Chengdu J-20 “Mighty Dragon” by Trumpeter

1/72 scale
Kit No. 01663
Price: $28.00
Decals: One version
Comments: Injection molded plastic with engraved panel lines; detailed cockpit and main gear wells; intake trunking and photo-etch detail parts; optional position one-piece canopy

History

Chengdu’s J-20 stealth fighter has been in development in the People’s Republic of China since 2002, and flew for the first time on January 11, 2011. Information about this aircraft is hard to obtain given the intense secrecy surrounding the project and the authoritarian nature of the Chinese government; much of what is known about it has been been gathered by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence. In 2002, Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, or AVIC) was tasked with research and development for a stealth fighter. In 2008, the Chengdu Aerospace Corporation and its Design Institute were assigned responsibility for building the new aircraft.

The first public evidence of the project was a November 2009 interview on Chinese television with the Deputy Commander of the Peoples’ Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), General He Weirong, who said that China’s first stealth fighter would undergo flight tests “soon” and that it would be operational in 8 to 10 years. He added that the design would have the four “S” capabilities: Stealth, Super-cruise, Super Maneuverability, and Short Take-off. A mock-up was completed around that time. The chief designer was Yang Wei, along with the Deputy Director of the Chengdu Design Institute, Zhang Jiago.

Flight testing began in 2011 at the Chengdu Aerospace facility at Chengdu Huangtuanba, just outside the city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province with a population (as of 2016) of 7.8 million people. Conducting flight testing of a sensitive new military aircraft in such proximity to a major population center posed significant security problems, with passersby taking photographs with cameras and smartphones, inevitably leading to the first photos of the J-20 appearing on the Internet by late 2009.

Leaks and their Propaganda Value

While the Chinese government quickly took the photos down, new images soon replaced them, and the government, long noted for its authoritarian stance, surprisingly gave up and let the photos remain. While some in the West attribute this to a new openness on the part of the Chinese military, it may be more likely that the “leaking” of the J-20 photos serves an important propaganda purpose for the government: a signal to the U.S. and Russia in particular that China has stealth technology, too. This theory is supported in part by the fact that Chengdu Police are known to turn a blind eye to all the amateur photography occurring around the J-20 flights, and the fact that the Chinese Air Force is the third largest in the world, behind only the aforementioned countries.

Influence of American and Soviet designs

By early 2012 four airframes had been built, numbered 2001, 2002, 2011 and 2012, the last serving as a static test airframe, and the plane received the unofficial nicknames Black Eagle, Black Silk, and Wei Long (in Chinese, Mighty Dragon). Intelligence analysts believe the design of the J-20 was heavily influenced by Northrop’s one-time Advanced Tactical Fighter prototype, the YF-23, as well as Russia’s Sukhoi T-50. In addition, they speculate that the aircraft has incorporated design aspects similar to that of Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor, including a sharp, diamond-shaped nose and a large, frameless single-piece canopy.

Other areas of the J-20 that may be copied from other types include another Russian aircraft, Mikoyan’s cancelled 1.44 prototype, specfically its canards and its rear section featuring four tail fins, plus the serrated edges of the weapons bay doors found on the American F-117. Since stealth was the driving force behind the design, the decision to incorporate characteristics of each of these aircraft is not surprising. Finally, the delta canard on the forward fuselage was previously a design feature of the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, and the Mikoyan 1.44. In each case, it has helped achieve high supersonic performance and good transonic turn characteristics. The J-20 has significant body lift, also assisted by the canard, generating 120% of the lift achieved with a conventional canard delta and 180% more lift than a traditional delta alone could provide.

Powerplant

The J-20 may be stealthy, but one factor that may be keeping it from reaching fully operational status in the short term is its powerplant. Engine development has lagged behind that of the airframe and Western analysts do not believe it has super-cruise capability yet (the ability to fly at supersonic speeds for extended periods without burning through fuel at an unacceptably high rate). Chengdu is known to have experimented with two different engines in the first two prototypes, an indigenous engine in aircraft 2001 (thought to be the Shenyang Liming WS-10A Taihang) and a Russian-supplied engine in number 2002 — intelligence reports suggest either the NPO Saturn 117S series engine, used on the Sukhoi Su-35, or its predecessor, the AL-31FN — a variant that does not generate enough power for super-cruise.

Analysts conclude that the J-20 will not achieve super-cruise until the planned Xian WS-15 turbofan enters service. This engine, designed by the Shenyang Aeroengine Research Institute, is thought to be comparable to the F-22 Raptor’s Pratt & Whitney F119, which can generate over 35.000 foot pounds of thrust on afterburner. Meanwhile, China continues to negotiate with Russia for purchase of the Su-35 for its Type 117S engines, which the Chinese hope to reverse engineer for the J-20.

