According to my opinion, No a Chengdu J-20 cannot take down a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. To know why not? First of all, let us make a fair comparison between the two fighter jets.
- Chengdu J-20-
The Chengdu J-20 is a stealth, twin jet engine, fifth-generation fighter aircraft developed by China's Chengdu Aerospace Corporation for the People's Liberation Army Air Force of China. J-20 is a single seat aircraft with a length of about 20.4 m and height of 4.4 m. It has a wingspan of 13.5 m. Chengdu J-20 uses two Shenyang WS-10G engines. However, the later production models of J-20 were equipped with Saturn AL-31F-M2 or Xian WS-15. Among these engines, Xian WS-15 is more widely used. The engines generate a dry thrust of 87 or 111 kN (19,500 or 25,000 lbf) and 140 or 180 kN (32,000 or 40,000 lbf) with afterburners. The Air Craft can reach a maximum speed of 2,100 km/hr. It’s maximum take off weight is 36,288 kg.
A Xian WS-15 Engine: The one which is being used in recent production models of Chengdu J-20.
The Chengdu J-20 prototype made it’s first flight on 11th January,2011 and till date eight prototypes of J-20 have been built followed by five low-rate initial production variants. Presently, there are six J-20’s in People’s Liberation Army Air Force of China with many more under production.
A Chengdu J-20 taking-off from A Chinese Air Base
The J-20 has a long and wide fuselage, with the chiseled nose section and a frameless canopy resembling that of the F-22 Raptor. Immediately behind the cockpit are low observable intakes. All-moving canard surfaces with pronounced dihedral are placed behind the intakes, followed by leading edge extensions merging into delta wing with forward-swept trailing edges. The aft section features twin, outward canted all-moving fins, short but deep ventral strakes, and conventional round engine exhausts. One important design criterion for the J-20 describes high instability. This requires sustained pitch authority at a high angle of attack, in which a conventional tail-plane would lose effectiveness due to stalling. On the other hand, a canard can deflect opposite to the angle of attack, avoiding stall and thereby maintaining control.
A Canard Design
A canard design is also known to provide good supersonic performance, excellent supersonic and transonic turn performance, and improved short-field landing performance compared to the conventional delta wing design. Leading edge extensions and body lift are incorporated to enhance performance in a canard layout. This combination is said by the designer to generate 1.2 times the lift of an ordinary canard delta, and 1.8 times more lift than an equivalent sized pure delta configuration. The designer claims such a combination allows the use of a smaller wing, reducing supersonic drag without compromising transonic lift-to-drag characteristics that are crucial to the aircraft's turn performance.
A Delta Design
The aircraft features a glass cockpit, with two main large color liquid crystal displays (LCD) situated side-by-side, three smaller auxiliary displays, and a wide-angle holographic head-up display (HUD). A PLAAF Tupolev Tu-204 testbed aircraft featured a J-20 nose cone. It is believed to house the Type 1475 (KLJ-5) active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar with 1856 transmit/receive modules.
The Cockpit of J-20
Prototype "2011" featured a revised nose section with elements resembling a Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System（EODAS）/EOTS system, and a metal finish that loosely resembles the radar absorbing Haze Paint first used on F-16s, and reportedly included sensor fusion technology. A Chinese company A-Star Science and Technology has developed the EOTS-86 electro-optical targeting system and Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System for the J-20 and potentially other PLAAF fighters to detect and intercept stealth aircraft.
Chengdu J-20 has ETOS at it’s nose
The main weapon bay is capable of housing both short and long-range air-to-air missiles (AAM) (PL-9, PL-12C/D & PL15 - PL-21). Two smaller lateral weapon bays behind the air inlets are intended for short-range AAMs (PL-9). These bays allow closure of the bay doors prior to firing the missile, thus enhancing stealth of the air craft.
A J-20 Aircraft with it’s armament bay open
Analysts noted that the J-20's nose and canopy use a similar stealth shaping design as the F-22, yielding similar signature performance in a mature design at the front, while the aircraft's side and axi-symmetric engine nozzles may expose the aircraft to radar. One prototype has been powered by WS-10G engines equipped with different jagged-edge nozzles and tiles for greater stealth.
Some aviation experts have raised doubts about the use of canards on a low-observable design, stating that canards would guarantee radar detection and a compromise of stealth. However, canards and low-observability are not mutually exclusive designs. Northrop Grumman's proposal for the U.S. Navy's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) incorporated canards on a stealthy airframe. Lockheed Martin employed canards on a stealth airframe for the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program during early development before dropping them due to complications with aircraft carrier recovery. McDonnell Douglas and NASA's X-36 featured canards and was considered to be extremely stealthy. Radar cross-section can be further reduced by controlling canard deflection through flight control software, as is done on the Eurofighter.
A Chengdu J-20 flying through the clouds
The diverterless supersonic inlet (DSI) enables an aircraft to reach Mach 2.0 with a simpler intake than traditionally required, and improves stealth performance by eliminating radar reflections between the diverter and the aircraft's skin. Analysts have noted that the J-20 DSI reduces the need for application of radar absorbent materials. Additionally, the "bump" surface reduces the engine's exposure to radar, significantly reducing a strong source of radar reflection.
