Stealth fighter still 'years away'
Source: Agencies |
January 6, 2011, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA is still years away from being able to field a stealth aircraft, despite the disclosure of images indicating that it appears to have a working prototype, a United States Navy official said yesterday.
Images posted on a number of websites were published on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal, which said they appeared to show a Chinese J-20 stealth fighter prototype making a high-speed taxi test.
The disclosure of the photographs comes just days before US Defense Secretary Robert Gates' visit to Beijing on Sunday.
The Journal said many experts believed the J-20 photos are authentic and a strong indicator that China is making faster-than-expected progress in developing a rival to Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor, the world's only operational stealth fighter.
But US Vice Admiral David Dorsett, director of naval intelligence, said deployment of the J-20 was years away.
Dorsett told reporters that the photos left a lot of questions unanswered.
"It's still not clear to me when it's going to become operational," he said. "Developing a stealth capability with a prototype and then integrating that into a combat environment is going to take some time."
A US intelligence official estimated in May that the J-20 could rival the F-22 Raptor within eight years.
The Raptor is the premier US fighter, with cutting-edge "fifth-generation" features, including shapes, materials and propulsion systems designed to make it appear as small as a swallow on radar.
"We're anticipating China to have a fifth-generation fighter ... operational right around 2018," Wayne Ulman of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center said in May.
Ulman said there were a lot of unknowns about China's next-generation fighter, which would be a follow-up to nearly 500 fourth-generation fighters considered on a technical parity with older US fighters.
"It's yet to be seen exactly how (the fifth-generation) will compare one-on-one with, say, an F-22," Ulman said.
In 2009, Gates said China was not expected to have a fifth-generation aircraft by 2020.
Images posted on a number of websites were published on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal, which said they appeared to show a Chinese J-20 stealth fighter prototype making a high-speed taxi test.
The disclosure of the photographs comes just days before US Defense Secretary Robert Gates' visit to Beijing on Sunday.
The Journal said many experts believed the J-20 photos are authentic and a strong indicator that China is making faster-than-expected progress in developing a rival to Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor, the world's only operational stealth fighter.
But US Vice Admiral David Dorsett, director of naval intelligence, said deployment of the J-20 was years away.
Dorsett told reporters that the photos left a lot of questions unanswered.
"It's still not clear to me when it's going to become operational," he said. "Developing a stealth capability with a prototype and then integrating that into a combat environment is going to take some time."
A US intelligence official estimated in May that the J-20 could rival the F-22 Raptor within eight years.
The Raptor is the premier US fighter, with cutting-edge "fifth-generation" features, including shapes, materials and propulsion systems designed to make it appear as small as a swallow on radar.
"We're anticipating China to have a fifth-generation fighter ... operational right around 2018," Wayne Ulman of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center said in May.
Ulman said there were a lot of unknowns about China's next-generation fighter, which would be a follow-up to nearly 500 fourth-generation fighters considered on a technical parity with older US fighters.
"It's yet to be seen exactly how (the fifth-generation) will compare one-on-one with, say, an F-22," Ulman said.
In 2009, Gates said China was not expected to have a fifth-generation aircraft by 2020.
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