The F-35 literally falls out of the sky at random, so at this point I think strapping a couple MG42’s to the wing of an ultralight is ahead of any US fighter
The intensive flight testing of the two new fighters, and the precedent set by the J-20 program for bringing new aircraft from initial flight testing into frontline service in fractions of the time that it takes the American defence sector, indicates that China’s first sixth generation combat jets will enter service many years before the United States can operationalise a similar aircraft. Indeed, while the U.S. Navy’s F/A-XX sixth generation fighter program has been delayed considerably due to a lack of funding, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force General David Allvin recently confirmed that the service’s F-47 fighter is only expected to make its first flight in 2028, placing it four years behind the Chinese programs. Figures in the American military leadership have long warned that China has been well positioned to begin fielding sixth generation fighters before the United States, while Russia and European states are not expected to develop similarly capable aircraft for the foreseeable future. The unveiling of the new Chinese aircraft has raised considerable questions regarding the future of the F-35 fifth generation program, as the aircraft is increasingly considered at risk of becoming obsolete in the face of a Chinese sixth generation capability.
The f-35 took 30+ years and is a trillion+ over budget, only to produce a jet that wants to kill itself and everyone around it if it rains.
And it’s already being made obsolete after it has one kill - a fucking weather balloon.
Wasn’t the weather balloon shot down by an F-22 (also its first kill lmao)
I’ll never stop being mad that the pilot didn’t style on the balloon with an air-air gun kill. How sick would it be to open up with the machine gun like an old school wwii dog fight?
machine guns are old school, they will probably be ditched completely in 6th gen. It’s all about BVR (beyond visual range) missiles now. NATO can’t sell their overpriced hardware without stating that they are real world battle proven. A balloon kill is still a kill right? lol, just like the French Rafales selling point was that it is proven in real world combat. What was that real world combat? Bombing Libya and Syria, countries with very weak air forces and defence.
When the Rafale had its first and only real world aerial engagement with a peer competitor, it happened a few months ago between India and Pakistan. India’s French Rafales vs Pakistan’s Chinese J-10CE. The J-10CE scored 3 Rafale kills from over 200km away with Chinese PL-15 missiles. Funny thing is that Indian intelligence thought China had provided Pakistan with the export variant of the missile, the PL-15E, which has a shorter range of around 150km. China actually sent their own PL-15 version. Indian Rafale pilots thought they were in the safe zone when heading back to their airbase…
IIRC the missile was used because they weren’t sure if the balloon had self-sealing capabilities (theres no way that the skin would have activated the fuses on the 20mm shells) and they wanted it to come down quickly. I think collateral damage was a concern as well since it was over a fairly populated part of florida, could be wrong about that.
But yes, so much cooler with the gun.
Another common F-35 Lightning II L
Makes sense considering f35 more for bombing than fighting. Still seems like the 15s are better than the 35s in everything except stealth but that’s less useful as IR gets better.
Only actual cool tech on the 35 compared to othet jets is the vtol part. But even that isn’t that useful compared to how much it hinders the rest of that versions capacity/capabilities.
Can someone who knows military planes explain to me what “6th generation” and “5th generation” mean?
Its an older graphic but it lays out the first five pretty well. One should note that there is some overlap, especially between 4th and 5th gen. Sometimes people will use the term “4.5th gen” to describe highly capable modern aircraft that lack stealth or another characteristic of 5th gen. As of right now what makes a 6th gen a 6th gen is unclear, but its assumed that theyll have stealth, some degree of autonomous operation and the ability to act as a command center for drones. The latter may become their primary purpose depending on how “loyal wingman” UCAV development and implementation goes.
The duo seat J-20S (only two seater 5th gen), will probably have UCAV loyal wingman aswell. Some of those big stealthy UCAV we saw in the last parade will be loyal wingman.
Its going to be very hard to declare what 6th gen is without thorough battleground testing, as even the war in Ukraine has upended what a full scale conflict will look like and what role for an airforce the modern battlefield has at all.
They clearly just stole their designs from the US, even though this is more advanced than US stealth fighters, clearly it’s because they stole it from the US in the future, which means when the US makes a similar design it isn’t copying, it’s actually the original design that China retroactively stole!
Everytime I try to do an exaggerated parody of these guys they just do the same thing completely without irony.
Historically some other country should now completely overreact.
(I don’t think the current situation is such tho.)
