Recently, a picture released on CCTV has caused heated discussions: in the picture, there is an J-20 that controls three flying wing stealth drones to form a flight wing to fight. This means that everyone's previous guesses about the functions of the two-seater version of the J-20 are not wrong, it is specially built for unmanned wingmen. As early as the New Year, there was news that the J-20 still had a two-seater version, but there was no actual evidence. This year, we saw multiple two-seater version J-20 prototypes appear and tested. The latest two-seater version J-20 has been replaced with a new coating, no longer the yellow skin in the factory state in the past. This means that this two-seater version of the fighter has passed the technical verification. Only some related tests are required to enter the final mass production and service stage.
As the only fifth-generation machine in the world with a two-seat version, the driver in its front cockpit is responsible for controlling the fighter, while the driver in its rear cockpit is responsible for controlling the drone, realizing the "Unmanned Wingman" function that is still in the theoretical stage. Many countries regard this function as one of the main functions of the next sixth generation aircraft, but now our country has realized it in the J-20, which is a fifth generation aircraft.
has had a lot of reports on the introduction of J-20, so there is no need to say more; however, there are few reports on the drone-related aspects exposed in this video. From the picture, one J-20 controls three drones to form a flight wing to fight, and these three drones are also very unique in appearance, just like the B2 and B21 bombers of the United States. Therefore, it can be confirmed that this drone has strong strike capabilities, and since there are not many designs in the world for this flying wing layout, aircraft that adopt this layout have strong stealth capabilities, so it is also certain that this drone is also a stealth drone.
In fact, the cooperation between this drone and the J-20 was previewed at last year's Zhuhai Air Show. At that time, the head of the Chinese Air Force said that my country had entered the threshold of the strategic air force. In addition, the Zhuhai Air Show was about to begin, many people thought that the legendary H-20 was finally here. When the Zhuhai Air Show began, everyone came to the exhibition area of the 20 family, they found that the H-20 had not appeared, and a drone called Attack-11 was included in the 20 family, which seemed to be incompatible with the fighter planes next to it. Now this drone appears in CCTV's picture, which finally explains why it entered the 20 family in the first place.
Since this stealth drone adopts a flying wing layout, although it is only 12.2 meters long, its wingspan reaches 14.4 meters. Unlike the conventional bomber bomber , it should have a stealth bomb cabin set up on both sides of the large flying wing. On one side, it can carry small satellite-guided bombs, and on the other side, it can carry large satellite-guided gliding bombs . However, because the drone itself is smaller in size, and the engine it uses is not a high-power engine, its size is less than half of that of B2. At the same time, due to its size, the number of missiles it can carry has also been greatly reduced. However, this problem will no longer exist after the two-seater version of the J-20. A two-seater version of the J-20 can operate three such drones, and in the future, it can even operate five or six aircraft, which can completely make up for the shortcomings in ammunition capacity by using the number.
However, this combination also has some problems that need to be solved. Although the stealth of the drone using this flying wing layout has greatly increased, its speed has been weakened. At present, the maximum can only reach the subsonic speed , which is close to the speed of the sound. If the J-20 engages in aerial combat, it will be difficult for the attack 11 to keep up with its pace with the J-20 supersonic speed. For this, it may be necessary to wait until my country's engine technology makes another breakthrough in the future and make certain progress in materials science so that stealth drones with flying wings can also perform supersonic flights .
Of course, no one can tell what weapon the attack 11 carries. In addition to carrying satellite-guided bombs to fill the shortcomings of the J-20's lack of ground strike capabilities, it can also carry the Pili-15 air-to-air missile to enhance the J-20's air combat capability. When the AESA radar on the J-20 discovers enemy fighters, the pilot sitting behind can transmit the data of enemy fighters to these drones through the artificial intelligence system. Then these drones can launch the air-to-air missile it carries to launch a strike against the enemy, ensuring that the J-20 does not expose its position while also eliminating enemy fighters.
But some people believe that the J-20 may not be equipped with drones like Attack 11 to fight in the future, because Attack 11 looks like a stealth unmanned bomber, and these drones can also be controlled on the H-6K bomber ; in the future, the J-20 may be controlled by drones like Dark Sword for combat, because the Dark Sword drone from the outside is more suitable for coordinated combat as the J-20 drone.
