How China's J-20 stacks up to USA's F-22 fighter jet

Insider

The US claims China stole American tech to make a copycat of the F-22 Raptor, known as the J-20 Mighty Dragon. We compare the stealth, accuracy, and radar technology of the two fighter jets.

Transcript

00:00 (jet engine roaring)

00:02 The US and China have the two most advanced

00:05 stealth fighter jets in the world,

00:07 the F-22 Raptor and the J-20 Mighty Dragon.

00:11 But which one is better in combat?

00:13 We're going to break down the balance of power.

00:16 Hi, I'm Sam Fellman.

00:17 I'm a defense editor and business insider,

00:19 and I'm a US Navy veteran.

00:21 To think about why we're comparing these jets,

00:22 we need to step back to the Ukraine War.

00:25 The Ukraine War is showing us

00:26 the power of air defense systems.

00:29 Any aircraft that can be radar detected

00:32 within a missile range can be shot down.

00:35 That's large drones, fighters of all kinds.

00:38 Ukraine has lost Su-27 air superiority fighters.

00:42 Russia has lost Su-34 fighter bombers,

00:46 just as two examples.

00:48 So fairly sophisticated jets

00:50 are being shot down by air defenses.

00:53 An air superiority fighter's role

00:55 is to knock out air defenses and enemy fighters

00:58 before they can be spotted.

01:00 So a fifth generation fighter is the answer

01:03 to this problem of pervasive

01:05 and dangerous air defense systems.

01:07 It's designed to fly fast and to go undetected,

01:11 or to be minimally detected

01:13 and to be able to achieve its missions

01:16 of perhaps destroying enemy fighters

01:18 and destroying enemy air defenses

01:21 before it can be detected and engaged.

01:24 The F-22 is the most advanced

01:26 air-to-air fighter ever built.

01:28 We don't really know that much about the J-20.

01:31 It's an enigmatic aircraft.

01:33 We only know a little bit from Chinese sources

01:36 and then from what are essentially guesstimates.

01:38 And so the ranges and much else

01:41 are really best understood as round figures.

01:44 The J-20 is China's answer to the F-22 Raptor.

01:49 US officials have accused China

01:52 of stealing defense technology writ large,

01:55 and they've specifically accused China

01:57 of stealing technology to build the J-20,

02:00 their first stealth fighter.

02:02 It costs north of $100 million.

02:05 Estimates range, there's no credible single figure.

02:09 The J-20 entered service in 2017,

02:13 and China is estimated to have over 200 operational.

02:17 Stealth is the ability to avoid detection.

02:23 It requires precision engineering of the highest order

02:26 on every aspect of the plane.

02:28 Its door access panels, its undercarriage of the fuselage

02:33 and the flat panels on its wings,

02:36 the helmet on the pilot's head.

02:39 Everything that the plane is designed to have

02:42 is few aspects that protrude

02:46 from the stealth exterior as possible

02:48 to minimize the return of radio waves.

02:51 Comparing the stealth of aircraft is really a guessing game,

02:55 but stealth is the most critical factor

02:58 that defines the fifth generation aircraft.

03:00 A fast fifth generation aircraft can be detected,

03:04 can be shot down, just like a fourth generation aircraft.

03:07 And so the advance, the potential inherent

03:11 in the fifth generation aircraft

03:13 is that perhaps it won't be spotted.

03:17 We can certainly ascertain that the J-20

03:19 has stealth features and some similarities with the F-22.

03:24 The F-22 also has a delta wing shape,

03:27 and they both have angled vertical stabilizers.

03:31 The angled vertical stabilizers are one element

03:34 of the plane's design to minimizing its radar signature.

03:38 One of the big differences between the F-22 and the J-20

03:41 is the J-20 has these little wings called canards.

03:45 They're just behind the cockpit and provide more lift.

03:48 (dramatic music)

03:51 Stealth is primarily measured in observable technologies.

03:57 For an aircraft, that means infrared

03:59 as well as radar returns.

04:02 This comes down to either radar absorbing

04:05 or radar transparent materials, think like plastic,

04:08 that are on the aircraft that limit the bounce back

04:12 of radio waves to a receiver.

04:15 It is that that creates the radar return

04:17 an air defense crew is using to scan the skies

04:20 and look for enemy aircraft.

04:23 And so a fifth gen fighter is a fighter designed

04:26 to have a very tiny, easily mistook radar signature,

04:30 much smaller than an aircraft like the F-22

04:33 that's 62 feet long and has a wingspan of 44 feet.

04:37 By some accounts, it may have the radar return

04:39 the size of a marble.

04:40 Infrared sensors could detect a fifth generation fighter,

04:45 but most surface to air missile systems need a radar return

04:48 to lock on to the target.

04:51 The F-22 designed by Lockheed Martin

04:54 is believed to have a very small radar cross section or RCS.

04:59 Another possibility is to have something

05:02 that almost like deadens the radio energy.

05:05 Or if it does send back a wave, it puts the waves together

05:08 so that they're coming from one common angle

05:11 versus having lots of different angles.

05:13 That's one reason that a stealth fighter tends to have

05:16 angles that are all the same across the airplane,

05:19 across different features of the airplane.