The J-20 has a large central internal weapons bay accommodating PL-12C and PL-15 long range anti-aircraft missiles, with smaller side bays in the intake ducts (similar to the F-22 Raptor’s) housing short-range PL-10 infra-red missiles. Unlike the F-22, the J-20 can open its weapons bays, extend its missiles, and close the bays while the missiles remain extended in preparation for firing. This is because its missiles are reportedly stealthy and do little to change the J-20’s radar signature.

Espionage in Cyberspace

While the Chinese aerospace industry has its fair share of brains, American intelligence agencies are convinced that China’s J-20 was manufactured years ahead of schedule as a result of persistent cyber-attacks by Chinese hackers against American aerospace companies, including Lockheed Martin, seeking data on the F-22 and F-35 fighters, some of which has been compromised. Lockheed subcontractors reported and claimed to be fighting persistent probes geared toward extracting data, “from specific systems designs to mathematical models employed by stealth materials contractors involved in RAM (radar absorbent material) technology.”

A State Department investigation revealed that all the cyber attacks came from one country, but no government agency will publicly say which one. However, similar cyber attacks are known to have assisted Chinese development of the earlier JC-31 fighter.  The J-20 is expected to become fully operational during 2018-2019. The WS-15 engine, when it arrives, may well be a game changer and place a potent new weapon in China’s hands.

The Kit

Trumpeter’s J-20 Mighty Dragon is injection molded in black and white plastic and consists of 106 parts on five sprues, including a single clear plastic part for the canopy. In addition, there is a small photo-etch fret containing 10 additional detail parts for the seat straps in the cockpit, pitot tube,and external nose sensors. The ejection seat is highly detailed, consisting of four intricately molded plastic and four photo-etch parts. The cockpit tub bears extensive raised detail on the side instrument panels, and the main instrument panel, like the ejection seat, is intricated molded with LED screens and several other details. A separate instrument panel hood is also provided.

The J-20 from a distance; likely taken with a cell phone camera.

The two largest parts by far are the top and bottom halves of the fuselage, which include the wings. They bear crisp engraved details, but the bottom half is not as large as there is a separate assembly for the forward landing gear, which is partly formed by two parts forming the bottom half of the J-20’s nose. The forward wheel well assembly, which is cemented into the bottom half of the nose, consists of five detailed parts showing hoses, internal ribbing, and other features of the J-20’s innards. The nose gear itself is well detailed. As for the main landing gear, the wheels are not particularly detailed, having no tread on them, but the gear and particularly the wheel well interiors, are highly detailed. The saw-tooth landing gear doors also feature exceptional internal detail.

There are four fairly large parts forming the internal intake trunking, which are cemented to the main landing gear assembly, which is turn is cemented into the bottom half of the fuselage. The completed cockpit is cemented into the bottom half of the nose, immediately forward of the nose gear assembly, and the bottom half of the nose is cemented to the upper fuselage, separately from the lower fuselage. The kit’s engineering will demand that modelers have at least some experience with joining and hiding seams — and liquid cement may be a great help at this stage.

An interesting and obvious omission in this kit is the lack of any effort to include a weapons bay or any air-to-air missiles. The weapons bay doors are molded closed and the kit has no weaponry of any kind. Even the F-22 Raptor has a single 20mm cannon, and I combed the J-20’s airframe, searching for evidence of an aperture that could be a gun port, without success.

The kit features nicely detailed exhaust fans. Properly painted and weathered, they are sure to add to the kit’s realism. Given the high level of detail in the cockpit, it is good to see there is an option to have the canopy open or closed, providing modelers an opportunity to show off one of the kit’s strong points. As this is an early prototype — the first — the pitot tube attached to the nose at a point slightly above its tip and to the right of center — it was moved to the very tip of the nose in later versions.

The instructions are quite clear and well illustrated, referencing Gunze Sangyo paint numbers only.

Markings

Included with the instructions is a separate color plate, with a legend for Gunze paints in the upper right hand corner, providing four-view illustrations of the J-20 to assist with placment of the markings. Decals are provided in their own separate clear plastic bag for the first protoype, Number 2001, and consist of national markings, the aircraft number, and a few assorted stencils. There are also decals for the instrument panels, but with such exquisite raised detail on all three panels, it would be a crime not to at least try your hand at drybrushing. In my experience, decals have rarely looked as good as patiently applied paint.

Conclusion

This is an excellent kit of China’s stealth fighter in its level of detail. However, it would be greatly improved by the inclusion of open weapons bays with a full complement of air-to-air missiles, but it is possible that the Chinese government would not sanction such details. On that note, the accuracy of the kit is impossible to determine given the secrecy surrounding this aircraft and the fact that China does not quite have what could be called a free press.  Highly recommended nevertheless.

References

• Stealth Operations Declassified, published by Air Forces Monthly, Copyright 2016 Key Publishing Ltd., London.
• Fifth Generation Fighters by David Baker, Copyright 2018 by Mortons Media Group Ltd., Lincolnshire.