An image summarising the features of Chengdu J-20
- Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor-
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has ground attack, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence capabilities.
The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, built most of the F-22's airframe and weapons systems and did its final assembly, while Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.
A Diagram showing which company manufactured which part of F-22 Raptor. Lockheed Martin was the main contractor
The Lockheed Martin F-22 has a length of 18.92 m and height of 5.08 m. It’s wingspan is of 13.56 m. The Air Craft runs on Two Pratt and Whitney F119-PW-100 Turbofan engines which generate a dry thrust of 116 kN (26,000 lb) each and 156 kN (35,000 lb) with using afterburners. It has a maximum speed of 2,410 km/hr. This Air Craft has a maximum take-off weight of 38,000 kg.
Pratt and Whitney F119-PW-100 Turbofan engine fitted with an After Burner
F-22 is highly maneuverable at both supersonic and subsonic speeds. Computerized flight control system and full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) make the aircraft highly departure resistant and controllable. The Raptor's relaxed stability and powerful thrust-vectoring engines enable the aircraft to turn tightly and perform very high alpha (angle of attack) maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (J-turn) and Pugachev's Cobra. The aircraft is also capable of maintaining over 60° alpha while having some roll control.
The F-22 has a glass cockpit with all-digital flight instruments. The monochrome head-up display offers a wide field of view and serves as a primary flight instrument; information is also displayed upon six color liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels. The primary flight controls are a force-sensitive side-stick controller and a pair of throttles. The USAF initially wanted to implement direct voice input (DVI) controls, but this was judged to be too technically risky and was abandoned. The canopy's dimensions are approximately 140 inches long, 45 inches wide, and 27 inches tall (355 cm x 115 cm x 69 cm) and weighs 360 pounds.
A F-22 Cockpit
Raptor has three internal weapons bays: a large bay on the bottom of the fuselage, and two smaller bays on the sides of the fuselage, aft of the engine intakes. The main bay can accommodate six LAU-142/A launchers for beyond-visual-range missiles and each side bay has an LAU-141/A launcher for short-range missiles.Four of the launchers in the main bay can be replaced with two bomb racks that can each carry one 1,000 lb (450 kg) or four 250 lb (110 kg) bombs. Carrying armaments internally maintains the aircraft's stealth and minimizes additional drag. Missile launches require the bay doors to be open for less than a second, during which hydraulic arms push missiles clear of the aircraft; this is to reduce vulnerability to detection and to deploy missiles during high speed flight.
AIM-120 AMRAAM (right) fitted in the main weapons bay of an F-22
The F-22 can also carry air-to-surface weapons such as bombs with Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance and the Small-Diameter Bomb, but cannot self-designate for laser-guided weapons.Internal air-to-surface ordnance is limited to 2,000 lb (910 kg).An internally mounted M61A2 Vulcan 20 mm rotary cannon is embedded in the right wing root with the muzzle covered by a retractable door to maintain stealth.The radar projection of the cannon fire's path is displayed on the pilot's head-up display.
F-22 with external weapons pylons
The F-22's high cruise speed and altitude increase the effective ranges of its munitions, with the aircraft having 50% greater employment range for the AIM-120 AMRAAM than prior platforms.While specifics are classified, it is expected that JDAMs employed by F-22s will have twice or more the effective range of legacytesting, an F-22 dropped a GBU-32 JDAM from 50,000 feet (15,000 m) while cruising at Mach 1.5, striking a moving target 24 miles (39 km) away.
A Lockheed Martin F-22 Bombarding
The F-22 was designed to be highly difficult to detect and track by radar. Measures to reduce radar cross-section include airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets that prevent line-of-sight of the engine faces from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return. The F-22 was also designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye. The aircraft's flat thrust-vectoring nozzle reduces infrared emissions to mitigate the threat of infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Additional measures to reduce the infrared signature include special paint and active cooling of leading edges to manage the heat buildup from supersonic flight.
The Lockheed Martin F-22’s of The United Stated Air Force
Inference- Thus, one can infer that The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is better than A Chengdu J-20. This is because of the following reasons-
- The J-20 is not designed as a dog fighting fighter jet and is not a true stealth jet due to limited stealth capabilities.
- The Avionic system in the cockpit of F-22 are more informative than J-20. Therefore, the pilot can have a better understanding of the exact location of the enemy jet.
- The F-22 comes with an integrated system which enables the Raptor to fire a missile so quickly as soon as it senses an enemy aircraft that the pilot in the other jet (J-20) wouldn’t even sense that a missile has been fired towards him.
- F-22 has more speed than J-20 and it has more take-off weight than that of J-20. This enables the pilot to carry more armament.
- The F-22 is ‘Tried and Tested’ whereas The J-20 is still under developmental process. Whether, J-20 project is completely successful or not, only the time will tell.
- Another significant aspect is that The F-22 Raptor can fly at a maximum altitude of 60,000 ft whereas J-20 is still not flyable at such a high altitude.
- Till date only five low rate initial production fighters of Chengdu J-20 have been produced and they are not competent enough to go head to head with a F-22. However, Chengdu J-20 is still under development so, whether it becomes competent to give a tough competition to Lockhedd Martin F-22 or not, only the time will tell.
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