, the illustration shows an aircraft featuring a wider fuselage with a larger internal weapons bay, more widely separated turbofans and inward-canted vertical stabilisers mounted aft mid wing.
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An illustration from an April 2013 article published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, co-authored by J-20 chief designer Yang Wei, shows a larger variant of the J-20 optimised for attack missions. (Chinese Journal of Aeronautics)
http://www.janes.com/article/65074/...-show-amid-reports-of-possible-larger-variant