05:21 It's to try to minimize the amount of surfaces

05:24 that are returning to sort of specific angles

05:27 to make sure that there's this radar absorbing fill

05:31 in any access panel, and that there's also coatings

05:34 on the aircraft more generally

05:36 to try to minimize its signature.

05:38 If even three small screws were to be protruding

05:41 from anywhere in the aircraft,

05:43 those could create a larger radar return

05:46 than the entire rest of the aircraft

05:48 that's been coated and treated

05:50 with the radar absorbing materials.

05:53 Beyond the ability to evade radar detection,

05:59 the most important features are weapons range and accuracy.

06:02 The F-22 has better maneuverability than the J-20.

06:05 The F-22 has superior engines.

06:07 From what we've seen of the few public appearances

06:10 of the J-20, it's fairly unimpressive maneuvers

06:14 compared to other air superiority fighters.

06:17 Maneuverability is not super important

06:20 for modern air-to-air fighters.

06:22 Most air-to-air battles are happening beyond visual range.

06:27 Today's pilots don't need to point at the specific target

06:31 in order to launch a missile,

06:33 and those missiles have long ranges,

06:35 often beyond the pilot's visual range.

06:38 That's meant that the weapons accuracy

06:41 and the weapons range,

06:42 as well as the ability to avoid detection,

06:45 are the critical qualities

06:47 for a modern air superiority fighter.

06:50 The J-20 is a slightly larger aircraft.

06:56 When it comes to payload,

06:58 the J-20 appears to have more internal carrying capacity.

07:02 The J-20 is able to carry the PL-15 air-to-air missile.

07:06 It's a beyond visual range missile

07:08 that can reach targets up to 190 miles away,

07:11 and it has an active radar seeker.

07:14 The F-22 carries two types of missiles.

07:17 One is the AMRAAM.

07:19 That's the Advanced Medium-Range Air Missile.

07:22 This is a mainstay US fighter weapon.

07:26 It's been proven in combat for three decades.

07:28 The AMRAAM costs about $1 million each,

07:31 and it can reach targets about 100 miles away.

07:34 The AIM-9 is another important US air defense weapon.

07:39 It's a shorter-range missile,

07:42 the heat-seeking warhead,

07:44 and it costs about $400,000 each.

07:48 Missiles are the leading threat to aircraft.

07:50 Missiles and radars can detect most enemy aircraft,

07:54 and a fifth-gen aircraft designates

07:57 a type of very state-of-the-art fighter

08:01 that's designed to defeat and fool those systems.

08:04 US fighter engine technology

08:11 has been one of China's top espionage priorities.

08:14 The F-22's engines have been in use for decades

08:18 and are vastly more reliable

08:20 than anything China currently has.

08:23 The Pratt & Whitney engines allow the F-22

08:27 to fly supersonic.

08:30 Why is supercruise important?

08:32 Supercruise is the ability to fly at a supersonic speed

08:36 without using an afterburner.

08:37 An afterburner has two problems.

08:39 One is that it guzzles fuel,

08:42 meaning that it is rapidly depleting

08:45 the amount of fuel that the aircraft carries,

08:48 and that means that a pilot can't fly an afterburner

08:51 for very long.

08:52 Typically, it's just used in short bursts,

08:55 not as a cruise speed.

08:57 The secondary problem is an afterburner

08:59 creates more of an observable tail.

09:02 That tail is detectable both via radar and via infrared

09:07 because of the heat energy it's putting off.

09:10 So a stealth aircraft that has supercruise

09:12 has major fuel and stealth advantages

09:16 over one that does not.

09:18 It appears that the J-20 has a larger

09:21 internal fuel capacity,

09:22 up to 26,000 pounds stored internally.

09:26 Fuel is important,

09:27 but the engines are pretty different from each other.

09:31 China doesn't have reliable engines yet

09:34 that allow the J-20 to supercruise.

09:37 Building jet engines requires

09:39 very advanced design and materials,

09:43 and China has struggled to build engines

09:46 on the really high end that are needed

09:48 for an air superiority fighter,

09:50 both for maneuvering and for supercruise.

09:56 The J-20 is no match for the F-22.

09:59 The US Air Force says the F-22 cannot be matched

10:03 by any known or projected aircraft,

10:06 and there's good reason to believe that's not a boast.

10:09 The F-22 has superior engines that can supercruise,

10:12 therefore moving at a fast speed

10:14 with less ability to be detected,

10:16 and US stealth technology

10:18 is a proven and operational technology.

10:20 The Chinese have advanced air defenses

10:23 and a fifth generation fighter in the J-20,

10:27 but if a F-22 cannot be detected

10:30 before it carries out its missions,

10:32 then those defenses are defanged.

10:35 The J-20 may be an effective air-to-air fighter

10:39 against the US's fourth generation fighters,

10:42 like the F-15 and the F-16.

10:45 The J-20 may not need to match the F-22 to be useful.

10:49 China's goal may be maintaining air superiority

10:52 over its mainland and its surface-to-air missiles,

10:55 and the J-20 fighter giving a shot at doing that.

10:58 Thanks to stealth and superior engines,

11:01 the balance of power goes to the F-22.

11:03 (dramatic music)

11:06 (air whooshing)

11:08 (wind howling)

11:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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