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Don't put it past the Chinese to put out something for show without actually having the functional equipment under the hood. Stealth is hard -- sensors have the

by adastra 14y ago

Don't put it past the Chinese to put out something for show without actually having the functional equipment under the hood. Stealth is hard -- sensors have the potential to leak radiation, communications can be picked up on, etc. Just because the Chinese have something flying that looks stealth doesn't mean they're any closer than we thought they were.

colmvp 14y ago
Exactly. If there are two things the Chinese aren't good at, it's science and engineering.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  There's a lot of domain knowledge in traditional engineering that is impossible replicate artificially - much more so than software. You can take the best rail engineers in the world, put them in a room, and they still won't be able to make a half-decent mid-size sedan to save their lives. It's not about if you're "good at science and engineering", it's about your country's history and track record in building bleeding-edge aircraft. China is playing catchup in a huge way, though they do get to take the fast lane thanks to ex-Soviet tech. Ace aerospace engineers come out of building airplanes, not reading a book or going to conferences.
- naturalethic 14y ago
  If its one thing the Chinese can mimmick, it's pretending there's a scarcity of fighterjetplanewhatevers.
- Volpe 14y ago
  ... Take your racism somewhere else. Or provide some empirical data that proves that your not just an ignorant racist. EDIT (in light of response): My apologies if this is indeed sarcasm. No need to take that somewhere else, instead I can take my 'complete lack of understanding sarcasm' somewhere else. :)
  - viggity 14y ago
    I think he was being sarcastic.
- viggity 14y ago
  science, yes. engineering, not as much as you'd think. Asian cultures place a HUGE HUGE HUGE emphasis on rote memorization. The kind of learning that isn't exactly conducive to creative endeavors like engineering. *edit: I'm assuming you were being sarcastic.
jcbrand 14y ago
While you might be right, this sounds like classic cognitive dissonance. Instead of accepting that China is a fast rising military/economic power, let's rather just believe that they're bluffing.
- joonix 14y ago
  It's better to lean towards bluffing than to overreact and expand our military spending unnecessarily and rapidly bankrupt ourselves.
  - greedo 14y ago
    Military intelligence is generally focused on capabilities, not intentions. Intentions don't matter if there's no capability of acting.
- adastra 14y ago
  These straw-man arguments are the reason why I don't post on Hacker News more often. Where did I say ignore China's rise as a power? I'm basically just saying: don't panic. The US lead in aerospace isn't going away any time soon, we are farther ahead of the rest of the world than most people give us credit for. We first tested the F-22 in 1990. You know when the F-22 first saw combat? It hasn't yet. For 22 years no one has anything that we would even use it against. If you want something to be concerned about, China's IP transfer requirements for companies doing business there and the cyber-attacks on our defense contractors should be more than enough to keep you busy.
Someone 14y ago
I am not an expert on stealth, but AFAIK, being "stealth" is more a marketing term than objectively measurable. Stealth is not a binary property "either stealth or not stealth", but a relative one "less easy to spot by adversaries who have binoculars, radar, IR, etc". Because of that, one can call almost any design stealthy. If this radiates, say, half of what their previous generation did, I would call it stealth, even if it is not the best in the world. Also, any fighter will produce lots of heat that it will have to radiate somewhere (eventually), so if you place your IR detector in the right spot, it will light up. That makes it a bit of an arms race. For example, radiating all heat upwards will do wonders, as long as your adversary doesn't have anything higher up looking in your direction. Once they do, you will have to find some other approach.
- greedo 14y ago
  A more appropriate term than stealth (which really applies only to radar detection) is "low observability." This includes multi-spectrum detection; IR, radar, acoustic, and visual means.
greedo 14y ago
The probability that this is just a Potemkin airplane is not very high. Developing an airframe isn't just Legos... This is a highly sophisticated design, and appears to match all the prerequisites for matching the normal criteria for "stealth." Just because you're conflating emcon and other security features doesn't diminish the likelihood that this craft is good at avoiding detection by radar.

by adastra 14y ago

colmvp 14y ago

Exactly. If there are two things the Chinese aren't good at, it's science and engineering.

potatolicious 14y ago
There's a lot of domain knowledge in traditional engineering that is impossible replicate artificially - much more so than software. You can take the best rail engineers in the world, put them in a room, and they still won't be able to make a half-decent mid-size sedan to save their lives. It's not about if you're "good at science and engineering", it's about your country's history and track record in building bleeding-edge aircraft. China is playing catchup in a huge way, though they do get to take the fast lane thanks to ex-Soviet tech. Ace aerospace engineers come out of building airplanes, not reading a book or going to conferences.
naturalethic 14y ago
If its one thing the Chinese can mimmick, it's pretending there's a scarcity of fighterjetplanewhatevers.
Volpe 14y ago
... Take your racism somewhere else. Or provide some empirical data that proves that your not just an ignorant racist. EDIT (in light of response): My apologies if this is indeed sarcasm. No need to take that somewhere else, instead I can take my 'complete lack of understanding sarcasm' somewhere else. :)
- viggity 14y ago
  I think he was being sarcastic.
viggity 14y ago
science, yes. engineering, not as much as you'd think. Asian cultures place a HUGE HUGE HUGE emphasis on rote memorization. The kind of learning that isn't exactly conducive to creative endeavors like engineering. *edit: I'm assuming you were being sarcastic.

jcbrand 14y ago

While you might be right, this sounds like classic cognitive dissonance. Instead of accepting that China is a fast rising military/economic power, let's rather just believe that they're bluffing.

joonix 14y ago
It's better to lean towards bluffing than to overreact and expand our military spending unnecessarily and rapidly bankrupt ourselves.
- greedo 14y ago
  Military intelligence is generally focused on capabilities, not intentions. Intentions don't matter if there's no capability of acting.
adastra 14y ago
These straw-man arguments are the reason why I don't post on Hacker News more often. Where did I say ignore China's rise as a power? I'm basically just saying: don't panic. The US lead in aerospace isn't going away any time soon, we are farther ahead of the rest of the world than most people give us credit for. We first tested the F-22 in 1990. You know when the F-22 first saw combat? It hasn't yet. For 22 years no one has anything that we would even use it against. If you want something to be concerned about, China's IP transfer requirements for companies doing business there and the cyber-attacks on our defense contractors should be more than enough to keep you busy.

Someone 14y ago

I am not an expert on stealth, but AFAIK, being "stealth" is more a marketing term than objectively measurable. Stealth is not a binary property "either stealth or not stealth", but a relative one "less easy to spot by adversaries who have binoculars, radar, IR, etc". Because of that, one can call almost any design stealthy. If this radiates, say, half of what their previous generation did, I would call it stealth, even if it is not the best in the world. Also, any fighter will produce lots of heat that it will have to radiate somewhere (eventually), so if you place your IR detector in the right spot, it will light up. That makes it a bit of an arms race. For example, radiating all heat upwards will do wonders, as long as your adversary doesn't have anything higher up looking in your direction. Once they do, you will have to find some other approach.

greedo 14y ago
A more appropriate term than stealth (which really applies only to radar detection) is "low observability." This includes multi-spectrum detection; IR, radar, acoustic, and visual means.

greedo 14y ago

The probability that this is just a Potemkin airplane is not very high. Developing an airframe isn't just Legos... This is a highly sophisticated design, and appears to match all the prerequisites for matching the normal criteria for "stealth." Just because you're conflating emcon and other security features doesn't diminish the likelihood that this craft is good at avoiding detection by radar.