The US and China have the two most advanced stealth
fighter jets in the world,
the F22 Raptor and the J20 Mighty Dragon.
But which one is better in combat?
We're going to break down the balance of power.
Hi, I'm Sam Feldman. I'm a defence editor and Business
Insider.
And I'm AUS Navy veteran.
To think about why we're comparing these jets,
we need to step back to the Ukraine war.
The Ukraine war is showing us the power of air
defence systems.
Any aircraft that can be radar detected within a missile
range can be shot down.
That's large drones, fighters of all kinds.
Ukraine has lost SU-27 air superiority fighters.
Russia has lost
SU-34 fighter bombers, just as two examples.
So fairly sophisticated jets are being shot down by air
defenses.
An air superiority fighter's role is to knockout air defenses
and enemy fighters before they can be spotted.
So a fifth generation fighter is the answer to this
problem of pervasive and dangerous air defense systems.
It's designed to fly fast and to go undetected or
to be minimally detected and and to be able to
achieve its missions
of perhaps destroying enemy fighters and destroying enemy air defenses
before it can be detected and engaged.
The F22 is the most advanced air to air fighter
ever built.
We don't really know that much about the J20.
It's an enigmatic aircraft. We only know a little bit
from Chinese sources and then from what are essentially guesstimates
and so the ranges and much else are really best
understood as round figures.
The J20 is China's answer to
the F22 Raptor U.S. Officials have accused
China of stealing defense technology writ large,
and they've specifically accused China of stealing technology to build
the J20,
their first stealth fighter. It costs north of $100 million.
Estimates range there's no credible single figure.
The J20 entered service in 2017 and China is estimated
to have over 200.
Operational
Stealth is the ability to avoid detection.
It requires precision engineering of the highest order on every
aspect of the plane.
It's door access panels, it's undercarriage of the fuselage and
the flat panels on its wings,
the helmet on the pilot's head.
Everything the the plane is designed to have
is few aspects that protrude from the stealth exteriors possible
to minimize the return of radio waves.
Comparing the stealth of the aircraft is really a guessing
game,
but stealth is the most critical factor that defines the
5th generation aircraft.
A fast 5th generation aircraft can be detected,
can be shot down just like a fourth generation aircraft
and so the advance.
The potential inherent in the 5th generation aircraft is that
perhaps it won't be spotted.
We can certainly ascertain that the J20 has stealth features
and some similarities with the
F22. The F22 also has
delta wing shape and they both have angled vertical stabilizers.
The angled vertical stabilizers are one element of the
plane's designed to minimizing its radar signature.
One of the big differences between the F22 and the
J20 is the J20 has these little wings called canards.
They're just behind the cockpit and provide more lift.
Stealth is primarily measured in
observable technologies. For an aircraft that means infrared as well
as radar returns.
This comes down to either radar absorbing or radar transparent
materials,
think like plastic that are on the aircraft that limit
the bounce back of radio waves.
To a receiver it is that that creates the radar
return an
air defense crew is using to scan the skies and
look for enemy aircraft.
And so 1/5 Gen. fighter is a fighter designed to
have a very tiny,
easily mistook radar signature, much smaller than an aircraft like
the F
the F22. That's 62 feet long and has a wingspan
of 44 feet.
By some accounts it may have the radar return the
size of a marble.
Infrared sensors could detect a
a fifth generation fighter, but most surface to air missile
systems need a radar return to lock on to the
target.
The
F22 designed by Lockheed Martin is believed to have a
very small radar cross section or RCS.
Another possibility is to have something that almost like deadens
the radio energy,
or if it does send back a wave,
it puts the waves together so they're coming from one
common angle
versus having lots of different angles.
That's one reason that a stealth fighter tends to have
angles that are all the same across the airplane,
across different features of the airplane,
is to try to minimize the amount of surfaces that
are returning
to to sort of specific angles,
to make sure that there's this radar absorbing fill in
any access panel,
and that there's also coatings on the aircraft more generally
to try to minimize its its signature.
If even three small screws were to be protruding from
anywhere in the aircraft,
those could create a larger radar return than the entire
rest of the aircraft that's been coated and treated with
the radar absorbing materials.
Beyond the ability to evade radar detection,
the most important features are weapons range and accuracy.
The F22 has better maneuverability than the G20.
The F22 has superior engines.
From what we've seen of the few public appearances of
the G20,
it's fairly unimpressive maneuvers compared to other air air superiority
fighters.
Maneuverability is not super important for modern air to air
fighters.
Most air to air battles are happening beyond visual range.
Today's pilots don't need to point at
the specific target in order to launch a missile,
and those missiles have long ranges,
often beyond the pilot's visual range.
That's meant that the weapons accuracy and the weapons range,
as well as the ability to avoid detection are the
critical qualities for a modern air superiority fighter.
The G20 is a slightly larger aircraft
when it comes to payload.
The J20 appears to have more internal carrying capacity.
The J20 is able to carry the
PL-15 Air Air Missile. It's a beyond visual range missile
that can reach targets up to
190 miles away and it has an active radar seeker.
The F22 carries two types of missiles.
One is the Amram, That's the Advanced Medium Range Air
Missile.
This is a mainstay US
fighter weapon. It's been proven in combat for three decades.
The Amram costs about $1 million
each, and it can reach targets about 100 miles away.
The Aim 9 is another important
US air defense weapon. It's a shorter range missile,
the heat seeking warhead, and it costs about
$400,000 each. Missiles are the leading threat to aircraft.
Missiles and radars can detect most enemy aircraft in 1/5
Gen.
Aircraft designates a type of very
state-of-the-art fighter that's designed to defeat
and fool those systems.
US fighter engine technology has been one of China's top
espionage priorities.
The F22's engines have been in use for decades and
are vastly more reliable than anything
China currently has. The Pradwini engines
allow the F22 to fly supersonic.
Why is supercruise important? Supercruise is the ability to fly
at a supersonic speed without using an afterburner.
An afterburner has 2 problems.
One is that it guzzles fuel,
meaning that it is rapidly depleting the amount of fuel
that the aircraft carries.
And that means that a pilot can't fly an afterburner
for very long.
Typically it's just used in short bursts,
not as a cruise speed.
The secondary problem is an afterburner creates more of an
observable tail that tail is.
It's detectable both via radar and via infrared because of
the heat energy it's putting off.
So a stealth aircraft that has supercruise has
major fuel and stealth advantages over one that does not.
It appears that the J20 has a larger internal fuel
capacity up to
26,000 lbs stored internally. Fuel is important,
but the engines are pretty different from each other.
China doesn't have reliable engines yet that allow the J
20 to supercruise.
Building a jet engines requires very advanced design and materials,
and China has struggled to build engines on the really
high end that are needed for an air superiority fighter,
both for maneuvering and for supercruise.
The J20 is no match for the
F22. the US Air Force says the
F22 cannot be matched by any known or projected aircraft,
and there's good reason to believe that's not a boost.
The F22 has superior engines that can supercruise,
therefore moving at a fast speed with less ability to
be detected.
And US Steel technology is a proven and operational technology.
The Chinese have advanced air defenses and a fifth generation
fighter in the J20,
but if AF22 cannot be detected before it carries out
its missions then those defenses are defanged.
The J20 may be an effective air to air fighter
against EU s s 4th generation fighters like the F15
and the F16.
The J20 may not need to match the F22 to
be useful.
China's goal may be maintaining air superiority over its mainland
and its surface to air missiles,
and the G20 fighter give it a shot at doing
that.
Thanks to stealth and superior engines,
the balance of power goes to the
F22.