A side-by-side comparison of the USA’s F-35C naval joint strike fighter, and China’s new J-35 Naval stealth fighter.

More about the J-35:

A history of the J-35 stealth fighter, in pictures. The first image, the black-and-red 31001 Jet, was the technology demonstrator prototype shown to the PLA, initially called the FC-31 “Gyrfalcon”.

The second and third image in each picture shows the first flying prototype of the as of yet Un-revealed J-31/J-35 fighter jet.

The most recent, and lowest down image shows the completed J-31/5 350003 wing-number Stealth fighter jet for the new PLAN Fujian aircraft carrier.

The fighter jet’s name has been an interesting story in and of itself; initially sold as the FC-31, it’s name would change to J-31 to fit official Chinese naming designations within the Air Force (“J” is the Chinese equivalent of “F” in American fighter jet nomenclature; J referring to Jianjiji [歼击机] or, literally “Fighter Plane”.)

However as the jet as not officially been unveiled, many Chinese netizens took to referring to it as the J-35, as this is literally how the USA’s F-35 is translated.

  • Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    2 years ago

    Eeh, I wouldn’t judge a plane by looks alone - that’s how you get people claiming Buran is just a carbon copy of the space shuttle, or people claiming AK-47 is a copy of StG. Neither of claims are true, just in case. The internals could be vastly different.

    There’s also the possibility that both have studied the YaK-141 - Soviet VTOL jet. AFAIK yanks don’t even hide the fact a lot was copied from it.

    • lenins_ghost@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      2 years ago

      A lot of westerners tend to claim that every Chinese airplane/ship/tank/etc. is a “copy” of a western one due to racist stereotyping.

      In this case the most obvious difference is that the J-35 has 2 engines and the F-35 has only one engine lol

    • redshiftedbrazilian@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      2 years ago

      Specially stealth fighters. They all look “samey”. honestly F35 and F22 are very similar, so is the european, russian and south korean projects.

      The ones I think are the most distinct are J-20 and the Japanese one I forgot the name