China Flies New Stealth Fighter as Problems Plague U.S. Jets
The second copy of China’s stealth fighter prototype has just flown at a research facility
in the city of Chengdu. The first flight of the J-20 Mighty Dragon with
the nose number 2002 doubles Beijing’s stealth test fleet at a time
when America’s latest jet fighters are hobbled by cost overruns, labor
disputes and lethal design flaws. But it’s far from certain how much,
and how fast, the new Chinese jet will alter the military balance.
The challenges for American stealth developers are clear. It has come
to light that Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor — the first of the current
generation of stealth fighters — is steadily poisoning its pilots owing to a faulty oxygen system. Meanwhile, the F-35 has been delayed by several years
and the overall cost to design and build thousands of the new jets has
risen by hundreds of billions of dollars. To make matters worse, workers at Lockheed’s F-35 factory have gone on strike, with no end in sight.
At first glance, China appears to be making huge progress where the
U.S. falters. The twin-engine Mighty Dragon 2002, painted black like its
predecessor, made its first appearance in April in photos snapped by Chinese bloggers (who may or may not be on Beijing’s payroll).
The second J-20 spent a month or so performing ground tests before
launching on its inaugural test sortie sometime in the past few days. If the initial flight of the first Mighty Dragon
(nose number 2001) in December 2010 is any indication, 2002′s debut
mission amounted to little more than a lap around the Chengdu airfield
to test the aircraft’s basic functions and show off for the
aforementioned bloggers.
With two airframes to work with, the Chengdu engineers can now double
the roughly five-flights-a-month development program apparently aimed
at producing a front-line stealth warplane. Before the first Mighty
Dragon ever flew, General He Weirong of the Chinese People’s Liberation
Army Air Force said the J-20 would enter service between 2017 and 2019.
Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates countered, saying it would
be 2020 or later before China possessed a combat-ready stealth fighter.
It’s unclear who’s right — or even what definition of front-line service
either man was using.
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